Building Compost

[Tara McFarlane]

Hi All

 

My Husband and I purchased a 1Ha block in Bombay in June, and have planted a whole bunch of fruit trees and a few veg gardens prior to building our home there.

 

In order to make the soil better (although it is incredible in it's natural state) we are going to build a big compost pile that we can start using in about 6-8 months time.  I attended a brilliant day course on Saturday last week at the Steiner School in Tauranga, led by Peter Proctor, and am all encouraged about this whole compost pile thingy - never considered building a compost pile as big as he did, and was dreading making a series of smaller ones...

 

My biggest dilema now is to find the straw necessary to build up the brown layer, and of course, organic cow poop!  We are surrounded  by dairy farms, but all are on a commercial scale, and I dread to think what those poor beasts are ingesting to increase their yeild and keep them going...

 

Sooooooooooooooooooooo...  I'm on the scrounge for anyone who can either provide or point me in the right direction to find the straw and poop before Labour weekend.

 

Any ideas??

 

Cheers

 

Tara

[Richard Grevers]

Hi Tara,

Putting first things first, have you had a lab test done on your soil to see what nutrients it has and what it is deficient in? That should determine what you might need as external inputs.

The idea of rushing out to get external inputs (even organic ones) seems to jar with the concept of self-sufficiency. Maybe a slower approach is called for. There are, of course, almost as many compost recipes as people you ask, but I know several people who will say you cannot get good compost in less than a year. That is to say, grow your own straw this summer!

For more self-sufficient compost you might consider approaches like biointensive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biointensive) - At a short course with Jodi Roebuck we built a compost heap from 45% dry material (oat crop grown on the land) 45% green material and 10% soil for the inoculation role. (Unlike the double-dig diagram on the Wikipedia article, the soil volume increased enough that the A1 block of soil was set aside.

On our new block, we also won't be living there for a year or more, so will focus on low-maintenance soil-building crops - probably some cereals (if there is anything that will stand that much rain) and legumes, with small experimental plots to see what will grow. Like Jodi, we will be starting out with a fairly thin layer of topsoil over volcanic ash, which will need some work to unlock its nutrients. I don't think we will practice biointensive - double-digging is a young man's game! We will utilise the noxious plants (gorse, blackberry) from our boundaries by brewing teas in rain barrels.

[Laine]

I would reply to your comment that 'Self Sufficiency' has many shades Richard, and starting out with a total no external inputs constraint is a bit too hard for those new to working on the land. For me personally, I would have not problem bringing on some materials to get started if they are sourced locally. The aim would then be to close the loop in the future, or stay as local as possible. Connecting with local suppliers could also have more positive spins offs in the future - environmentally and socially. L

[Richard Grevers]

That is true, Laine - in fact I was surprised to learn on the weekend that a couple of friends who are much further down the track than we are are still buying in compost - at $50 - $60 a trailer-load. That could well be a solution for the first couple of years until on-site composting is well established. We will almost certainly need to bring in lime, since our soil is likely to be acidic. (Let's ignore the whole debate about whether you should merely grow what suits the land or modify the land to grow what you want).

[Laine]

Hi Tara,
Too late for labour weekend, but a thought that the main thing you neighbours are going to be feeding cows, especially at this time of year, is just grass. So my thoughts are go and ask if you can have some cowpats. A good way to meet the neighbours I say ;) At the very least they will have a chuckle and say good on ya. In good weather, if you have a flat shovel and they have a concrete race (track down the farm) you can just collect the dry matter from the track and transport it away quite easily.

For straw, you might not be in luck at this time of year getting it cheap as it would be more readily available in autumn after harvest time. That is, if there is any cropping done locally and not just dairying. If there are farms around that look like they do crops you could always approach them for purchasing off them in autumn next year. This is slower than you were wanting I know, but building networks locally might be of use for later on, even if you have do do something else in the short term.

[Tara McFarlane]

Thanks so much for your input guys, I do appreciate it.

I'd love to meet the neighbours with the cows - however they seem to be invisible... Honestly we NEVER see them - although we do see their cows...lol

I did build a small compost pile this weekend without cow pats, lots of green and brown waste, and bore water from the water trough. I sprinkled a little molasses mixed with water, and bokashi juice on it today -not too much, just a sprinkle as it was very warm out there.

Soon we'll be able to use the garden waste and other bits from the land itself to close the circle, but for now we have to look outside our wee paddock...

In saying that I've planted a lot of comfrey and other herbal ley plants around my trees, not to mention the shelter belt which is about 130 metres of native trees - about half the fruit trees have been mulched around too, so it's all good things happening.

Getting back to the compost - I'll be creating about 4 - 6 small compost piles as we go along - first one was created this weekend - it's only about 3m long and about a metre wide - so not huge, but easily turned in 6 weeks... If I create a new one about that size every two weeks I shojld have a good supply of compost for my veg and trees in less than a year - till then it's simply growing everything in Godzone soil and getting the gardens established.

If anyone has any other pointers however, I'd love to hear them

[Laine]

"only about 3m long and about a metre wide"!! Thats huge by my standards. You sound very focused on building fertility on the site. My main problem on an urban section is I have 3 chooks that eat all our scraps. While the sawdust fromm the coop gets composted I am still short on mulch. Maybe I need to get grader visions and go for a collection mission to create big heap like you are. I did the Open Polytechnics organics course about 10 years ago (great tutor they had too) and one of the assignments was making a compost bin and a batch or compost. It broke down to soil in 3 turnings over 11 days - quite amazing really.

[Tara McFarlane]

WOW - for those of us with short attention spans, 11 days is quite an amazing turnaround! What did you do differently to speed up the composting process?

Yes, I'm very interested in getting the soil as rich and fertile as possible - not that it's bad soil to start with, but if you can make it better, why not? Better soil makes better fruit and veg... Better fruit and veg taste better and make our neighbours jealous...lol Now... how to dissuade the bunnies...

[Laine]

Just turned it every 3 days and got the water levels right - so that you can squeeze a handful and get a single drop come out i.e. damp but not wet. Compost heaps are generally too dry if covered. I have heard from other sources though that a slower composting gives a better mix of beneficial microbes, so I don't know that fast is best. L

[Tara McFarlane]

lol

Much to my 16 year old son's disgust I managed to 'pinch' some fresh and fragrant cow poop from the next door neighbours paddock - so mixed that in with some water from the bore, and soaked my straw in that as I built the pile up with more super fresh green grass cuttings and a wee pinch of lime...

So in about 4 - 6 weeks I'll try turning it over, and see how things are doing in there...

I also mulched around the veg plants with wet straw (no cow poop) as it seems to be doing wonders in the test patch from two weeks ago. (My artichoke plants have doubled in size as has my sorrell)

Can't wait to try the compost once it's done to measure the difference between the veg now, and the veg with the additional material.

[Todd Saunders]

Hi Laine,

This year we are short on space and soil so I've tried a combination of mustard, radishes, and dandelions. I eat some of the tops and feed them to the chooks. I also get a crop from the radishes and dandelions which we've been eating (or in the case of the radishes preserving by pickling). All the rest gets cut and left on the garden as an instant mulch.

[Tara McFarlane]

Speaking of radishes, I was talking to a french lady the other day who was talking about eating radishes the 'french way' ie sauteed in butter and garlic... sounds interesting, I've never cooked radishes before...

[Laine]

Tara, you have inspired me to get grander with my compost visions. I was talking to a workmate the other day about your 3m piles and she is going to go to pac n save and try and get a big lot off waste produce. If they are willing to pass it on then I will go get some too. I will just need to source some straw from around here - and in Taranaki dairy country I am not sure if I can get local stuff... I have also talked to the neighbour who is a lawn mower man and he is going to drop off a trailer load of grass clippings (about 2 cubic meters). I just don't know where to make the pile yet! Thank-you for the motivation.