Cabin in winter

Greenhouse

main cabin

Guest cabin

Frame for hobbit house

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.

Innisfree Sustainable Living

Innisfree Sustainable Living

Innisfree is located in the Empty Quarter of the Kawarthas in central Ontario. It is a ninety-acre farm with a pair of log cabins dating back to the 1870s. Solar power, woodstoves, sauna and a root cellar provide the necessities of life. Horse manure is vermicomposted and the resulting worm castings grow veggies in raised beds. A greenhouse and the walled garden of a former barn foundation extend the growing season. The project began one chilly day in January 2010. At first, it was all about adapting to a lifestyle that mirrored the age of the cabins, the surprise came at the end of the first summer.

Here is a little secret, sustainable living makes poor people rich – well sort off. When you make your own electricity, hot water, heat with wood and grow food you save a chunk of cash. Libraries, free wifi and thrift stores increase one’s resilience from the uncertainties of climate change and an economy swinging on its hinges.

On the personal level, holistic living means firing on all cylinders or having boundless energy – and energy is the currency of life. Globally, it is like being a worm cast in a meadow, insignificant until you take into account the millions of other people who are also saving the planet one wiggle at a time. It also chimes the simplicity and charm of village life in The Hobbit with the wizardry of open source technology. It is a handcrafted world of gardeners, recyclers, improvisers and innovators, where rough readiness and resilience rule. Dreams and ideas blossom in the garden of the mind and ripen into reality. It is also a vision of a better world and a daily practical protest against the forces that lay waste the planet. Sustainable living is the first step in making these destructive systems obsolete and turning potential chaos into niches of change.

Books can tell you how, nature shows you how. Every morning with the rising sun, she unfurls her blueprint. We just need to slow down to read it. For me, it is a never-ending lesson and not without its ‘oops moments’ - when I reach for a hammer my inner Mr. Bean screams to get out. Nature, meanwhile, has had four billion years to iron out the kinks; she has also almost gone over the edge a few times. Bacteria played a lead role in her early successes and disasters.

Although, I love my red wriggler worms, deep down, I am a bacteria kind of guy, not just because I’m ninety percent bacteria, fungi, yeasts and microbes, but rather, because they learn from their calamities. The early history of the planet reads like a disaster movie.  

Bacteria were one of earliest life forms. Three times, they almost caused their own extinction through uncontrolled growth and pollution. Then they became smart, instead of endless growth, resource depletion and toxic waste, they settled for niches. They gave us the gift of ecology. The little darlings learnt to downsize and live by a set of rules.

Here is another secret – sustainable living makes you optimistic and happy. Gardens flourish, hobbit houses sprout and Bilbo Baggins steps off the page and strides down the path to another adventure.