Composting

There are a lot of options out there for the would-be composter. And anyone who's trying to green up the planet a little bit will acknowledge that composting is important. But what is the best method for you? The large plastic bin to set next to your garden? A heap on the ground? Worms? Manure?

Here's what we do. We've tried the plastic bin, and it's not for us. The compost takes too long to break down, and when it's sitting out next to the garden, we forget about it, and go throw the veggie peelings to the chickens instead, so it really doesn't get used. Friends of ours, however, find it works perfectly for their small garden. They just open the trap door, scoop out the finished compost from the bottom of the bin, mix it into their soil in the spring, and leave it until next year. Sounds fine, as long as you keep adding stuff to make new compost by next spring.

We create heaps on the ground from the big stuff. Like when we muck out the stalls in the barn or change the bedding in the chicken coop, we cart it all to a big pile out of the way. Each time we do that, we create a new pile, so we have several in different stages of decomposition. This is what I'm going to use when I build my raised garden beds as some of the layers for next year's garden soil. But, we've tried this with the kitchen scraps, and what ends up happening is that a watermelon plant pops up in the middle of the heap, or it spreads too far to really end up composting properly. It gets tilled into the garden come spring time, but there really isn't a place to compost during the winter with this method.

Manure is a good additive to your garden soil, but it can't be fresh. It has to be at least 6 months old before you mix it in, or it will be too rich and burn your plants. A good idea is to add it in the fall, till it in, then let the garden sit for the winter. It's going to be another one of my layers in my raised beds which will break down all winter long to create lovely nutrient-rich soil in the spring!

This spring, we bought 1000 red wiggler worms, and they have defied all of our attempts to make mistakes. At first, I had them in a rubbermaid tub that I'd drilled holes in. The holes were too big, and some of the worms escaped, but they still made some lovely compost while they were in there. Then my dad built a big 'row box' after visiting a vermicomposter in Calgary. It's hard too keep the moisture in this box and sometimes I've forgotten to feed my wigglers, but they're still thriving in there. The only problem is using the compost that they are currently living in. My next step is to buy one of those dedicated drawer system vermicomposting bins, where the worms can migrate up from drawer #2 into drawer #1, leaving behind pure compost that they're finished with.

In the meantime, it's looking like I have a couple kilograms of usable compost already. I would just have to sift through the whole box to get the worms out so that I can add it to my garden. I think I'll do that when I get my drawer composter. For now, the little wigglers are still happy in their big box, and enjoying all the fruit I just threw in for them!

Which reminds me, the kinds of things you'll want to feed to your worms are fruit, veggies, tea bags, egg shells, coffee grounds, stale bread, cardboard, leaves, paper, and hair.

Things that are no-no's include manure, animal products, citrus fruits, grass clippings, pineapple and other acidic fruits. And light. Keep it nice and dark in there for your little crawlers!

p.s. did you know that worms don't actually eat the food you throw to them? They eat the bacteria created by its decomposition. Cool, huh?

That's it for today.

From me to you, Happy Small Farming.