kawartha Black Gold Compost

KAWARTHA BLACK GOLD COMPOST

A Quick Guide to making Black Gold

Composting with worms turns organic waste into nutrient-rich humus. Growing food in raised beds filled with worm castings is a gardening revolution. The soil warms up quickly in the spring, holds moisture, drains well, can be worked with a trowel and is loaded with nutrients. Essentially, a waste product is converted into a growing medium and then into healthy veggies with virtually no cost or effort.

Scientists measure the time it take to make an inch of top soil in centuries and environmentalists  lament that half the world’s topsoil is gone or unusable. Anyone can make the finest topsoil by the truckload in a few weeks and combined with intensive gardening methods can feed their family and neighbours. Biologists continue to unravel the mosh pit of decomposition, for folks like myself, unencumbered by a university degree, making black gold is simple.

The key factor is in providing optimum conditions for all the organisms that do the composting, namely, heat, moisture, air and the best mix of organic waste. Then you fit the requirements to your circumstances. Bacteria do most of the rotting; they use carbon for energy and nitrogen for fuel. A carbon: nitrogen ratio of 25:1is ideal. They breed exponentially and the pile heats up. Fungi then thrive and break down cellulose. Building the pile with alternating layers of dry brown material and green moisture material provides roughly the right mix of air, water and nutrients. Composters can be categorised into three groups: suburban, organic gardeners and farmers. The plastic compost bin benefits by having a two-foot deep hole under the bin and filled with grass clippings. Position the bin over the hole. This gives a refuge for the composting worms in extreme weather conditions. The contents should be turned occasionally and the moisture level comparable to a wrung out sponge. Building a three-sided pen with pallet skids works well for the backyard gardener, ideally, there should be two or three pens each containing different stages of decomposition. Commercial composters spread the compost in windrows so that they are easy to aerate. My compost pile is a huge mound and when the sides green up I push up and turn over with a front-end loader. The worms move through the pile to find their sweet spot.

Cold composting is an indoor method of making black gold with Red Wriggler worms. A shallow plastic bin approximately 30cm by 75cm is ideal. Half-fill the bin with alternating layers of dry and damp organic materials, such as, shredded paper and kitchen scraps. The base layer Shredded paper works well as a base layer, it absorbs moisture. Meat, fat and acidic fruit create do not compost easily under these conditions and should be kept out of the bin. It is beneficial to a few handfuls of rich topsoil as an activator. Generally, 0.5kg of Red Wriggler worms can digest the kitchen waste produced by the average family. Spreading damp newspaper over the surface of the compost discourages flies. When the bin is working perfectly there should be no odor, rather a mild earthy aroma. If there are problems, they are easy to rectify by tweaking the conditions and ingredients. If you do have problems, like the worms escaping and eating Granny, advice is only a mouse-click away. The dark brown crumbly worm castings are perfect as a top-dressing or growing medium for the garden.