Category: Compost

Make Your Own Compost Bin from Pallets

By Ivonne Vazquez There are many methods for making compost and just as many types of compost bins. I’m going to focus on building a cold compost bin using wooden pallets. Why Cold Compost? Cold composting is a method of composting in which you do not regularly turn your compost pile. It is easy to

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Humus is Dead (Long Live Humus)

A discussion on soil organic matter, hummus is the tasty chickpea dish. By Caleb Goossen, Ph.D. The word “humus” has been used to describe soil organic matter since the late 18th century, deriving from the same word in Latin, which simply meant soil. Beyond referring generally to the layer of a soil profile rich in

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Bokashi A Compost Alternative

Fig. 1 – A VermiTek drain pan. Fig. 2 – The VermiTek drain pan installed Fig. 3 – The completed VermiTek bin with tamper By Adam Tomash Photos by the author I love to compost stuff and have been doing it for 50 years – the last 40 in Maine, with its cold winter. I

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Homemade Bokashi Bucket

A Gamma Seal bucket Holes drilled in the bottom of the top Gamma Seal bucket Italian Bottling Spigot with nut and two washers Drain stopcock installed in the bottom bucket By Adam Tomash Photos by the author My last article on bokashi (the Japanese word for “fermented organic matter” and a way to compost; see

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Compost

From the Farmer to Farmer Conference • November, 1997 Spring comes. You transplant your seedlings into a potting mix made with your own (or purchased) compost. Your seedlings, which were healthy, green and growing before being transplanted, turn yellow and may even shrink. What went wrong? As participants at MOFGA’s Farmer to Farmer Conference learned from

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Composting Tips

By Adam Tomash 1. Materials. Brown materials are high in carbon, green materials are high in nitrogen. Mix the two in rough proportions of 2 volumes of brown to 1 volume of green to achieve a C:N ratio of 25:1 to 40:1. Remember that different sources of nitrogen have differing amounts of nitrogen; e.g., alfalfa

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Compost Tea

By Eric Sideman A book from the 1950s by J.I. Rodale called the Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening refers to ‘compost water.’ “It is no trouble to make,” writes Rodale. “All you have to do is fill a sprinkling can half with finished compost and half with water.” Rodale points out that some of the valuable

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Composting

Master Gardeners provided this display of compost containers and a thermometer at Brae Maple Farm one summer. They include a rotating drum (Compos-Tumbler), a bin made from recycled plastic and one made from pallets. A series of three wooden bins in a row (made from pallets or constructed of wood) will enable a gardener to

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Bocashi

By Jean English Bocashi is fermented organic material that has been used traditionally in Japan (where it’s spelled ‘bokashi’) as fertilizer. Making bokashi is an ancient art in Japan, with many recipes, often handed down (sometimes along with bokashi starter) through families. According to the Fall 2004 issue of La Cosecha, the publication of Sustainable

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