A Modular Composting System

Composting can seem like magic, in that you are making soil out of nothing.  Without it, you have to purchase bags of compost from the garden center to maintain the fertility of your garden soil, and that can get expensive and inconvenient.  Instead, we are going to use the materials from around the house to create garden soil out of nothing.  Not exactly ex nihilo, but close.

Composting is a favorite subject of some gardeners, who swear by the beautiful soil and the abundant gardens that result.  On the other hand, I've read from many garden bloggers who find the process finicky and time consuming.  It can become an unproductive and unsightly nuisance if not tended correctly.  The goal here is to reduce composting to its essentials that are still effective without being overwhelming.

Lets begin by looking at the source of materials that we will use for composting.  The obvious sources are:

Brown:

• Fallen Leaves
• Shredded Paper

 Green:

• Grass Clippings
• Kitchen Waste
• Garden trimmings

 I would add a final ingredient.  You need a source of microbes to jump start the process, either a little compost from the previous batch, or a bag of organic compost from the garden center. Also a sprinkle of high nitrogen blood meal or granular urea can give the process a boost.

Also consider fireplace ash, straw, newspaper, wood chips, sawdust, etc.

The system is set up in two phases.  The collection bins and the processing bins.

Collection

The collection system is simply a number of plastic barrels or trash cans the hold in the individual ingredients until they are ready to mix.  Outside we need 2 trash cans with lids,around the 32 gal size.  One is for grass clippings and green material from the garden, and one for fallen leaves, wood chips and other dryer materials.  Leaves and garden debris need to be ground as finely as possible, usually by running over them with the lawn mower and vacuuming them into the grass catcher.

These collection containers are necessary because your source material tends to be seasonal.  Fallen leaves are abundant in the Fall when the grass cutting season has slowed down, and when the mowing season is in high gear in summer, the leaves have all been cleared away.  

In the Fall, I gather the leaves into black plastic trash bags.   I gather 12 bags full before the season is over; one for each month of the coming year.  Then I add about a quart of water to each bag and tie them loosely for use the following year.  Over the course of the year the leaves will break down slightly and form leaf mold.

Inside the house, we need a smaller container with a lid for kitchen waste, probably a 1-gallon size.  Consider an ice bucket, for example, or simply a large tupperware container.  Ideally, the items that go inside have been chopped up as small as possible for easier composting later.  In the office you need a wastepaper basket with a shredder on top of it for paper.  With properly fitting lids, the materials inside can be held until they are needed and then mixed in the proper ratios.  However, this process is usually driven by the kitchen scraps, which you don't want sitting around longer than necessary.

Finally, go to the garden center and buy a bag of cheap garden soil/potting soil/ compost.  You want to get something with active microflora that is finely broken down, without big pieces of wood still present.

Filling the composter

Filling the barrel is phase 2.  Once you have a supply for each of your source materials, you will combine them in layers inside a 32-gal plastic trash can.  This barrel will be your primary composter.  The trash can will have a locking lid.  You should drill 1/2" holes throughout the can, about 6" apart.

Some gardeners like to put so many holes in the sides that it looks like mesh, But I actually think that too much air will simply dry out the compost and lead to inactivity.  Of course, having no holes will lead to anaerobic conditions that will also stop the composting.  You want the material damp without being sopping wet.

In the bottom of the bin, start with a base layer of the leaves you've collected. You want about 3-4 gallons from a bucket; just enough to create a 3-4" thick layer. The principle is to keep the layers thin, so they can interact with each other.  At the same time, you don't want to be measuring or having to think too hard.  Just find a bucket or scoop that's the appropriate size and use that for everything.

Next, each week you will start your collection building.  

• Add 3-4 gal of Grass clippings from your weekly mowing or other green materials
  
• on top of that is the Kitchen scraps. 
• Add 3-4 gal of brown materials like the Leaves you gathered in your plastic trash bags.  You should have enough in each bag for the four weekend layers.
  
• For the next layer, add a shovel full, or about 2 quarts of the commercial Compost.
• Finally, sprinkle about a quart of Water over the layer 

 The main reason for this weekly layering process is to incorporate the kitchen scraps that are constantly generated each week.

Processing

Put the lid on your trash can and store it outside on the ground.  

You will let this tub sit, undisturbed for 4 weeks.  Set a concrete block on top of the lid to discourage raccoons and other night time foragers.  The lid also keeps the contents from drying out and it presents a tidy appearance to the neighbors and visitors.  You can find a stick-on aquarium thermometer strip and apply it to the outside of the tub to monitor for raised temperatures that indicate composting action inside the bin.  However, this is likely to be a cold composting process.

Continue the layering process until the barrel is full. Then begin on the second barrel, while the first one finishes.

Turning the Bins

At the end of the four weeks, Turn the trash can on its side and roll it along the ground for a few complete turns. This causes the contents to mix and allows the moisture to redistribute throughout the contents.

Open the lid to evaluate what state it's in.  If this is the middle of the summer, you might be looking at quite a bit of compost activity already happening; but if its during the cooler winter months it may be less further along.

Re-energize the bin by scattering a layer of alfalfa pellets or other nitrogen source.  Check the moisture, at this point. Add more water if it seems dry, or more shredded leaves if it is too wet.  Check the underside of the lid for condensation, which can be an indicator of the barrel having enough water.  Now put the top back on and let it sit for another four weeks to compost in place.

As compost ages, it shrinks in size.  Because of this, it is perfectly acceptable to combine bins as you turn them.  This also frees up another tub to start a new batch.

Tumbling

If you have a tumbling composter, you can also put that to use for faster results.  After a barrel has sat for four weeks, instead of turning it into a new bin, add it to the empty tumbler.  As before, you will check the dryness and add water if its too dry.  Also add the 1/4 C of blood meal, as well.

Ideally, you will try to turn the tumbler every day, but try for several times a week at a minimum. 

Ongoing Cycle

Composting is a long process.  There's no escaping that, even if you have a tumbler. Experienced gardeners think in terms of 6 months up to 12 months of composting before you have anything resembling garden soil.  The weeding and trimming from your garden in October might be ready for adding to the garden the following March to May.  It's important to have realistic expectations for your composting efforts.  However, if you can add two bins of rich compost to your garden bed as a top dressing once a year, you will significantly improve the nutrient profile and add important organic material to the soil.  Then, if you mulch with grass clippings in the summer, and mulch with shredded leaves in the fall, this process can maintain a very fertile garden year after year.

In an ideal situation, you could have multiple barrels of composting active at the same time.  As long as you have an empty trash can and enough source materials, you can set up as many bins as you wish. 

Alternately, you may want to process the whole works on a single weekend and then let the bins sit for a month.  Composting can only benefit from benign neglect, which gives it more time to work. The benefit of this system is that it is modular and can be scaled up or down to match your level of activity or interest.  Are you going to be busy for the next several months?  Nothing will be affected if you let the bins sit.  On the other hand, if you have lots of materials on hand and don't want to lose the opportunity, you can make up as many bins as you wish and turn them often.  Then, you can scale back later when you have less time.

What are the benefits to this system?

The common complaint with composting is that it is a messy process with an uncertain outcome and very little volume to show for it at the end. No one wants to deal with kitchen scraps more than once. and an enormous pile of yard and garden debris with kitchen scraps can an unsightly nuisance for neighbors in an urban or suburban setting.  Giant 3-bin composters made from wooden pallets or 4x4 posts and fencing carry a huge footprint in a small backyard, and require considerable effort to turn.

Often a compost pile will dry out, bringing the organic process virtually to a halt and creating a desiccated brush pile.  Sometimes, well-meaning instructors get caught up in the nitrogen-carbon ratios and can make the whole process seem highly technical.  And finally, you can labor over your compost heap for six months or more, turning and tumbling and balancing week after week, only to come out with a few shovels-full of partially decomposed matter that's suitable for burying in a back corner of your garden.

From composting, you want:

1. Easy set up. By setting up layers in your bins, you establish the right ratios normally.  And you are working with smaller manageable sizes.  There's no heavy construction work in building the bins.
2. Low maintenance.  Set it and forget it and let nature do its work. Turn your compost over once a month, or let it go longer if you need to.  Nothing will happen to it, tucked away inside its barrels, other than to slowly compost into garden soil.  The small size of the trash can makes turning them manageable and not particularly strenuous.
3. Small, discrete footprint. The tubs with lids are self contained and present a neat overall appearance.  You can tuck a few bins in the corner of your garden or up against the garden shed.  When you don't need them anymore, the tubs can be nested and stored out if sight, returning the area to its former appearance.
4. High volume.  You want this to be an abundant source of soil for your garden, not a few meager handfuls. The trash cans are scalable, meaning you can have as many or as few of them as you want. 

Summer Seedlings: day 14

I'm following the summer crops that have been seeded in the Aerogarden seed starter.

We've just reached the 14-day mark, and I've re-filled with water and added nutrients.  We should be good for another two weeks.

Foliage

Here is what they look like on day 14:

Top view:

It appears like there is good solid growth on most species.  I would say that the Nasturtiums are doing less well than the others with yellowing of some leaves even while they continue to produce more leaves.

 Roots

The view from the underside tells more of the story:

Tomato root growth is abundant, as is the growth from the Dill and Basil.  These roots are lengthy and intertwined, possibly reaching the maximum needed for seed starting.  The pepper roots are coming along nicely, but they still have some development left

Tomatoes

The first thing that stands out is that the tomatoes have exploded.  They aren't too leggy yet, and they are not pressed up against the lights, but they have certainly grown effusively.  As I look closely, I can see that most cells germinated 3 and 4 seeds, leading to an abundance of stems.  I knew that I would have to thin, and that moment is obviously upon me.

So I trimmed the tomatoes back to 2 stems per cell and this is the result:

They're not noticeably different, but are in a better place for the future.  All seedlings are putting out their 3rd set of leaflets.  Some of these leaflets are protruding out beyond the grow lights.

 Roots like these are long, branching, and intertwined.  Some rootlets will be broken when separating them for transplanting.

Putting all the information together:

• Weaker stems have been removed, so we are down to the two strongest plants per cell
• Each plant is on its 3rd true leaf.
• Plant height is ample - not quite touching the overhead lights.  This is well beyond all other crops
• Leaves are beginning to extend beyond the lights, where they will probably wither from lack of light.
• Roots are well developed, branched, with fine rootlets.
• Any further root growth will likely be lost when separating the cells, due to breakage.

At the same time:

• the tomatoes will require me to raise the lights soon, even while other plants (like the basil) would benefit from having the lights closer.  
• the tomatoes are beginning to overshadow their neighbors, possibly restricting their growth.
• I am beginning to suspect that the tomatoes are hogging all the nutrients that the nasturtiums would like to use, leading to some yellowing

Taking all this information together, it looks like for the tomatoes, it is time to transplant them to pots under the fluorescent lights.  Any time this week they will be ready to go.  I would like for them to grow another leaf so that they have 4 true leafs before transplanting from the pot to the outside garden.  And some of these are destined for containers.

Herbs

 Meanwhile, the rest of the plants are developing nicely.  Peppers have modest leaf production above ground, and a few exploratory roots below the surface.  These plants look like they are good for another week or more in the Aerogarden.

The dill and nasturtiums are doing well, with good root growth and leaf development that is obviously a little further along than the peppers.  Any time after this weekend (day 21) these will be available for transplant into pots.

Summer Seeds

The time of the Cool Season crops is nearly over. My napa cabbage is going to seed, although the bok choi is beautiful. I know it's only a matter of time for it as well, though. I have been harvesting whole heads of cabbage and lettuce, recently, to hit the 1/3 target by the end of April, and that's mostly been achieved.
 April Challenges:
1. Remove and safely store the row covers. Well, the covers are removed, but I cant get a solid day of sunshine to dry them out for storage. So they are lying flat in the back yard.

2. Harvest at least 1/3 of your cool season crops. This has not been achieved. I've brought in 1/3 of my napa cabbage and butter crunch lettuce, but very little of the Bok Choi, Chard, and Kale. The last two freeze rather well. I definitely need to be more aggressive with my harvest.

3. Sow warm season seeds. Here, however, I've done much better.

 

Here, I have Tomatoes on the far right, Peppers in the center, Nasturtiums on the middle left, and a row of Dill on the far left.  Once again, I have been tremendously impressed with the Aerogarden's ability to sprout nearly everything.

Below are the dill, nasturtiums and peppers. Several of the Nasturtiums have come up, but not all of them have spread full cotyledons.  All the Dill is up, and most of the peppers but there are at least 2 cells that have produced nothing.

 

On the other side, the many rows of tomatoes are growing well.  I have three rows of tomatoes, with the third row (from the right) a patio cherry tomato that is designed to be self-dwarfing.  Other tomatoes include Roma, Better Boy.  Basil is in the fourth row.

 

I can see that 2-4 seeds sprouted per cell, so some painful thinning will have to take place in the future.  This is at about 7 days since sowing

April Harvest update

This month is the payoff of the winter garden.

Throughout the last two weeks, my harvest has been ongoing.  The lettuce, kale, cabbage, and chard have been abundant.  I have been snipping off individual outer leaves and it doesn't look like I have really made a dent in the lettuce.  It's gotten to the point where I have had to remove entire heads just to thin out the bed a bit.  The butter crunch lettuce is starting to form heads, which is very cool to see. I usually grow leaf lettuce and I wondered what arcane mystery was involved in this heading lettuce: it turns out the mystery happens all on its own.

I have removed the plastic row covers from the raised beds.   On the 17th, we had a low of 32 F. and on the 21st, we had a low of 36 F.  At this point, any danger of frost is over, and the cool evening temperatures would actually help these crops, to keep them from bolting.  The greater temperature concern now is from very high daytime temperatures inside the tunnel.

The other reason for the row covers is to give shelter against desiccating winds and soaking rains.  With the plants as substantial as they are, that is less of a worry.  The water table is lower so drainage is much better.  And the garden could probably benefit from any rainfall, at this point.

Hardening

Just wanted to confirm that I began hardening the Bok Choi outside for 2 hours.  It was an overcast day, with light drizzle that made it easy for the plants to start the journey outside.

Tomorrow, I will extend their stay into the evening, probably from 5 to 8pm.

the other plants are doing remarkably well, and the garden center starts are almost mature.  I mumbled something about waiting 2 weeks before harvesting, but I am nipping off outer leaves of the butter crunch lettuce already.

My replacement plugs arrived in the mail, and I purchased seeds to start in the Aerogarden.  This is the dilemma:  a package of seeds costs between $1.50 and $2.50.  With my limited garden space, I only have room for 5 or 6 tomato plants, total.  And when you consider the varietes, I really only need 1 or 2 cherry tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, beef steaks, and so on.  So I could spend $2.50 on my cherry tomato seed pack and then look at another 6 weeks of hopeful watching, tending, and transplanting, or I could pay $3.50 for a really nice and good sized nursery plant and start it directly in the garden when growing conditions were optimal.

If I was going to plant 20 paste tomatoes for my tomato sauce kitchen factory, it would absolutely make sense to start them from seed.  But if I only need 2 roma tomatoes for my garden this year, it might make sense to go to Home Depot and pick out one or two of the best, even if they are at a premium price.

Much of this answer depends on how easy it is to start seeds in the Aerogarden.  With the limited success I was having with the Jiffy pots, this was an open question, and the Minimalist Gardener in me had no trouble providing an answer;  let the garden center take the risk.  But considering how easy the Aerogarden started my leafy greens (bok choi and swiss chard) and how eagerly they took to transplanting in 3" pots and from there to the raised beds, it might be a simple decision to make after all.

This first test with tomatoes and peppers will be very informative.

April Garden Update

Last post, I talked about the seedlings, some of which were added to the outside raised beds.  But there are a few crops already planted and growing well.  At the very end of February I planted butter crunch lettuce, and this is what it looks like after 5 weeks of growing:

There are a couple of the new arugula transplants at the bottom right.

According to the planting information, the lettuce will be ready in 60 days, which would put it at the end of April. Realistically, I could begin harvesting individual outer leaves in about 2 weeks.












The Kale and Chard are at about the same place, having been planted a couple days later:

Transplant March 5

And the Napa cabbage trailed by about a week so it will be ready in early May.

Growing for 30 days - April 4

I harvested a few of the outside leaves this evening for some greens to stuff my gyros.  Perfectly sweet and tender. 

Seedling Update

So we are a little over two weeks since our last post, and I was mentioning that I would need to re-pot the Aerogarden soon, because the seedlings were outgrowing the current situation.   The post was on a Thursday, and I did, indeed transplant about half of the seedlings into larger pots that weekend.  These went out under the 4-tube fluorescent fixtures in the garage.

This included all of the Bok Choi, Some Arugula, and two Swiss Chard.  I planted the plugs into a larger plastic garden pot, using generic potting soil.  When I opened the Aerogarden, the roots had grown together into a thick matted tangle, which I had to separate out with careful fingers.  Roots were snapped along the way, and I had to coil some around the pot to make them all fit.  This suggests to me that I probably should have re-potted sooner.

I didn't loose any of them, though, and they all seemed to like the new light, on an 18-hour cycle.  I also gave them a weak feeding of miracle-gro.  After two weeks in the larger pots, they became as you see them above, still rather compact, but pressing on the lights.

Emboldened by their eagerness, I took a small sample of 4 Arugula and 2 Chard and planted them in my outside garden, after a couple of days of hardening.  The garage is not heated, so they hadn't been in a climate controlled area for many days, and I still have the low tunnels up to enhance the microclimate So we'll see how they do.

This is what they look like in the raised bed.

The Arugula above is definitely looking a little ragged and I'm hoping a bit of space will help them even out.  The spatulate leaves seem to be yellowing, but new leaves are showing in the interior that are deeply lobed in the Rocket style, and are a much nicer shade of deep green.

The chard, to the right, is in beautiful shape. With a rich red color on the stems and veins.

Both of these had roots throughout the pot, growing out the bottom and up the sides, so two weeks seemed to be plenty to get them ready for outdoors.

These were seeds that I planted in the Aerogarden on March 4th.  It's about 5 weeks later and they are ready for transplanting into the garden.  My calendar for their progress looks like this:

• Week 1: planted seeds into aerogarden plugs.  By the end of the first week, all the bok choi, arugula and chard had germinated.  One week for germination
• Week 2-3: weeks two and three, the seedlings grew well.  Water and nutrients were cycled and light was on a 24 hour cycle
• Week 4: In the middle of this week, I transplanted the Bok Choi, Chard and Arugula into small pots.  2.5 weeks in the Aerogarden as seedlings.
• Week 5: Grew for 1.5 weeks in transplant pots under fluorescent lights.  At the end of this week, I transplanted into the garden the first half of the re-potted seedlings.
• Week 6: This is the transplant's first week in the raised beds.  I still have all the bok choi in pots for one more week, giving them the full 6 week start cycle.

That gives me about 6 weeks from planting seed to transplanting into the raised bed.  And these are for simple plants.  It is likely that other plants (like tomatoes and peppers) take longer to germinate and require a longer growing out period before they are ready for the garden.

So that means that if I want to plant tomatoes and peppers in the first week in June, I need lead time of at least 6 weeks to prepare seedlings.  If that's true, I should be preparing to seed peppers and tomatoes soon.