Making Good Dirt

In order to get and maintain organic certification, an organic farmer must adhere to a strict set of guidelines, which include a prohibition of synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Growing healthy plants organically requires building fertile soil through careful management – encouraging a healthy ecosystem of molds, fungus, bacteria, and insects that do the work of converting their surroundings into plant food. The best way to do this is to add natural (organic) material that breaks down into usable nutrients as it decomposes.

As a self-anointed organic home gardener, I have only myself to answer to – no one is testing my soil for chemical residue, no one would know if I were dosing my plants with Miracle-Gro (or spraying poison on the circus sideshow of bugs). I adhere to organic methodology as a matter of sustainability and self-sufficiency, and out of concern for my local environment and my own, and my loved ones', health.

Composting is a cheap, clean, natural, local way to 'make' rich healthy soil. Pile up dead leaves, grass clippings, kitchen scraps, and as they rot they're magically transformed into deep dark dirt. It took us some time to get around to composting with any sort of reliable system. We dumped all our kitchen scraps into a big makeshift bin, and piled yard and garden detritus in a corner of the yard. We didn't fuss about variety or turn the piles or pay much attention at all, and every year we were able to take a shovelful or two from underneath to sprinkle around a shrub or a newly planted perennial.

For too many years, we paid dearly for larger quantities of compost 'made' by someone better organized, and paid again to have it delivered, and let 'Build compost bins' drop farther down the list for The Ten-Year Plan. But as the garden expanded, and as fuel prices went up, and as more and more folks took up vegetable gardening, compost from elsewhere became harder to come by and an absurd expense. TJ finally built a basic three-part enclosure, and we've been learning to manage our little dirt factory.

Each section is 4' x 4' x 4', with removable slats at the front (they slide in and out of grooves in the side posts). We load all the raw material into the bin on the left: any and all kitchen scraps (with the exception of meat or fish, which would attract critters), ash from the woodstove, whatever crud gets vacuumed up, old straw that's been used for mulching, grass clippings, a scoop here and there of dead leaves, dead plants from the garden (except for very woody stems or plants that tend to harbor disease or insects – these go on the burn pile), dirt from container plantings at the end of the season, the occasional cardboard box or wad of newspaper. We just keep piling it in; it compresses pretty quickly, so it takes a good 6 months or so for it to fill up. If I've got nothing better to do, I'll pull the slats and give it all a few turns with a fork (that blue-handled tool in the picture). When it's full, the contents get transferred to the middle bin; when that's well-decomposed, it gets moved to the right-most bin.

TJ moved the contents from the middle bin to the right back in the spring, and by this fall there was half a bin full of Black Gold.

I used several wheelbarrowfuls to top up two beds for planting our garlic.

Then I transferred all the contents from the left bin to the middle. By spring, it should be ready for transfer to the final stage where, by fall, it will be more Black Gold for the garden.

Fall is also a good time to load on the ultimate soil enhancer: manure. Our friends at Woodcock Farm have a massive pile of rotted sheepshit, and Mark is happy to fire up his tractor and load up the back of TJ's pickup truck for us. It was up to me to get it all out of the truck and onto the garden (as much a character-building exercise as a body-building one: it's the approximate consistency of partially set-up concrete, and it's...well, you know, shit). It's good stuff, though – full of rotted straw and loaded with wriggly red earthworms. My tomatoes will thank me next year.

TJ finished building the chicken coop this summer, so next spring I can get a clutch of chicks and start the beautiful cycle here at Bedrock Farm. All of the kitchen scraps will get fed to the chickens. They'll scratch up the dirt wherever we put them, eating bugs with abandon and leaving their poop behind to fertilize. And in return, they'll give us lovely fresh eggs. Can't wait.

Comments

[Carolyn Mora]

What a satisfying process, and beautiful pics. Who knew dirt and manure could look so good? Some of them appear to have that special effect that makes it look like a miniature scene. Now I keep picturing a dollhouse with real live tiny gardens and compost bins.