Make Soil:
Can we make soil? How?
Well sort of, using plant waste. The picture shows:
Far left some straw lining in a wire cage to create a 3' square and high enclosure for garden waste like stalks of old plants, leaves, grass, and vegetable kitchen waste. This is called 'a compost heap.'
In the middle, with the red handled shovel, is the compost, the results of several months of breakdown of an earlier compost heap. It can be thrown back onto the garden to rejuvenate the soil, reducing or eliminating the need for commercial fertilizer.
To the right, under the rotary compost sieve, you see sieved compost with larger non-composted material taken out, this can be used for potting up new seeds and plants.
Compost heaps consist of brown (carbon) and green (nitrogen) materials. You don't want to put your grass clippings in the heap in a big clump, but sprinkle them across the pile or in layers if you can. Compost heaps filled like this do not smell. Only plant material should go into the compost heap and no cooking oils, meat or fat. The microbes go to work breaking everything down, heating up the mass for days before cooling, reducing in size. Then we clear off the 'raw' stuff on top and collect the compost underneath.
Improving soil everywhere is immensely important for future food production, even if we're not growing food at the moment. Whole websites and books are dedicated to this. By composting the biomass produced by our properties and kitchens, and keeping it on our property, we reduce a huge percentage of waste that goes to the landfill. We also reduce greenhouse gases, as this biomass creates methane at the dump, further adding to climate change and pollution. The clippings cut from a lawn can supply 60% of the nitrogen the lawn needs for nutrition throughout the year, so try to leave them on the lawn after cutting.
More info here: how to make a rotary compost sieve: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYWiamPxoN0
More about compost: http://eartheasy.com/grow_compost.html
Can we make soil? How?
Well sort of, using plant waste. The picture shows:
Far left some straw lining in a wire cage to create a 3' square and high enclosure for garden waste like stalks of old plants, leaves, grass, and vegetable kitchen waste. This is called 'a compost heap.'
In the middle, with the red handled shovel, is the compost, the results of several months of breakdown of an earlier compost heap. It can be thrown back onto the garden to rejuvenate the soil, reducing or eliminating the need for commercial fertilizer.
To the right, under the rotary compost sieve, you see sieved compost with larger non-composted material taken out, this can be used for potting up new seeds and plants.
Compost heaps consist of brown (carbon) and green (nitrogen) materials. You don't want to put your grass clippings in the heap in a big clump, but sprinkle them across the pile or in layers if you can. Compost heaps filled like this do not smell. Only plant material should go into the compost heap and no cooking oils, meat or fat. The microbes go to work breaking everything down, heating up the mass for days before cooling, reducing in size. Then we clear off the 'raw' stuff on top and collect the compost underneath.
Improving soil everywhere is immensely important for future food production, even if we're not growing food at the moment. Whole websites and books are dedicated to this. By composting the biomass produced by our properties and kitchens, and keeping it on our property, we reduce a huge percentage of waste that goes to the landfill. We also reduce greenhouse gases, as this biomass creates methane at the dump, further adding to climate change and pollution. The clippings cut from a lawn can supply 60% of the nitrogen the lawn needs for nutrition throughout the year, so try to leave them on the lawn after cutting.
More info here: how to make a rotary compost sieve: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYWiamPxoN0
More about compost: http://eartheasy.com/grow_compost.html