LA TIMES – So you likely spent a bundle on preparing your first victory garden last spring, with organic potting soils, compost and manures. Why should you have to go out to buy more for your cool-weather garden this fall?
Because the veggies you planted last spring devoured those beneficial microbes, said master gardener Yvonne Savio, creator of GardeningInLA.net, and your depleted soil needs another jolt to feed the greens and other goodies you want to grow this fall.
“The plants you grew this summer sucked up the energy and nutrition you put in your soil, just like it sucked up the moisture you put in the ground,” Savio said. “It’s like asking, ‘I ate dinner last Sunday. Why should I have dinner again this Sunday?’”
Like most garden experts, Savio preaches the benefits of feeding your soil, not your plants. In other words, forget about fertilizers and concentrate on building healthy, nutrient-rich soil.
When Ben Bessler graduated with an accounting degree from Northern Kentucky University, he didn’t expect his work would one day have him shoveling dirt and food scraps in his parents’ backyard. But what began as a hobby at home has grown into a budding business addressing an environmental challenge alongside an emerging consumer demand. [WATCH VIDEO]
“My wife and I were trying to compost in Park Hills, and we realized that it was kind of inconvenient to take our food outside to the compost bin every day, and then at the end of the week take it out to the garden,” he told WCPO. “We thought, maybe there’s a convenient way we can get people composting and make it easy and affordable.”
YES! Worms can be very beneficial to your garden. Nutrient-dense, rich garden soil is crucial to a successful vegetable garden. Healthy soil may include plenty of underground animal & plant activity, such as earthworms and fungi. Worms effortlessly increase the quality of your soil and are attracted to decaying matter while they consume bacteria and nematodes. They also excrete worm castings, which is gardener’s GOLD, or basically one of the best soil amendments you’ll find! Worm castings are rich in nutrients and minerals such as nitrogen, phosphates, and potassium. Overall, worms play an important part in soil construction and the recycling of organic waste.
Which Worms Are Best For Your Garden?
Red Wiggler Worms are often the most sought-after by seasoned gardeners. Although nightcrawler worms can be used, red wigglers are generally agreed upon as being the most effective when processing organic scraps.
Red Wiggler Worms LOVE eating organic scraps! They usually won’t be found more than a foot or so deep beneath the soil. Look for them as they burrow within compost heaps, animal manure, or piles of leaves. You can also try sourcing them through a local worm farm shop, bait shop or garden center.
“A real handy and functional item to have in your garden is a worm tower. Not only are the worms fertilizing your soil, but you have a handy “compost garbage” bin at your fingertips. It very easy and inexpensive to make. A bucket, drill with bit and a shovel, that’s it.” – The Abled Gardener
How To Use Worm Castings In Your Garden
“Using worm castings in your garden provides your soil and plants powerful, organic nutrients that help your garden be healthy and productive. In this video, we’ll share what worm castings are, why they are so powerful, and how to use them to feed your garden.” – CaliKim29 Garden & Home DIY
This month, Green Umbrella’s Greater Cincinnati Food Policy Council announced that the long-awaited Urban Agriculture Zoning Ordinance has finally passed in the City of Cincinnati. With this legislation comes increased freedom for residents and communities to take their food security into their own hands.
The Greater Cincinnati Food Policy Council is a formal initiative of Green Umbrella. Its mission is “to advance a healthy, equitable, and sustainable food system” across all of Greater Cincinnati. The council works to address systematic and legislative changes that affect food systems and access on a community level.
The council program manager, Michaela Oldfield, says that this legislation is good news for Cincinnati residents as it cleans up the rules and regulations surrounding things like community gardens, backyard gardening, small-scale urban farming, and community composting.
Post YOUR practical container gardening tips and encourage others to grow their own food. Share your gardening pictures, tips, or questions today. 🤗See you there! 💪Let’s build this community!
The concept of a permaculture garden is to provide long-term solutions that maximize outputs and minimize inputs while cycling energy and resources through the system. This creates closed-loop efficiency within your system and prevents excess waste. In fact, one of permaculture’s most favored sayings is ‘there’s no such thing as waste, just things in the wrong place’.
Hugelkultur is a great example of recycling resources on your site to create long-term fertility in the soil. In doing this, you create beds that become more productive over time, helping to produce better quality crops with higher yields.
Once our bodies are “preserved” and sealed into wooden or metal caskets, they are buried in vast fields of granite tombstones, along with nearly a million gallons of formaldehyde per year.
These cemeteries or “memorial parks” — which together use up a million acres of otherwise fertile U.S. land — are typically covered in heavily watered and synthetically fertilized lawns.
But dying doesn’t have to harm the earth. Burying our bodies directly into the soil without any chemical preservatives would actually enrich it, as it has done for millions of years.
Unfortunately, this ancient, natural way of handling death doesn’t sit well with civilized people who are terrified of the thought of putting bodies directly into the earth and letting them decompose (somehow we’ve convinced ourselves trying to mummify them is less creepy).
A new process called “human composting” or “recomposition” makes the process less scary for people.
Whenever I cook or use up the eggs that are in my refrigerator, I always make sure to save the shells so that I can use them again for one of these many garden-specific applications. It doesn’t seem to take long to accumulate a huge baking sheet of eggshells that I can then bake to dry and clean.
Consider these tips for using eggshells, and implement them in your garden this spring.
#1. Fertilizer
Ground eggshells serve as a fantastic source of calcium for your plants. While you can put them into the soil or toss them out into your garden whole, it may be more effective for you to dry and grind them first.
This will help keep any scavenging pests away and also allow them to break down more quickly, releasing their nutrients back into the soil more rapidly.
Most people don’t realize this, but many soil types are deficient in calcium. This is especially true if your soil has been exposed to extensive tilling or has seen lots of cultivation in the last few years.
Calcium is vital for building healthy cell walls in a plant – which are essentially the “bones” of the organism. Plants need calcium for these cell wall s just as we need calcium for our bones!
Eggshells decompose quickly because they have a high surface area to volume ratio. To add eggshells to your soil, you don’t have to dry them first or even grind them up – although keep in mind that ground eggshells will break down more quickly.
While you can till calcium into the soil at any time during the planting season, there are two best times to add eggshells to your garden. The first is when you’re planting in the spring.
Simply grind up your eggshells into a fine powder, and then place them at the bottom of the hole before you plant. This will help all of your plants, but particularly tomatoes, thrive. You can even mix your eggshells with coffee grounds, which provide lots of nitrogen. Together, the two pack a powerful dose of plant-boosting nutrients.
You can also add eggshells in the fall or in the spring in their whole forms, but remember that they will take longer to break down. In addition to providing your soil with lots of calcium, eggshells can also reduce the acidity of your soil and provide a nice aerating effect – a must if you have heavy, compacted soils.
Look for plants that have healthy foliage and no roots creeping out of the nursery container’s bottom drain holes (which means they’re probably rootbound).
2. Small is smarter
When you have a choice, buy little plants (in 4-inch nursery pots); they’re less expensive (usually under $5), easier to handle, and will catch up to the larger ones with winter rains. Smaller plants are your best bet if you need multiples to fill out a bed. Gallon-size plants, on the other hand, start around $10 each but can provide instant effects.
3. Check plant tags
Find out how big the plants will grow, and whether they need sun or shade. Then choose plants that will thrive in the spot you have in mind for them. “Full sun,” for example, means you should plant in a spot that gets at least six hours of sun a day.
4. Consider compost
Unless you have your own compost pile at home, or perfect garden soil that drains well, buy bagged compost to add to the soil before planting annuals, edibles, and many ornamentals (trees and native plants generally do not need added compost). It’s often sold at nurseries in 1- and 2-cubic-foot bags, and in bulk at garden suppliers. Avoid bagged compost that looks as though it has been piled and stored in hot sun for months—it won’t do much for your soil.
“SINGAPORE — IT’S HARD not to miss the giant black flies that flit within the white net enclosures at Insectta, Singapore‘s first licensed insect farm. The swarm of flies looks like something from the start of the apocalypse, but these flying insects are not here to mark humanity’s downfall – in fact, they may be here to save it.
Singapore is experiencing a trash crisis. Some predict the world’s second most-densely populated city will run out of room in its landfill by 2035. According to figures from the country’s National Environment Agency, while recycling rates for food waste are going up in Singapore, residents still threw away 676,800 metric tons of food in 2017. Only 16 percent of this was recycled – the rest went to the landfill.
Yet there may be a solution, according to a group of urban farmers and scientists in this Southeast Asian city-state, and it’s one that has been buzzing under everyone’s noses all along.
Living within the jungles of Singapore is the black soldier fly – nature’s own waste disposal unit. When its larvae are born, they voraciously eat almost any food waste left in their way. The sleek tropical insect is now being intentionally brought into the city by two entrepreneurial farmers, Darren Ho and Ng Jia Quan, who have created Insectta – an insect farm in the residential area of Queenstown. The goal of Ho, a natural resources management graduate, and Ng, a former chef, is to adopt sustainable farming practices that reduce urban waste and embrace the natural, eco-friendly food cycle long a feature of the island.”
“Since moving to Nicaragua, a day doesn’t go by when we bite into produce grown here and taste the bitter flavor of chemicals. The use of these chemicals goes back generations. This, along with a changing climate and five years of drought has had a devastating impact on the environment, depleted soil quality, and caused malnutrition. With your support we can build a hands-on farm model that teaches sustainable growing methods, nutrition education, and improves health for families and children.”
What Mesa Sostenible Looks Like Now:
So far they have been successful at securing land, and growing various plant varieties from seed in two small greenhouses. They’ve also started a composting initiative to help reduce waste and promote soil health.
What Mesa Sostenible Can Look Like with Your Help and Support:
The GOAL is to build a sustainable, working farm that will provide the community and visitors a-like the experience to participate in a unique and memorable educational experience in sustainable farming, living & healthy food preparation.
“MESA Sostenible aims to have the following social, environmental and economic impacts:
Demonstrate the importance of year-round crop diversity to reduce malnutrition through a varied diet and nutrition education.
Increase soil fertility and reduce topsoil erosion.
Eliminate agricultural chemicals used on productive land.
Maximize rainwater infiltration and on-site treatment to improve ground water storage through water harvesting techniques.”
Here’s The Plan:
Our goal is to raise $95,000 in funds to bring the MESA Sostenible Sustainable Farm and Nutrition Kitchen to life.
Let Us Compost is a curbside composting service for homes, businesses and events. They started in 2012 with one truck and this year they began picking up by bike. They currently pick up from over 170 homes and businesses. Customers are given a bucket, kitchen pail and biodegradable bags when they sign up and simply place their food waste into the kitchen pail then dump the pail into the bucket when its full. The pail is put on the curb just like a garbage can and it is picked up weekly. Let Us Compost empties it into the trailer, gives the bucket a little refresher spray, and leaves more biodegradable bags made from plants.
The food waste is then brought to their plot at the local community garden where they have made 325,000 pounds of compost already. It then comes full circle as its sold back to their customers to be used in their gardens. Plus they give some away for free to the community gardens in town.
Half of all food is wasted in the USA, most of which goes to a landfill to rot and emit methane which contributes greatly to climate change. Let Us Compost is part of the solution to both food waste and climate change.
Plants require important nutrients for proper growth. By making sure your soil is a welcoming place for earthworms you can help create excellent soil structure with adequate aeration and drainage. “Earthworms help create humus—a dark brown-black type of soil which holds important nutrients in place for plant growth and use. ”
Earthworm Farm (composting bin)
Earthworm castings are well known to be high in nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. All three of these minerals are needed for healthy plant life. “Earthworm castings also help bind calcium, iron, and sulfur to soil particles—minerals that also help plants thrive.”
“Adding chopped leaves, grass clippings, semi-rotted compost, and animal manure to your garden will encourage earthworms to take up residence in your garden, be active, and thrive.”
Urban Organic Gardener Interviewing Rob from “Bits Out The Back”:
How would you quickly describe yourself to others?
I’m a stay at home dad that’s very interested in growing as much nutritionally dense food as I can to help improve our health and reduce our dependence on the industrialized food system. We live in SE Queensland Australia in a subtropical climate and are lucky enough to be able to grow 12 months a year. Most of our food is grown in self watering wicking/sub irrigated garden beds but also have an ever expanding aquaponic system that has been pumping out a lot of herbs, greens and tomatoes of late. We also have 3 chickens that we quite happily feed scraps to and in return they provide us with a couple of eggs a day.
How did you get started with your blog/facebook page/etc?
I initially started to post on our “Bits Out the Back” blog that was mainly focused on how we were setting up our small garden patch. Friends and family were interested in seeing more of what we were doing, so I started to post Vlogs (video blogs) onto our YouTube channel to share with them. I found video to be the easiest medium to show what was happening around the patch as many of my relatives and friends live interstate. I think video helps people get a better idea on how to replicate some of the projects I do, especially intricate ones like the aquaponics, chicken feeders and wicking bed builds.
I started our Facebook page and Instagram account as an extension to our YouTube channel. People were interested in our harvests and daily goings on around the patch and I found using Facebook, Instagram and G+ sites were a great way to do small mini updates for them.
Did you start your blog when you started your transition to live this life style?
Growing up my grandparents on both sides of the family had quite impressive vegetable gardens and were able to provide the majority of the veggies and fruit for themselves as well as pass on excess to family. To me this was a normal way of life and only when I got older did I see that many folks did not grow their own food or had stopped, becoming disconnected to how their food is grown/raised.
I started looking at growing food seriously in my mid 20’s when Bianca and I started living together. We had no internet then and only just really plodded along getting inspiration from self sufficiency magazines and making phone calls back to my parents when we needed advice. After we were connected to the web a whole new world opened up and I started to get inspiration from all over the place.
Have you always been growing your own food? If not, what sparked your passion?
I grew a few plants like basil, tomatoes as well as salad greens just before Bianca and I started to live together in the mid 90’s. We didn’t seriously try to grow a lot of food until after our first daughter was born in 1998 when we started a rather substantial container based veggie patch. Gotta love rentals.
A few years after buying our small urban property we decided to turn a lot of the backyard to food production. We decided to do this, not only help ease the grocery bill but to also provide us with food that tasted a lot better and hopefully more nutritious than what was on offer in the local stores.
“Brain Tomatoes” grown organically on the Urban Farm
Have you ever made mistakes or failed doing something? How did you overcome any obstacles?
Am very chuffed at how the new grow bed is going. “Looking at adding a very small NFT run at the front of this bed.”
😀 I’ve made MANY mistakes and had a few quite spectacular crop failures since starting out.
Our first raised garden beds were a bit of a mistake. We had bought in soil from a landscape supplier to fill our garden beds, added in some clay Wetpot irrigation devices, planted out our veggies and all was growing great for the first few months. After 2 or 3 months the plants started to look a bit wilted and we started to get the odd 1 or 2 that mysteriously died off. On closer inspection it turned out that roots from our mango and some Chinese elm trees growing on the fence line had decided to take over the beds depriving the veggies of their water. We were also facing heavy water restrictions at that time, due to drought (similar to California is now) and after some research we decided to rebuild all the beds and turn them into water efficient wicking garden beds and haven’t looked back since.
Have lost whole tomato and capsicum/sweet pepper crops to the pesky Queensland fruit fly along with quite a few brassicas crops to the dreaded cabbage butterfly. We did a bit of research and found methods that work for us (exclusion netting) to save the crops now but it was a very steep learning curve at the beginning.
Through all our misadventures we have learnt a lot and found many like minded folks out there that have helped us out.
A regular “picking” from Rob’s Urban Garden
Have you ever dealt with a person who disregards your life style?
Have come up against a little bit of resistance from extended family members but nothing too serious. What I find more shocking is the couple of times I have had people ask me if we were allowed to grow our own food. I must say it took me very much by surprise and really shows how disconnected some people have become to believe they are not allowed to grow food.
What are some of your greatest rewards with a lifestyle such as the one you live?
The greatest reward would have to be being able to provide nutritious fresh food for the family that has been grown free of toxic chemicals. That it takes less than 15 min for that food to make it from plant to plate is also a bonus. 😉
Being able to share how easy and rewarding it can be to grow your own food with others via the WWW is something that I’m grateful for. Not only have we learnt from others but have also made dozens of friends along the way. I love that I can ask questions or get inspired by their posts no matter where they live in the world.
2 Jade Perch raised in their own aquaponic system.
What tips and tricks would you like to share with other people?
First tip I would give anyone looking at growing their own food would be to start small and start now. I can guarantee you that once you’ve tasted your first tomato and basil on a homemade pizza, you’ll be hooked.
Don’t be disheartened if it doesn’t work. Have made plenty of mistakes here and have found that they are a great way to learn. I try not to take life to seriously, laugh off all the mishaps and try again.
Make your own compost and feed the soil is the best practical tip I could give. That’s one lesson I wish I’d learnt when I first started. It would have to be the best ways to help you grow nutrient dense healthy food while recycling waste and feeding the soil at the same time.
What are some of the other things you would like to have other people understand about living a healthier and self-sufficient life style?
I find it extremely rewarding to be able to say I’m responsible for the production of a portion of my own healthy and nutritious food, something that only 2 generations ago was a given for a lot of families.
Starting off a garden is also a great way to educate kids and the local community as to how easy it is to be able to provide for yourself. Our garden has helped create these types of conversations with visitors, neighbors, friends and family, and has also inspired some to create their own gardens, which in-turn has gone on to inspire others to have a go at growing their own.
What are your favorite plants to grow in the garden?
That’s a hard question as there are so many. Some of my favorite plants to grow at the moment would have to be greens like Okinawan spinach, kang kong, sweet potato leaf, rice paddy herb, Thai basil, Chinese cabbage. All of these veggies go into a very quick and fresh Asian inspired salad I like to make. The ginger spice family is another group of plants I love to grow. Broccoli and cauliflowers are also favourites. We only get to grow them during winter here so have been eating quite a bit over the past few weeks.
“Compost is a mixture that consists largely of decayed organic matter and is used for fertilizing and conditioning land. Home composting reduces the need for water, fertilizers, and pesticides and encourages a higher yield in crops. Consisting of nutrient-rich brown and green material, compost creation is low-maintenance and can be done on both small and large scales.”
Creating your own compost will save you money and is easy to do! With compost starters like Ringer® Compost Plus available to help organically speed up the process, you can start reaping the benefits of your own compost in no time. Your plants and the environment will thank you.” – This infographic, brought to you by Avant Garden Decor, home of Gardener’s Blue Ribbon® vegetable gardening products, shares intriguing facts regarding home compost production and its benefits.
I thought I would share some Photos of my Doggie Poo Compost. I have two dogs which have no concept of moderation. LOL. I use recycled wine barrels each barrel is in a different stage of composting. I don’t use this compost on my vegetable Garden, but rather in my flower beds , and Lawn. I mix shredded Paper with the doggie Poo. I’m using a mix of composting worms. Mostly European Night Crawlers, I was using Indian Blue but last winter was so cold they were almost wiped out. They do a great job turning the waste product in to usable compost. I think this is a great way of keeping the pathogens out of our landfills and water supply. Compost Happens.. — Read the full “Doogie Poo Compost” post
To be clear, you shouldn’t use it in your vegetable garden and only use it in your flower beds.
…But you don’t know where to store it before you compost it.
It’s too much of a hassle to bring it to your compost bin each time. I hear you on that.
This is why it’s important to have a kitchen compost pail readily accessible.
6 Features Your Kitchen Compost Pail Should Have
A lid that fits tightly.
Enough space to fit your food scraps.
Style – which is debatable.
Easily washable.
Easily transportable. Preferably with a handle.
Fits on your kitchen counter or close to your cutting board.
If aesthetics is your thing, there are some stylish kitchen compost pails available.
It’s not necessary to buy one though. The next time you go to the supermarket or deli, ask them if they have any 1-gallon containers with a lid that they were throwing away.
How can that title not grab your attention?
You know 
