| Welcome to our dirty, rotten neighborhood! |
Just like a nice compost pile, this site is forever in the process of becoming.
Please check back for photos, news, and a stream of nifty new ways to compost in your garden! Not just ways to use compost in your garden (we have those, too), but new ways to compost and grow veggies, herbs and flowers, all at the same time.
Check out Deb's Diary and Barbara's Journal as they continue here. If you have a great method or composting project you think others should try, tell us about it. We'll do our best to spread the word.
Thanks for stopping by!
Barbara Pleasant and Deb Martin
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| Can You Compost Pet Waste?
By Barbara, July 12, 2008
Where I used to live, I had to patrol the yard with a spade a special doo-bucket before I mowed if I wanted clean clippings for mulching the vegetable garden. I threw ol' Ruby's treasures into a wooded ditch, but lacking such a resource, more and more people have begun composting their pets' manure in special pits or buried buckets. Canada's Office of Urban Agriculture has assembled some nice pictures of a low-tech system made from a medium-size plastic garbage can that's been perforated with holes. It gets buried in a hole located away from edible plants.
A well-executed pet waste compost pit certainly can work, but please proceed mindfully. Under no circumstances should compost made from dog or cat feces be used in soil where edible plants are grown, or where small children are likely to play in the mud.
Want to know what's in there? Here's a solid example. An experienced pet owner and composter in Eugene, OR, composted her dog doo in a plastic bin. Every 6 months or so, she emptied the bin's contents into a container and let it mature for a year.
Compost specialists at the City of Eugene obtained samples and tested it for salmonella, coliform bacteria, and other nasties. "We then allowed the material to sit for another 6 months and tested it again, hoping time and microbial competition would bring the material into the "safe" level," wrote compost specialist Anne Donahue. "It didn't."
Eighteen months after the crumbly-looking compost was set aside to cure, it still contained enough microbial pathogens to contaminate a planting of leafy greens.
Dog and cat manure can be composted, and probably should be composted when it is practical to do so. Include a long curing time (pathogen levels in the Eugene study did drop steadily as time went on) and always wear gloves when you handle the material. Keep the project in a place that drains away from food crops. When the compost is ready to use, spread it under shrubs or ornamental trees, and then cover it with a biodegradable mulch. |
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| Plant-killing Herbicide Persists in Manure |
July 2, 2008
By Barbara
Composters, beware! A herbicide sold under the trade names of Forefront® and Milestone® has ruined hundreds of gardens in Great Britain, and it can happen here, too. Used mostly to control perennial weeds in pastures, the herbicide can survive being digested by horses – and then being piled up for months as compost. Especially sensitive plants such as lettuce, beans and tomatoes refuse to grow and wither when planted in soil that contains very small amounts of residue. These herbicides do not injure grasses, so they are often used in fields where manure-producing animals graze.
Registered with the EPA in 2005, Forefront® and Milestone® are chemically similar to Confront®, the herbicide that survived commercial composting and went on to contaminate gardens in Washington eight years ago. These products are widely available at farm supply stores across the country. Anyone can buy them.
Be selective if you decided to import manure for composting projects. Manure from animals that have fed in pastures that have been treated with these pesticides should be considered unsuitable for garden use.
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COMPOST GARDENER'S DIGEST
Norman, Oklahoma, June 5, 2008
Who says mulch-quality compost isn't hot stuff? A dozen firefighters had to douse the flames when brisk winds fueled the flames of a spontaneously ignited fire in Norman's city compost pile. Workers said they often see little fires break out in the compost, but they can usually put them out by covering them up.
Washington County, Maryland
Writing in the Herald-Mail, lifestyle reporter Julie Greene checks in with local composters and then brings the story together with a quick video.
What do bikes and compost have in common? Check this video on pedal-powered compost to see how some enterprising folks from Montreal have brought the two together.
Composting lots of coffee grounds? In Lane County, Oregon, extension researchers are finding that coffee grounds can heat up compost better than manure. These folks are carefully tracking the effects of aerated compost tea on roses, too, and we're not surprised that the results so far show no reduction in disease for roses sprayed every two weeks over a two year period.
If you have basic carpentry skills and tools to match, you can build you own Double-Decker Drum Composter based on this nicely-illustrated how-to from instructables.com.
It could be argued that everything they do on Capitol Hill is a little off subject, but Josephine Hearn's From Capitol Hill to the Compost Pile is fun reading!
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