Mama Nature's Got a "Nice Package"

I've decided to make 2011 my "year of soil" and really learn how to build my garden's organic matter. I don't have a lot of sun on my yard, but by God, I have a butt-load of fruit scraps. Between Christmas and New Year's, my wife and I wolfed-down all this fruit and much more that isn't shown (grapefruits, persimmons, cucs, toms, zuchs).

Fruit stash for the Christmas/New Year's week.

The key to this spring's soil health will be our food scraps, which, since going raw, are kind of out of control. We fill up these two bowls 2-3 times per week.

Kitchen scraps after two days for me and Sus.

30%-40% of my whole bananas' weight is in the skins. That means that at $.50/lb, I'm spending about $.15 per pound on what many regard as "packaging". Yes, but...it's nature's package and Mama Nature  has a nice package. (It's not food to me, but it's good for other members of the food chain who, in turn,  can help me grow my own food-- how amazing is that!)

When these two bowls fill up, I take them out to the back yard. I currently have two compost piles...1) the pile of random $#!x behind the garage that has been accumulating for 3 years and looks like the prank of an urban beaver, and 2) the new and slightly improved compost.

Compost #1 behind the garage-- the work of a trickster urban beaver? Where's the reset button?

Ever since the city stopped collecting curb-side "yard waste", we've had to get creative with what to do with our hundreds of pounds of oak leaves that fall all winter long. Now, with the addition of our kitchen scraps, I thought we'd have the perfect source of browns (leaves) and greens (kitchen scraps). The new compost is supposed to be a strategically ratio-ed-- 3 parts brown matter : 1 part green matter, well-watered, micro-organism-rich pile of hot fertile humus. But, it's been struggling.

New and improved compost still decomposing slower than dirt.

One explanation for the slow decomposition is that Cincinnati's December has been consistently well-below freezing and the mirco-organisms don't like the cold or just aren't that numerous to begin with in our yard's clay-like soil where I chose to hide this compost.

So, I've got a two-pronged solution. From a local company, Garden's Alive, I ordered 1) compost starter bacteria (~$10) and 2) a batch of vermiculture worms (~$40-- I once had an energy audit client offer to pay me in worms. I had no idea they were so valuable! I should have agreed.) I'm hoping that I can run two simultaneous experiments to compare the soil quality of the indoor worms' castings against the outdoor compost pile (no worms). It'll be a battle royale-- worms vs. micro-organisms! My money is on the worms.

Once I've got some rich humus created, I will use that for planting some pots in my equator-facing windows and planting this spring's garden, too. I don't have a lot of sun (~200 SF of mostly-driveway/deck), but I am hopeful that I can find enough friendly neighbors that will let me use their yards. Who knows, maybe I can recruit them as partners/sponsors in my venture and we can "compound-it-up" together.

Some folks that I've been talking to for compost help have such good organic matter in their composts that they claimed they would take their humus with them if they moved to a new house. And why wouldn't they? Most people's yards are essentially urban deserts of mono-cultured grass, better suited to Great Britain circa 1700, where it can be watered by rain, "mowed" by hungry sheep, and frolicked-on by stiff-collared croquet bad-asses. While I may be a croquet bad-ass, I don't yet have any interest in sheep or mowing my yard. So, really, what's the point of keeping my grass?