Skip to main content

A Waste of Packaged Gold

As we drove by the plush residential homes, some recently covered with a fresh coating of paint and with the variously landscaped yards displaying their beautiful spired shrubs, flowering gardens and well watered green lawns, it could not be helped but to notice the evenly placed lawn bags filled to the brim with yard waste, just waiting to be carried away by the scheduled garbage pickup.

So much labor must have gone into neatly and carefully packing each one of them so they wouldn't be torn open by a stiff twig or two. Each fall and spring a similar scene is reenacted by most of us who seasonally do our traditional yard cleanup. 


Having been a fairly devout organic gardener in the 1980's and traditionally would save every bit of waste clippings from our yard that would then go into a 4x4 foot by 4 feet high loosely constructed wooden bin for later processing and churning into a fine mulch, it was difficult to see virtually truckloads of "Organic Gold Plant Food" just waiting to 
be carted away to some landfill, or just possibly be used for fuel in some local utility supplier's furnace. It is beyond my understanding how this "fuel" for plants can be placed on the discard list. 

With this fresh on my mind, I recollect a book written by Ruth Stout, an avid gardener, who appropriately called her book..."The No Work Garden" which showed how she only used bales of hay in the 1950's and earlier to build her garden, spread the hay in the fall and after being well compressed through the winter, she would then simply place the vegetable seed into a small clump of soil at the proper planting time, pressed it firmly and watered to get the seed to germinate.

Thereafter, her garden was never watered again. She did this year after year ...for thirty years. The soil was perfectly PH level balanced and so were all the required nutrients to sustain all the plants. Sounds like the perfect scenario, but this example is only to show what can be done with most of anyone's yard 

refuse...if properly processed.

Now, to step back to my 4-foot cube of diverse organic refuse and having filled the bin to about the 3/4 mark by eye, placing a shovelful of topsoil in between 3-4 inch layers of the material, we simply add worms, which can be purchased at a local farm store, or mail ordered through a garden supplier. Usually, they come in a few hundred in quantity and are newborns, but you can also use local worms, picked from decayed leaf.

Once placed in your compost bin and watered occasionally, they will quickly multiply and digest the organic material aerating your compost in the process. This process is carried out...automatically without energy expended on anyone's part, except for the original placement of the material and bin construction. After 3 or 4 weeks, given proper rainfall and a little watering, your "pot of gold" should be ready to use.

Then, simply place a handful of this composted material in a small hole 6 inches deep, for pre-started tomato plants several inches tall, where you plan to plant your vegetable garden. Pack some of this compost mixed with some topsoil around the sides and also dress around the top of each plant. Given the proper rain, sunshine and warmth, your tomatoes will give you a very early harvest, mainly because you did not discard the "hidden gold".

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

History Of Mulberry Trees, ‘Morus Alba,’ ‘Morus Rubrum,’ And ‘Morus Nigra’

Mulberry trees were well known in the ancient civilizations of the world. They were famous fruit trees, because of the delicious berry fruits that were abundantly produced by fast growing trees—loaded with huge green leaves that were eaten by livestock, along with the berries, and the leaves were used in the Orient to fatten silkworms for the silk trade. General Oglethorpe, in 1733, imported 500 white mulberry trees to Fort Frederica in Georgia to encourage silk production at the English colony of Georgia. William Bartram, the famous early American explorer and botanist, described his encounter with mulberry trees near Mobile, Alabama, in his book, Travels, in the year 1773. Prince’s Nursery in 1774 offered for sale 500 white mulberry trees, ‘Morus alba’ and 1000 black mulberry trees, ‘Morus nigra,’ at Flushing, New York. Documents show that America’s first President, George Washington, bought fruit from this nursery. Mulberry trees were planted in the landscape of President Thomas Jef...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spring Planting Tips

Spring means that the garden centers are packed with people, and car trunks are packed with plants. Everybody has dirt on their knees, dirt under their nails, and is excited about gardening. To make certain that this excitement yields positive results, let's discuss the basics in this article of spring planting tips.   Installing new plants and having them grow successfully is not difficult, nor is it as complicated as some would have you think. Is it as easy as just digging a hole and setting the plant in? Yes, it certainly can be. I won't get into bed preparation, as I have covered that in other articles that are available at http://www.freeplants.com Let's start with B&B plants. B&B is short for balled in burlap. Closely examine the ball on the plant that you have purchased. Did the diggers wrap twine around the ball to hold the plant secure? If they did, you should at least cut the twine and lay it in the bottom of the hole, or remove it completely. Pay close at...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Take on Grasses - Appreciating the Lowly but Important Garden Element

When the subject of gardens and landscaping is brought to a conversation, the first things that pop into people’s minds are trees, shrubs, flowers. Rarely do people take notice of something very significant and crucial for the beauty of most landscapes – grasses. Humans step on them, children play on them, dogs roll over them, but most of the time people ignore these prominent figures of gardens and parks. Imagine how a landscape would be without grasses – it would be dull, dry, boring if not downright ugly. Without grasses, a scenery would usually not be complete. Grasses are very useful not only for their aesthetic qualities but for some practical purposes as well. Grasses are very flexible as they can grow in almost any quality of soil more than other kinds of plants. Grasses do not need so much for them to thrive, just water is enough for most grasses to grow and make any landscape green. While many people have the notion that grasses are boring, their wide variety makes them inter...
Post a Comment
Read more