| 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.
Do you have cool composting methods to share? Please tell us about them! We'll do our best to spread the word. Thanks for stopping by!
Barbara Pleasant and Deb Martin
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Using Homemade Compost as Fertilizer
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By Barbara, April 10, 2012
Compost is a bio-fertilizer that feeds the soil first, by replenishing and invigorating the soil food web. The diversity of microorganisms present in soils that are regularly enriched with compost helps plants resist diseases and grow better, but the levels of major nutrients in homemade compost is usually quite low (below 1-1-1 when subjected to fertilizer analysis). This is not good enough for most vegetables, which require much higher levels of nitrogen, the growth nutrient, than is typically found in homemade compost that does not include animal manure. To grow great vegetables, you need bioactive compost for your soil and organic fertilizer for your plants. Why not put them together to create a high-energy organic soil fertilizer? Lately this has become one of my favorite hobbies. Read More...
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| Composting Colors
Just in time for Compost Awareness Week 2008, a cool graphic designer in the UK created a Compost Heap Palette. We think he did a great job capturing the delicate hues of spring in the compost garden.
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| Are SunChips Bags Really Compostable? |
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| Barbara Pleasant and Deb Martin |
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| By Barbara and Deb
September 28, 2009
It took us more than a year to write The Complete Compost Gardening Guide. We had many new methods to try, and what seemed like endless experiments with leaves. When we finally finished, an incredible creative team assembled by the pros at Storey Publishing turned our manuscript into the most comprehensive yet readable book on home composting ever written. Our peers agree! Last weekend we attended the 61st Annual Garden Writers Association Symposium in Raleigh, NC, and accepted our Silver Award of Achievement in Book Writing. We feel honored to have received this vote of confidence from others who work hard to help more people have fun in their gardens!
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| Plant-killing Herbicide Persists in Manure |
By Barbara
Updated July 16, 2009
We had our fingers crossed that it wouldn’t happen, but it has. Gardeners across the US and Canada are seeing failed tomato and bean crops due to manure, mulch and/or compost contaminated with the herbicide aminopyralid. Manufactured by Dow and sold under numerous trade names, including Milestone, this herbicide can persist in hay, manure, compost or garden soil for up to 3 years, or more! Before using manure or hay, be sure to ask about herbicides that may have been used in the pasture or hayfield. Do not take chances. Once contaminated with this herbicide, otherwise fit soil becomes useless for numerous garden crops.
Further reading:
Dr. Jeanine Davis, North Carolina State University, Herbicide Carryover in Hay, Manure, Compost, and Grass Cippings (April 2010)
Rachel Carson Council
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Original Post
July 2, 2008
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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