It's too cold to work in the garden today (what with little flurries of snow still dancing through the air every few hours or so) but we did manage to do some related prep work- we went and got a few bags of lovely Alpaca manure to fertilize the garden with. Alpaca (a type of fluffy llama raised for it's wool) poo is great fertilizer! Their digestive system is very efficient, and while it doesn't contain as much organic matter as horse or cow, you can add it straight to your garden bed without composting it. This makes it a "cold" fertilizer, much like goat and rabbit droppings. Other manures are richer in nutrients and organic matter, but adding it directly to a planting bed with out letting them have a period of type to break down (compost) will overwhelm and kill your plants.
Gardening 101:
So, since I brought it up, let's dive into composting! Composting has tons of benefits for both you and your garden. You can help eliminate noxious kitchen odors from your trashcan and save space in our ever filling dumps and land fills while conditioning and feeding your soil and the plants that grow in it! And you don't need a ton of space or expensive equipment to do it. My compost pile sits on an old wooden pallet in one corner of the garden.
Google compost and you will get a lot of information! To make things worse, a lot of it's conflicting. Some say to turn your pile often, others say don't turn it at all. Some preach a strict ratio of green nitrogen rich components to brown carbon rich components and others just toss in what ever they have on hand, willy-nilly. For someone just trying to get started this can be a lot of stuff to absorb and sift through. The truth is, every living thing will eventually break down and return to the earth after it's death. The thing we want to accomplish is to make sure it happens in a way and at a time frame that's convenient to us. For your common everyday home compost pile, you won't necessarily need everything perfect. In fact the easiest form of composting you can do is referred to as cold composting. Simply pile organic material -kitchen scraps, lawn clipping, leaves, etc.- where you want your pile to be and let nature take it's course. The down sides of this are that it's not a very fast way to get compost as it can takes months to a year or more to get usable soil. You'll also want to avoid any weeds that have gone to seed as the temps in the pile will not get high enough to kill their seeds.
I tend to take a haphazard middle ground which works for my purposes. I don't keep track of green to brown stuffs, mostly because I can't control how much I accumulate of each or when. I just throw all of my stuff that I get on the pile when ever I get it. I do turn my pile and during the main gardening season when I'm in there everyday I'm probably going to be turning the pile every day as part of my routine, but if I forget a day or two it's not a big deal and it almost goes with out saying that it doesn't get turned at all in winter. The one thing I do tend to religiously is making sure the pile stays moist. After all this, it still takes a couple of months rather than weeks, but I don't need anything more than that, really.
There are tings you should never put it your compost pile though:
- Meat or dairy, these will stink, and attract scavengers.
- Cat and dog waste, these pets are carnivorous by nature and have organism in their digestive tracts that can be harmful to people.
Some people make an exception to the meat rule for fish parts. Fish is an excellent source of nitrogen and other nutrients for your plants, but you'll need to decide for your self if you want to deal with the smell and the possibility of it attracting animals. To minimize both if you do add fishy bits, try to bury them in the middle of the pile.
And that's it for today. Happy gardening, everyone!
