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| Organic Gardening: A Primer
Gene and Tania have led innumerable tours and walks through their gardens, where they follow the biointensive school of thought associated with John Jeavons of Ecology Action. They have also given many talks, workshops and classes on organic gardening at farms, garden clubs, at Penn State and for the Master Gardener training program. The following Primer grew out of handouts distributed at these sessions to accompany the talks, and is given here for readers to use freely. You may direct your questions and comments to Gene at Genebazan@aol.com.
PART 1. Organizing Frameworks, Principles and Practices
1.1 John Jeavons and Biointensive Mini-farming
In our backyard, Tania and I follow the principles of John Jeavons, which he calls “biointensive minifarming” (GROW BIOINTENSIVETM). Jeavons, a student of English gardener Alan Chadwick, has been practicing for 30 years, and is known in the US, Mexico, Russia and other countries for training thousands of householders on how to grow food sustainably.
Biointensive is an updated and deeply researched amalgam of two streams of gardening: biodynamic, founded by Rudolf Steiner (who was Chadwick’s mentor), and French intensive gardening as practiced in and around Paris in the latter half of the 19th c.
Jeavons’ most famous book and the bible to practitioners is his “How to Grow More Vegetables” (than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine). The current 7th edition is available for around $20 pb. The spiral bound version takes more abuse and lies flat for only $22.
Biointensive includes five distinguishing practices integrated together: (1) double-dug garden beds; (2) hexagonal spacing of plants to maximize yield, which also reduces water use and weed growth through a living mulch; (3) growing your own compost and fertilizer crops; (4) use of open-pollinated seeds, and saving seeds from plants that perform well; and (5) companion planting in space and time. Beds are always in production; there is no “rest” period. Care must be taken so that the soil is not strip-mined. Thus, 60% of bed time is in compost crops.
There is a big difference between sustainable and organic when applied to growing food. Be aware that some folks use the term “sustainable agriculture” in a more limited way than Jeavons. For Jeavons, sustainable means: self-sufficient; no fossil fuel; grow your own inputs (carbon and fertilizer crops). You build soil, not deplete it.
Jeavons and his small crew run an educational non-profit called Ecology Action (www.growbiointensive.org ). Through “Bountiful Gardens” they supply high quality organic open-pollinated seeds, hand tools, and educational booklets. The BG catalog is an education in itself. Bountiful Gardens is at 18001 Shafer Ranch Road, Willits, CA 95490-9626. Email them for their catalog at bountiful@sonic.net and their website is at www.bountifulgardens.org.
Jeavons gives 3-day weekend workshops. Check their website for any offerings in the east. we highly recommend this training, which inspired us greatly. Ecology Action publishes a nice selection of informational booklets, listed in the BG catalog.
1.2 Bargyla Rateaver and Other Organic Practitioners
Bargyla Rateaver is the grand dame of organic gardening. We hope she is still going strong (84?). We purchased her encyclopedic 600 page masterpiece, available directly from her: “Organic Method Primer Update (Special Edition)”, 1993. Price was $135 including postage. Write to her to confirm availability at: 9049 Covina Street, San Diego, CA 92126. This life’s work is chock full of organic practices, and should serve you well whatever your organizing framework. Pattee Library does not have it, but you can review it through interlibrary loan. The Biological Sciences Library, University of Kentucky has it, and you may want to mention this when you request it.
There are other well-known sources and practitioners from whom we have learned much:
• Greg and Pat Williams, publishers of HortIdeas newsletter, available in print or online, full of the latest research, products, book reviews, and other information. Contact them at gwill@mis.net or write them at 750 Black Lick Rd, Gravel Switch, KY 40328. Print bi-monthly $25 or e-mail edition monthly for $15.
• Eliot Coleman, Maine gardener, has published a number of books: The New Organic Grower, Chelsea Green, 1989, which has a GREAT bibliography; and Four Season Harvest, Chelsea Green, 1992. Get direct from publisher or through Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply. For those who want to try growing greens in a hoop house for the winter season, get his 1998 booklet, The Winter Harvest Manual for $15 from “Four Season Farm”, RR Box 14, Harborside, ME 04642. Also, Coleman collected a number of classic ways to put up food in Keeping Food Fresh: Old World Techniques and Recipes Chelsea Green Publishing, 1999. But also see the latest in food preservation safety tips at the Penn State Extension site: foodsafety.cas.psu.edu/preserve.html
• John Seymour, The Self-Sufficient Gardener, Doubleday & Company, Garden City, NY, 1979. A British oldie but goodie if you can find it in your library. He endorsed Jeavons and began to convert his garden beds to biointensive beds as he was writing.
• Robert Kourik, Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally, Metaphoric Press. Santa Rosa, CA 1986. Excellent permaculture principles book, better than Bill Mollison’s Permaculture. Great section on fruit trees. Available through Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply.
• Rodale Press has published many books over the years on organic practices. Their magazine, Organic Gardening, is available by subscription, at PO Box 7377, Red Oak, IA 51591-2377. Because they publish books and articles by many different practitioners, you will not get an “organizing framework” from them. Single practitioners may have organizing frameworks, but not publishing companies. I read OG for years, and culled considerable useful information. While I have stopped using it, I think it useful for the beginner. 1.3 Useful Web Sites • Sustainable Farming: sunsite.unc.edu/farming-connection• Organic growers web page: http://www.rain.org/~sals/my.html • Good Search site: http://www.gardenweb.com/vl/• Integrated Pest Mgmt. for Vegetables: http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/recommends/• IPM/Organic garden site: http://www.ibiblio.org/rge/index.htm. • “State of the States: Organic Farming Systems Research at Land Grant Institutions, 2000-2001”, a 68 page report compiled by the Organic Farming Research Foundation, PO Box 440, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 ($5 donation) or on www.ofrf.org. • Safety tips on food preservation at PSU Extension site: http://foodsafety.cas.psu.edu/preserve.html• Organic Insect Disease Management publication at http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/pp/resourceguide/• Ohio State web garden page: full of reference, photos, etc. http://webgarden.osu.edu/1.4 Sources of Seed and Supply Catalogs There are many good sources for organic, open-pollinated, or untreated seeds. We use: 1. Fedco. Top notch for veggies, amendments, cover crop seeds, tools, potatoes. Many organic selections. Trees are in a separate catalog. Write Fedco Seeds, PO Box 520, Waterville, MI 04903-0520. Limited flowers, low prices. A producers cooperative at http://www.fedcoseeds.com. 2. Pinetree Garden Seeds. Box 300, New Gloucester, ME 04260 (207) 926-3400. Great veggies, nice selection of flower seeds. Reasonable prices. 3. Bountiful Gardens. Source of quality organic and biointensively produced seeds. At 18001 Shafer Ranch Road, Willits, CA 95490-9626. Website at http://www.bountifulgardens.org. 4. Territorial Seed Company. PO Box 157, Cottage Grove, OR 97424. Chock full of practical cultural information! Their website is http://www.territorialseed.com. 5. Gardens Alive. For small quantities suitable for the backyard gardener of organic amendments, beneficial pest/insect controls. 5100 Schenley Place, Lawrenceburg, IN 47025. http://www.gardensalive.com. 6. Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply. This is an incredible source of supplies for the organic farmer and large-scale organic gardener: irrigation supplies, season extenders, cover crops and inoculants (click on “products/browse main catalog” then scroll down to “cover crop seeds” and click on “cover crop solutions chart”), soil analyses, organic fertilizers, tools, and a whole line of “natural pest management” supplies (monitoring, beneficials, traps and barriers, insecticides – click on “products/browse main catalog” then scroll down to “pest control” and click on “pest control solutions chart”). Shipping from CA is expensive for heavy items, so try local sources: Agway, Fertrell or Fedco (in that order). Website at http://www.groworganic.com. Address: PO Box 2209, Grass Valley, CA 95945. Fertrell address below under PART 3, Amendments. 1.5 Organizing Your Garden and Your Garden Year
We use three charts to organize our garden activity. The first is our garden calendar, a portion of which is shown below. The tasks are left justified in column one. Using italics in this same column, right justified, we have entered notes from our observations on what of importance is happening in our garden. We compiled our calendar from several years of keeping a garden log. If you would like to see the complete calendar, email us.
Garden Calendar | TASKS | March | April | | Add compost asparagus (2 locations) | 15 | | Forsythia begins bloom | 23-- | ----11 | Pushkinia up | 27- | 1 | chionodoxa up | 28- | 1 | Anemone | | 5 | | Set up, repair mini-greenhouses | 24 | | | Start cleaning beds for planting fava | 25-- | 1 | | Plant rye, vetch in new beds 11,12,13 | 26 | | | Soak carrot seeds in kelp solution | 26 | | | Soak parsley 2 days, rinse twice before planting | 28 | |
Next, we use a table, chronologically arranged, of all the seeds we will be planting, together with information relevant to the biointensive school of thought we follow. We include part of this table below. If you would like to see the complete table, email us. SUMMER CROP | Source | D:
proj/
act
| sow date targ/act | # flats | time in flat (wks) | date
transpl:
targ/act
| date
1st yield
| sq ft plant-
ed
| bed # | | onion: bng | F2439EV | 65/ | 3-30/ | 1.0 | 5-6 | 5-13/ | 6-28/ | 10 | 3c | | onion: sets 4" | Houts | ?? | 3-30/ | 2.5# | 6-8 | - | 7-20/ | 20 | 3c | | lettuce sp | Have | 6-12 | 3-30/ | 0.4 | 3-4 | 5-5/ | 5-28/ | 20 | 10 | | Spinach | Have | 43/ | 3-30/ | 3r | 3-4 | 5-2/ | 5-26/ | 5 | 10 | | Leaf beet | F3034PS | 55/ | 3-30/ | 1r | 3-4 | 5-5/ | 5-26/ | 5 | 3c |
We follow a rotation scheme, which we have summarized in the table below, together with information on cover crops, companion planting, and antagonists (plants to avoid next to the main crop plants). We have compiled this from the works of Jeavons and Coleman. Rotation Chart for our Gardens Cover Crop | Main Crop | Companions | Antagonists | | fava (bell beans) reduces wilts, fixes nitrogen | Tomatoes, peppers V (follows) | basil, chives/onions, carrots, asparagus, parsley, marigold, nasturtium | potatoes, cabbage, kohlrabi | Bell beans before corn
(fixes nitrogen)
| Corn
V (follows)
| peas, bush/pole beans, potatoes, squash, cucumbers | | not vetch or legumes before legume – may transmit disease;
alfalfa: plant in fall, turn under 2 weeks before beans
| Bush beans...................
Pole bean .....................
cabbage, collards……..
kale, chard, radish
V | peas, corn, potatoes, radish, cucumber, strawberry, marigold, summer savory
corn, summer savory
dill, hyssop, mint, chamomile, oregano | onions, garlic
onions, beets, kohlrabi, garlic
tomatoes, pole beans, strawberry
| barley, rye ……. | Roots: onions…………
carrots.........................
beets.........................
turnips....................... V | beets, chamomile (sparsely), summer savory
tomatoes, lettuce, parsley, onions, radishes, peas, chives,flax
lettuce, cabbage, onions, radishes,
peas
| beans & peas
dill
pole beans, potatoes
|
| Greens: lettuce
V | carrots, radish, beets, cilantro | | no oats! (scab); soybeans (reduces scab);
rye
| Potatoes
V
| bush beans, corn, eggplant, flax, marigold | peas, squash, tomatoes, cukes, sunflowers, raspberries | Bell beans(fixes nitrogen)
| Corn
V | peas, bush & pole beans, potatoes, squash, cucumbers | | Not vetch, not legumes before legumes | Peas
V | bush beans, corn, radish, turnips, cucumbers | potatoes, onions, garlic, glads | | Broccoli, cauliflower
V | potatoes, celery, beets, onions, dill, chamomile, sage, peppermint, rosemary | strawberries, tomatoes, pole beans | | Squash, melons
V
| Corn, nasturtiums | |
Note 1. Guidance from Jeavons, “How to Grow More Vegetables” and Coleman, “The New Organic Grower”
Note 2. Plant names in italics are herbs or flowers, non-italics other vegetable crops
PART 2. Soil Tests A soil test will reveal what deficiencies your soil has, whether you grow flowers, veggies or fruit. Amendments compensate for deficiencies in your soil, and generally, are only added in small quantities -- on the order of fractions of an ounce for micro-nutrients and a few pounds for macro-nutrients per 100 sq.ft. of garden bed. Do not over-apply micro-nutrients (trace elements -- zinc, manganese, iron, copper, boron). A soil test will also tell you the ph of your soil -- how acidic or basic it is. While it is unlikely that your soil is either too acidic or too basic, such extremes lock up different minerals at each end of the ph spectrum, and ph-induced deficiencies will reveal themselves through the condition of your plants. The basic soil test available from the Penn State University’s Soil Analysis Lab (863-0841) is inexpensive ($9) but limited. You can get more out of your soil sample by enclosing a written note asking them for the following additional information: % organic matter (another $5); micro-nutrients Zinc, Fe, Mang, Copper ($6 more); and boron (another $5.50). Total: $25.50. A comparable commercial test we used cost $63 (Timberleaf, below) but gave us the recommendations for organic amendments, whereas PSU reports in chemical fertilizer amounts (NPK). Making the necessary conversions to the organic equivalents of NPK takes a little math, but the lab staff can help you with this. Timberleaf’s test report is excellent, well organized, and easy to use. The owner is available to talk over the phone or via email. It is well worth the premium, and is the soil testing service we use in our garden. Timberleaf Soil Testing, 39648 Old Spring Road, Murrieta, CA 92563 (909/677-7510). Get the Basic and Trace Minrals Soil Tests ($63 for both). For more information, see their website http://www.timberleafsoiltesting.com/index.htmor email Bob and Valerie Russo at tmbrlfsoiltest@verizon.net .You may wonder how traditional farmers determined soil conditions. Jeavons’ group has compiled a marvelous booklet on using your plants (veggies and weeds) to “read” the health of your soil. It is titled, “Test Your Soil With Plants” by John Beeby, Booklet #29, available from Bountiful Gardens for $12.50 (1997). Address above. PART 3. Amendments
Your soil test will indicate what amendments you should add. The best way to use rock powders and minerals is to add them gradually as you build your compost pile. They become more thoroughly mixed with each turning. This way, these have time to break down and become available through action of humic acids produced during composting. You can add trace elements by mixing them with sand or finished compost and spreading uniformly on top of your bed before turning under. For small amounts of copper, dissolve in water. For boron, pour into hot water while stirring vigorously to aid dissolving and prevent caking, especially of highly granulated powders. Timberleaf sells small amounts of trace elements at reasonable prices. Increasingly, seed and garden catalogs are offering organic amendments. Fedco has a nice selection of amendments in their Organic Supplies Catalog. Write them (address in PART 1.4 Item 1 above) or check out their catalog at http://www.fedcoseeds.com/ogs.htm and click on "Download a catalog." For heavy amounts, shipping can be expensive, so try local sources -- Agway in Bellville (rock phosphate and greensand), Fertrell, Centre Farm Supply in Centre Hall (814-364-1393). Fertrell, a PA firm offering biological plant fertilizers and soil conditioners to farmers, sells organic amendments in larger quantities at reasonable prices. Write to them for their catalogue at Box 265, Bainbridge, PA 17502. Ph: 717/376-1566. Web site: http://www.fertrell.com. Ask who their local rep is and arrange for pickup or drop-off. Prices are lower than Fedco. For a more complete (but also more distant) source, see Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply (address PART 1.4 Item 6). PART 4. Adding Organic Matter
There are two ways to add organic matter: cover crops and compost.
4.1 Cover Crops
The most important addition to your soil is not an amendment. It is organic matter. Percent organic matter is the number 1 listed factor in the Timberleaf soil report. You want to aim for 6%.
Organic matter oxidizes and is taken up by plants to form cellulose. It disappears from your soil, and must be replenished. You can add it through compost, which you either make yourself (from leaves, kitchen and garden wastes), import (manure from local barns), or purchase from garden supply centers in bulk or bags (this latter can become expensive).
If you have a garden of any size, you will find as we do that you simply cannot get enough compost to feed your soil. For example, a 5’x20’ garden bed requires roughly 4-8 cubic feet to supply 1/2”-1” of finished compost on top of your bed for working in (30-60 gallons or 6-12 five gallon buckets). This may be sufficient for well-prepared soil, but is hardly enough when digging a bed for the first time. You will also want to use your compost to make your own potting mix. To garden in a sustainable fashion, you should emulate what farmers have traditionally done: grow your compost crops (or cover crops as they are traditionally called).
There are two categories of compost crops: carbon rich and nitrogen rich. Corn and grains such as wheat, oats, barley and rye are good examples of carbon rich compost crops; alfalfa, clover and bell beans (vicia faba) are good examples of nitrogen-rich crops. Nitrogen fixing plants take nitrogen from the air, and with the aid of friendly bacteria, fix this to the root hairs in little nodules. These bacteria may not be in your soil, so you add these to the seed through inoculants containing these bacteria.
In addition to providing carbon and nitrogen, cover crops keep the soil biologically active, shade soil from the baking sun, take up nutrients from deeper down, and attract beneficial insects. Buckwheat is a great summer cover crop, which bees love. Japanese millet is another great summer cover crop, whose seeds birds love.
Farmers grow cover crops in rotation with other crops. One traditional rotation scheme is corn, oats, wheat and hay (alfalfa). Corn is a heavy feeder, and follows the alfalfa, which provides nitrogen. The leaves, stalk, cob and roots from the corn, and the stalk and roots from the wheat and oats supply organic matter to the soil. For backyard gardeners, a more finely detailed rotation scheme may be useful (see our Rotation Chart under Additional Information).
You can do the same thing farmers do by sowing cover crops on your vegetable beds using one or more of the following practices and then:
1. turning the cover crops under, usually in the spring for fall sown rye and oats, and in summer for spring sown buckwheat and bell beans;
2. cutting (or mowing) the green matter and adding it to your compost pile (alfalfa, clover, rye, oats);
3. skimming the top inch of the green “turf” with a spading shovel and composting the top, leaving the root mass to decompose in your beds. Roots contain tremendous amounts of organic matter, released when they decay. This last is what Jeavons recommends, as it produces more compost, preserves soil structure, and adds very active soil to your compost pile, which may be high in carbon (dead leaves, other brown matter). Where to get information on cover crops? Increasingly, seed catalogs are selling seeds for carbon rich and nitrogen rich cover crops. Our favorite source of cover crop seeds and information is again Fedco (address above in PART 1.4 Item 1). They have an informative table on these in their Growers Supply Catalog at http://www.fedcoseeds.com/ogs/covercrop_chart.htm . This catalog also contains listings of “Grasses and Grains” (carbon sources), “Legumes and Clovers” (nitrogen fixing), and “Inoculants”. Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply has the most complete cover crop chart I have seen. You can locate this at their website ( http://www.groworganic.com click on “products/browse main catalog” then find in the Index the page number to "Cover Crop Solutions Chart" under "Cover Crops Seeds" and enter this page number in the "page" box near the top of the page.)
Inoculants are specific to the legume, so read the catalog carefully when ordering. For large beans (vicia faba or “bell beans”), we moisten the seeds in a bowl and sprinkle the powder on the seeds so it sticks. Then, we plant the seeds directly in the beds in a hexagonal pattern on 6-8” centers. For smaller seeds, this is difficult to do. For direct sowing, we mix the seed with a little bit of honey heated in a bit of water to dilute, then sprinkle the inoculant on top and mix in. If the mixture is too wet or sticky, we then mix in a bit of sand to allow the seeds to become separate from one another. We then sprinkle evenly on the bed and chop in with a steel-tined garden rake. Water immediately and through germination and early growth. For growing in a flat for later transplanting, We make a slurry with the inoculant and drip it onto the sown seeds with an eye dropper directly after planting. Farmers plant such seeds with drills, but you will get excellent results in your backyard by broadcasting and chopping in. Keep well watered!
In addition to compost, certain plants concentrate minerals. If your soil test shows deficiencies in minerals, you can also improve your soil by growing “dynamic accumulators”, plants which accumulate certain minerals in their tissue. You then turn under these plants, or compost and apply to the soil. Kourik has a nice two-page listing of these plants. His book is noted above in PART 1.2). Of course, no plant can bring up minerals that are absent in your soil.
4.2 Compost
TABLE 1. What You CAN Use to Make Compost
| Layer 1 (Browns) | Layer 2 (Greens) | Layer 3 (Manures) | Layer 4 (Bacteria)
| | Fall leaves | Weeds (before go to seed) | Cow, horse, chicken manure (aged only!) | Garden soil (has good bacteria) | | Hay, straw | Trimmings from garden | Forget dried blood! | Last year’s compost | | Corn stalks | Hedge trimmings | | Compost starters | | Paper (newsprint) | Cut grass clippings | | Yogurt cheese whey | | Sawdust | Veg. kitchen wastes | | Biodynamic preps |
TABLE 2. What You Should NOT Use to Make Compost
| Animal Matter | Vegetable Matter | Other
| | Cat and dog manure (spreads disease, attracts other animals) | Weeds that have gone to seed (will sprout in garden next year!) Cut off seed heads over trash can, compost stalks, leaves | Glossy paper (does not decompose easily) | | Meat scraps, bones: (attracts flies, decomposes slowly) | Diseased plants (spreadsdisease to healthy plants), esp. iris, tomato, bean. Put in trash | Plastic bags (do not decompose)
| | Grease and fats (does not decompose, save to make suet for birds in winter) | Tuberous plants such as wild violets, day lilies; rhizomatus grasses. Cut off tubers, and put in trash, compost leaves only. Or, as weeds, dry in hot sun for several days | Plastic packing peanuts (corn starch ok -- test to see if dissolve in water)
| | Dairy products: milk, cheese, butter | Woody material (takes too long to decompose). For small twigs, build a big pile and let moulder for a year. Chop with spading shovel for nice mulch! | Rubber products (do not decompose) |
| Vine clippings such as ivy, Virginia creeper (will send out new roots). Dry in hot sun! | |
| Old bulbs (spring bulbs, onions, wild chives) | |
TABLE 3. Two Kinds of Compost (% by vol or weight)
| | High Nitrogen: manures, alfalfa | Greens (sugars, carbohydrates) | Carbon (straw, leaves, sawdust, wood chips) | Bacterial dominated
(vegetables) | 25% | 45% | 30% | Fungally dominated
(shrubs, trees, cane) | 25% | 30% | 45% |
4.2.1 Steps to Make Compost
1. Build a pile. This can be a free-standing pile shaped like a pyramid with a flattened top, or a pile placed in a bin you have constructed out of wooden boards, bricks or concrete block. Piles can be up to five feet wide at the base and up to five feet high. Build repeating four layers above or mix as you go from the four components of Table 1. A three bin system is great for handling organic matter produced during the season (kitchen scraps and garden clippings). Since we have a lot of fall leaves, we use a single free-standing pile which we turn twice a season.
2. Add Amendments (based on soil test). Consider adding (black) rock phosphate (P), greensand (K), or other minerals to the pile in small amounts sprinkled lightly on top of leaf layer. These compounds break down slowly, interact with humic acids formed during decomposition, and become available to plants when finished compost is added to garden soil. They will get mixed in when you turn the pile.
3. Add Moisture. Usually rainfall is sufficient to keep your pile wet. However, if conditions are dry, take your garden hose and spray water on top, letting it percolate through the pile. Your pile should be as wet as a damp sponge. If too wet, cover with a tarp (which also acts to retain heat in a slow pile). A porous canvas tarp or thick cloth is better than the blue plastic tarps. CO2 builds up under plastic tarps, and impedes breakdown. You could support the tarp on branches so that air can circulate beneath. City water often has chlorine, which kills bacteria, and your compost pile requires these bacteria to break down the organic matter. If you use city water, use a garden chlorine water filter to remove the chlorine. To compensate for chlorine, or to increase the activity of your pile, feed your bacteria using a sugar solution of 1# granulated sugar per gallon of dechlorinated or rain water sprinkled on your pile.
4. Monitor and Turn pile. (Elaine Ingham’s Diagram) Aerobic decomposition requires air. If air is insufficient, your pile will smell like rotten eggs, and give off acids and alcohols that can harm your plants in the garden. The microbes that break down material require air. If you want compost to use the same season, turn your pile often. Get a turkey thermometer, bury 2’, or a special long-probed compost thermometer. Your pile will be hotter and decompose faster. If too hot, will oxidize more of your organic matter, which you will notice as gray ash! Ready in two weeks! Reserve some for use in bed prep and planting mixes for the following spring. You can run the pile cooler and more slowly but you will not be killing seeds or pathogens as well. For this, a temperature of 135 degrees is required for at least three days. A good site is http://www.soilfoodweb.com .
5. Add earthworms. Earthworms love compost piles. They help break down all the organic matter by eating it, and making tunnels which let air and water in. Generally, even in poor soil, earthworms will find their way to your pile.
6. Storing compost. If you store under large trees, especially those with shallow roots such as maple, lay down plastic or a plastic tarp beneath the pile to prevent invasion of new tree roots into your pile. Root invasion can happen between the May and July turning! If you wait until the end of the summer, or worse, next spring, you will not have any usable compost left! Ideally, it is best to let your finished compost dry out and store in covered containers to prevent further oxidation and crystallization. If this latter happens, you may notice that your compost has a granular, gritty texture rather than a soft, loamy texture. You can still use the granular stuff as a soil amendment. The gritty material consists of minerals!
PART 5. Potting Mix
There are many “potting” mixes. For our biointensive practice, Tania and I have found the following worked well as a planting mix for our 4” deep wooden flats:
10 gallons compost; screened through 1/4” mesh hardware cloth (two 5-gallon buckets)
2.5 gallons good garden soil/turf loam, screened
2.5 gallons sphagnum moss peat, screened. Do NOT use sedge moss peat (it water-logs
and drowns your plants). Sphagnum moss has a waxy coating and prevents
water-logging.
Small amounts of mineral supplements, depending on results of your soil test. We use 1/2 cup
greensand (potassium, magnesium, iron, many other trace elements), 1/2 cup azomite (a multi-mineral sea-bottom clay), and 1/2 cup fish or alfalfa meal.
If you use this for transplanting flower seedlings into larger pots, it may be helpful to add sand, perlite or vermiculite if you will not be transplanting into a garden bed. Otherwise the potting mix tends to become waterlogged and the plants suffer from lack of air around their roots. This becomes more so the more shallow the pot and the longer the plant stays in the pot. Watering from above worsens soil compaction. If you make soil blocks for starting seedlings, try Coleman’s “soil blocking mix” recipe from The New Organic Grower, p. 136.
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