CELEBRATING OUR LOVELY LEAVES

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take – but by the moments that take our breath away.”

 

My two friends and I took advantage of the last of the warm, fall weather in mid-October and hit the trails around the base of the Larch Hills area with her horses. As we wound our way up the mountain, we were riding along a fairly dark, wooded area when we came across a yellow maple tree about 25’ high that had begun to shed its’ leaves to the ground below it. Just at that exact spot, the sun had managed to pierce through the heavy fir and cedar boughs and lit up so that it looked like a beautiful glowing globe, which was truly a sight to behold! I used to think that the trees back east in the fall must have been photo shopped to look that brilliant red, orange and yellow until I saw them myself, and they really are truly amazing to see in all their glory. The colourful leaves of fall are a wonder of nature to see and enjoy and they can sure take our breath away, but they also play a fundamental role in forest ecology and are also great to use by us gardeners!

 

In the forests, meadows and other natural settings, leaves and other organic wastes form a natural carpet over the soil surface which conserves moisture, modifies temperatures and prevents soil erosion and crusting. In time bacteria, fungi and other natural occurring organisms decompose the leaves and other organic material, supplying the existing plants with a natural, slow release form of nutrients. The tree and shrub leaves that drop around your yard are also a valuable natural resource that can be used to provide a good source of organic matter and nutrients in your compost and as a mulch cover. Leaves contain the perfect blend of carbon and nitrogen and provide up to 80 percent of the nutrients a plant extracts from the soil and air during the season, thereby eliminating the need for damaging synthetic fertilizers.

 

At the Gaia College, we were taught to gather as many varieties of greens (nitrogen) and browns (carbon) as possible and stockpile them until we could create a nutrient-diverse compost pile in one quick step. These materials could include grass clippings (dry is best unless you’re going to use them right away, otherwise they’ll start to cook, stick and stink), leaves (preferably shredded to avoid matting), manures (careful where it comes from and out of!), wood chips and forest litter (a little cedar is OK), larch and pine needles, small plants or seedless weeds from the yard, straw or old hay (again, the smaller the pieces, the quicker it will be digested and broken down and beware that they will have seeds in them), clean sawdust and wood ashes, etc. These goodies will create a rich soil blend for next years’ gardening season and provide the necessary nutrients and organic material for your soil food web and mulch covers.   However, this method can take a bit of planning, so now’s is a good time to start with the leaves!

 

I used to race against time before the frozen hose problem to get my compost bins full before winter, frantically raking and bagging and putting the leaves through the chipper with frozen hands and feet and then building my layers with all the rest of the stuff. Then the light came on (duh!) and now I just do just the leaf shredding and wait until spring to do the layering, which is much warmer and far less stressful and it’s also when the fresh grass clippings become available. Leaves are also great if you’re planning on a lasagna bed (a future column subject!), so try to bag as many of those little lovelies as you can, while you can!

 

In nature, the trees in one acre of forest shed as much as two tonnes of leaves each fall but it takes 100 years to make 1” of topsoil. We’ve got them everywhere, every year and we can produce soil way faster than that!  The last place they belong is the dump or burned in a backyard smoke show, so if you can’t use what’s dropping in your yard, then give them away to a gardener, spread them around in the woods somewhere or mow them into your grass for a natural dose of fertilizer. Ask Santa for a leaf shredder or little chipper this Christmas because the smaller the leaf particles, the faster they’ll decompose and become available to your plants, plus you won’t get any matting.   The leaves are best on the dry side for shredding, because they’ll fly through the machine in no time and won’t get gummed up when wet, which is a time-consuming pain.

 

It must’ve been a bunch of gardeners that designed our Canadian flag, because they knew that all those beautiful red, yellow and orange leaves that take our breath away, are a national treasure and a natural and free resource!

 

Gaiagardening column Nov ’14

ENCOUNTERING A GARDENER IN DISGUISE!

(A TRUE STORY!)

 

Last fall, during a particularly cold and cloudy gray day, I was scouting around town for the easy leaves that fall from the trees to the streets and sidewalks. To my delight, I spotted a municipal crew who had just raked up big piles of them and I caught them before they loaded them up to take away. We were all smiles with this sudden win-win scenario, for they had been spared the additional work of removing them and I only had to bundle and bag them to take them home to my waiting cherished little chipper! So I got hoppin before the rain started droppin and began stuffing my little Subaru!

 

I was pretty much on my own out there on that misty morning road, save for my old doggie in the back of the car having a snooze after his walk or an occasional passing car or woollied-up walker.   One pedestrian actually paused to inquire as to why I would want so many of those lovely leaves and for what purpose, so I launched into a overly-long and enthusiastic lesson as to their nutritional value in our composts and mulch covers, which most likely left her cold and sorry that she ever stopped in the first place.

 

So there I was, zoned out and alone while busy raking and bagging, when the deep throaty throttle of a macho-sounding motorcycle slowly entered my brain as it approached me from behind and rumbled to a stop just steps away. I instantly snapped to attention, forcing myself to resist my natural female fight or flight instincts, but was nevertheless on high alert. I stood up to face this unexpected stranger, squared my shoulders to appear confident and instinctively took a step back. Sure as suspected, he was a burly, bearded brute straddling a black Harley hog, with eyes hidden behind dark glasses. “Was he some kind of hoodlum?” I could hear in my head, and maybe I should be calling the cops…. I thought.

 

As his muscle machine sputtered and stopped, the sudden silence became unsettling with only the occasional amplified sound of a leaf hitting the ground and the sound of my breathing. A quick glance down the street showed that it was deserted, that my deaf dog was still deep in sleep and that it was clear I was here to deal with this dude on my own with the rake being the only means of defense. Just why had this guy have to stop to see me, when there were so many others that he could’ve bugged instead? Up to this point, not a word had been spoken between us, so while he was hassling with his helmet strap, I began preparing myself for the three likely scenarios that were about to take place the minute I got wind of what kind of person had paid me a visit: 1) that I would try to pull off faking I was a foreigner who didn’t understand English; 2) that I would be having a good jaw with a jaunty and friendly fellow; or 3) engaging in a cool and crispy conversation with a Cro-Magnon type male.

 

As I waited, I wondered what it was that he would want with a middle-aged, grubby-looking gardener like me? Was he a bloke selling coke, or some stud with the duds?   Did he need directions or a bathroom or perhaps somewhere to dine? Was a he a creep from the deep or was he hopefully just fine?

 

To my surprise and relief, I was greeted with a great big grin and hearty hello and that he had only stopped by in case I happened to know, about his cottonwood leaves and would they be OK to go into his compost because he had heard that there was too much tannin in them and that the microbes won’t like it. It was the last thing that I expected to come from a guy looking like that!

 

So the moral of this story is ya never know when you’re going to meet a sheep in wolf’s clothing and a gardener in disguise!

 

So in case you’re wondering yourself, cottonwood leaves are best shredded because their texture is tougher to break down and they do indeed have lots of tannin in them which is fine, but they’re best mixed with other leaves, along with whatever else you can get your hands on such as chemical-free grass clippings, wood chips (a little cedar is OK), clean ashes, rotten apples, needles, easily digestible-sized plants that you’re pulling out of your garden, seed-free weeds, kitchen waste and anything else tasty and nutritious for your compost critters. Always make sure there’s enough moisture and cover it up to keep the rain and snow out. After all, variety is the spice of life, along with all the interesting people that might come along during your day!   Happy fall everyone!

 

Gaiagardening column Oct ’14

MY ‘BIG FIVE’ GARDENING TIPS FOR SPRING!

(A gift from a fellow gardening friend that sits in my kitchen)

 

When I went on safari in Kenya and Tanzania years ago, the drivers were always on the prowl for the ‘big five’, which were the key animals like elephants and lions that the tourists were mostly after to see. As far as the gardening world is concerned, these are my ‘big five’ tips for springtime gardening!

 

1) Look at your gardens with new eyes.  Always try to see and treat your gardens as an ecological landscape, where natural systems created by the microbes and worms in the earth work for you to create healthy soil and plants. We want to support those systems with good compost, a nutrient-rich mulch and the right soil and light exposure for whatever you’re growing.   Nylon and plastic weed barriers will suffocate and kill off your soil food web, as well as the use of toxic fertilizers or ‘cides’.  Natural soil systems are in layers of aerobic and anaerobic life forms, so flipping and tilling will also upset it too, so mulch instead and let the critters build up beautiful rich soil for you!

2) Compost: Hopefully you’ve got a big bunch of bagged or better yet, shredded leaves stockpiled from last fall to start layering in to your new compost with fresh green grass, wood chips, kitchen waste and anything else you can put into it (make sure it’s moistened between the layers and keep it covered). I saved a few bags of larch needles (as well as a big stash of shredded leaves!) from last year as well as a bags of clean sawdust and buckets of sand (a little mineral content), because the more variety the better! Manures are better mixed in with your compost, as it is only a nitrogen source and you want to have a good brown/green blend and hopefully the heat will kill the weed seeds. If you have enough room, tailor a bin or two to certain soil requirements for different garden beds, such as one more acidic, sandy or alkaline than the other. Living soil is the essence of life, so make lots of it and give your beds a good cover to get things off to a healthy start! Plant your seedlings in compost too, in order to give them the nutrients they need to have maximum vitality and growing power.

 

3) Mulch: Again, a green/brown diverse mix is key – not just one material! I mix together an equal amount of fresh, untreated grass, wood chips (a little cedar in there is OK) and my shredded leaves to get a great weed-free feast for the micro and micro critters , which will keep that soil food web consistently fed! The mulch looks rich and healthy and will provide a good protective layer from the rains, hold moisture in the soil and be a steady source of natural high-test, slow release fertilizer. So many gardens I see have bare soil, which isn’t doing anything good for the critters or your plants, let alone protecting it from the elements and weeds from taking hold.  Remember, bark mulch is the protective outer layer of trees, which repels water and threats, so therefore isn’t a good food source or cover.

 

4) Pruning:   Pruning is best in early spring when the plant has lots of energy to repair the injury and it needs to be done with care and sharp tools so you don’t damage the tissues of the plant by smooshing it instead of slicing it. The rule of thumb is to never take off more than a 3^rd of the tree or shrub per year because it weakens the plant, and that includes the suckers. Always cut at an angle so the water drips off and branches need to be cut right near the stem or tree shoulder (where the branch comes out) so that it can compartmentalize the wound easier. Please refer to a good pruning book or site on the Internet before you go snipping and chopping away at your plants!

 

5) New plants/old plants: Take the time to re-arrange your plants so that they grow in the soils and exposures most suited for them. You don’t want a water loving plant along with one that doesn’t and visa versa, and make sure they are right for your climate zone (and micro zones around your house) in order to avoid plant stress or total loss. All you’ll get is weak or sickened plants that will attract nature’s clean-up crew – the bugs!  Also, when you buy or have a plant gifted to you, take all the existing soil away from the root ball so that your soils are consistent in the beds and you don’t end up with someone’s soil or weed problems.

 

Also be very careful not to buy invasive species of plants and please don’t throw those bad actors in the woods to take off on their own. The trees and woods on the island are choking with ivy vines now, because people are throwing them out and the birds are spreading the seeds (see photo below). When you’re separating or thinning out your plants, re-home them by leaving them out at the end of your driveway for passersby to take, start a wayside garden where it’s appropriate, take them to the thrift stores or the annual plant swaps or contact your municipal gardening crew to see if they can use them around town.

And most importantly, support your organic plant and seed suppliers and the good people at the local farmers market, because they too, support life, wellness and health!

 

(Gaia Gardening column May ’14)

 

 

A GOOD HARVEST MEANS GOOD SOIL!

Come ye thankful people, come
Raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in,
Ere the winter storms begin.  (Hymn)

My 300+ bags of leaves before……

And after just 7 busy hours of shredding,  I now have lots to use through the winter and all through spring, summer and into the fall before the next haul!
A mother and daughter gardening team that I’m lucky to know, had just recently brought in their last harvest of the season when I stopped by the other day, and the yield from their gardens surrounding their home had brought in quite a haul.  Over 250 lbs of potatoes as well as the same for tomatoes, plus squash, pumpkins and corn filled up their spare room and garage floor.  Earlier pickings were berries and the apples off their trees with a whole load of other fresh and nutritious vegetables in between.  All this food throughout the growing season is eaten fresh, processed, frozen or stored for the year, giving them lots of free and nourishing food for the winter months as well as enough to share with friends and donate to the needy.

Carefully selected new and heritage varieties of flowers grace the property with beautiful colour and the lawn becomes a delightful meadow of blooming bulbs in the springtime.  They have a deep and respectful connection to nature and the earth, so no chemicals, toxins or poisons are ever used on the plants or soil.  In Des Kennedy’s book, Crazy About Gardening, he says: “Gardeners have lessons to teach the rest of our race about how to touch the earth with affection and dexterity.”  These two are certainly my teachers and I strive to garden like them.

Like all committed organic gardeners, they have a couple of good composting bins working away in the backyard, making precious soil that’s loaded with microbes and worms for next year’s growing season.  Composting is not rocket science, but there are good techniques and tricks to learn to maximize nutrient levels and speed of decomposition as well as what not to do.  For example, there is a yard in town that sports a round wire compost cage filled with big rough materials such as thin branches and thick viney plants, and it’s been sitting there for years looking exactly the same.  This is a total compost fail because the materials were too big and coarse for the critters to break it down and there hasn’t been enough moisture getting through it, so the process is pitifully slow if any at all.

The rule of thumb is that the smaller the pieces, the easier it is to be munched on and digested by the worms and microbes.   The moisture content in the compost heap should be the equivalent of a wrung out sponge, so make sure you sprinkle the layers with water and flipping the pile once or twice if you can will significantly increase the decomposition process.   Diversity of organic materials is important because there will be all kinds of nutrients for the plants to take up, and make sure there’s at least 2 parts carbon (or browns) to 1 part nitrogen (or greens). This recommended ratio can vary considerably and can be confusing when leaves can be either or, so don’t sweat it too much – the important thing is that you make it!

Filling your bins can be done in 2 ways: 1)  to collect as many kinds of materials as possible, such as straw, fresh grass, leaves (preferably shredded), kitchen scraps, manures, clean sawdust, chopped up yard waste, pine needles, wood chips (easy on the cedar), etc. and layer it up in a compost bin all in one shot and then cover it.  (I sprinkle in some clean sand or dirt for minerals and you can also add other great goodies such as beneficial microbes, but we’ll get to that later!)  I finally got wise and made enough (as you can see from the photos) shredded leaves for the whole year in advance, rather than trying to deal with frozen hoses and hands in the fall.  (Wisdom comes with age and hardship, I guess….); and 2)  you can also add your materials a layer at a time – just make sure it’s covered so you don’t lose moisture as you go.  If you’re worried about the smell from the kitchen scraps and that it’ll attract critters, just leave them out, but if they’re mixed well with other stuff, it shouldn’t pose a problem.

You need to keep the compost bins covered so that the rains and snow don’t wash away the nutrients and drown out the microbes and worms and also to not allow moisture to escape.  A strong lid will do nicely, or I use heavy rubber mats on mine because some of them are odd-shaped and these are easy to remove and won’t blow away.    If you have one of those plastic backyard composters, they’ll work fine too, but  they have a small capacity and you want to make lots if you can so get some more if you don’t like bins!  The same rules apply to them, which is nutrient diversity, a good brown/green ratio and proper moisture content so you don’t make sludge!

It’s too difficult for me to flip my big bins, so I rely on time to do the job of decomposition and it works just great once I get a good rotation of composted materials in different stages cooking away throughout the year.  I’ve been taking advantage of this dry weather to stuff as many leaf bags as I can (over 300 so far!), because every full bag shreds down to less than half of a bag at best and a full bin of organic materials composts down to about half the size when it’s finished.  In other words, it takes loads of materials to get any amount of soil or mulch, so you may want to take the time to get a couple of more bins going so you’ve always got plenty!

If I were you, I’d ask Santa for a chipper or leaf shredder for Christmas, because they’re a gardener’s best friend and you can whip up a couple of hundred bags of leaves too!

Gaia column Nov ’13

WHEN YOU HEAR THE RUSTLE, IT’S TIME TO HUSTLE!

“Autumn, the year’s last, loveliest smile.”   William Cullen Bryant

When Jed from the Beverly Hillbillies discovered oil in his backyard, he had his version of black gold, Texas Tea – but Grannie was likely in the backyard garden sifting through her finished compost pile knowing she had her version of black gold and compost tea!

When the snow finally starts to clear in spring, the first thing I look for is a patch of exposed forest floor, grab a handful of the rich humus and breathe in that heavenly scent of fresh earth!  Healthy soil is the stuff of life – it’s alive and teaming with untold billions of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, microbes and worms.  More microorganisms germinate in half a cup of fertile soil than there are humans on the planet, so we want to make lots of it to use in our new gardens and as a soil amendment for your existing ones!

Making good soil and mulch is my primary goal every year and I make loads of it in the fall by filling up 5 big bins with nicely layered materials for the worms and microbes to digest over the winter.  This requires bags and bags and bags of shredded leaves, grass clippings and wood chips (a great carbon-nitrogen mix) along with whatever else I can get my hands on that isn’t too big in size like clean sawdust, chopped up yard waste, fallen apples off the ground, etc.  This amounts to a lot of hard work that occupies most of my time until the snows, but it’s always worth the effort because I’m rewarded with crumbly, partially digested mulch in springtime, and if I leave it a little longer, finished soil for the summer and fall.

By having a number of bins, I’ve covered all my needs and there’s plenty left over if I need it.  This kind of volume requires planning, so I horse trade a tree service guy for a pie in exchange for a load of chips and keep a big stash of dry grass I had mooched over the summer wherever I could find them (usually under the trees in vacant lots or people’s yards), which I keep in bags until the leaves come down.  Then I’m in constant motion until the bins are all filled up and covered, which is usually a race against time before my hose freezes!

Leaves in the fall are beautiful!  There is a tree in town that turns such a bright yellow that it looks as though it glows, and the maples that turn red look like they’re on fire.  It is such a pleasure to rake up those lovelies under the vibrantly colored canopies, all the while knowing that they’re going to be put to good use rather than off to the dump like so many do, which is such a terrible waste!

Leaves are a wonderful, free gift of nature and a great source of organic material for our gardens and compost, and that’s not all!  They’re great to mow into your lawn for a natural fertilizer and a soil builder-upper.  By spreading them on your garden beds and around your trees, shrubs and perennials in the fall, they will offer a protective cover by insulating the roots from the driving rains, frost and harsh winter conditions as well as providing vital food and habitat for a huge number of insects, worms and other critters that dwell in the soil.  They will also discourage winter weed growth.

During the growing season, the leaves break down, enriching the soil by adding organic material and providing a natural fertilizer.  The leaf bits help aerate and retain moisture in your soil, absorb the heavy rains to prevent nutrient leaching, help to prevent erosion and most importantly, will provide plenty of food for the micro and macro critters in the soil food web, who in exchange, will give back by converting that raw material into nutrient-rich soil.  I like to mix up shredded leaves with fresh grass and woodchips for nutrient diversity, which is always key.

The author of the Gaia College workbook titled Working With Nature – Shifting Paradigms writes: “The look of bare earth, free of all “debris”, is perceived to be beautiful and proper, and yet it’s the worst thing that can happen to a landscape.  I am envisioning a time where a gardener’s competence is gauged by the quality of the soil litter layer!”

 
So when we hear the rustle, it’s time to hustle!  Spring for a chipper or leaf shredder because the smaller the bits, the faster they break down and they don’t mat like they do when they’re still whole.  Use dry ones if you can too, otherwise they can gum up the machine and slow down the process considerably.  I shred up all I need to fill the bins with the other materials, then shred a bunch more so I can keep layering them into my food compost bin throughout the year, along with the woodchips and fresh grass clippings and a sprinkling of clean sand for minerals.   Just make sure you have sufficient moisture between the layers or it won’t cook down properly.

 
It must have been a gardener that created the design for our Canadian flag, because leaves are truly a national treasure and they should be treasured by all of us!

 

 

NOTE TO READERS:  I finally wised up and now shred all the leaves I need for the spring and summer to layer into the compost bins with fresh grass and other goodies, so it can be done then and not freeze my tush off in the fall!

Gaia column Oct ’13

HONOURING OUR BEAUTIFUL TREES

Look up, look up, at any tree!

There is so much for eyes to see:                                                                                        Twigs, catkins, blossoms; and the blue                                                                           Of sky, most lovely, peeping through                                                                     Between the leaves, some large, some small,                                                                 Some green, some gold before their fall;                                                                    Fruits you can pick; fruits out of reach;                                                                       And little birds with twittering speech;                                                                               And, if you’re quick enough, maybe                                                                                    A laughing fairy in the tree!                                                                                               Song of the Tree Fairies by Cicely Mary Barker

So many precious trees (and lives) are lost during these big storms, tornadoes, flooding and fires that ravage the earth every year.  Thousands of trees in New York City’s Central Park and all along the eastern seaboard have been ripped out of the ground, trunks broken in half and their limbs snapped off from the snows and winds.  The loss is unimaginable and in some cases irreplaceable.

In the introduction of the beautiful book titled “The Meaning of Trees – Botany, History, Healing and Lore”, the author says: “Trees and humankind have always had a symbiotic relationship.  Throughout the centuries, trees have offered us shelter from the cold and the heat.  They have provided us with a multitude of nutritious fruits, leaves, flowers and roots for food and medicine.  They have given us wood with which to make our tools, weapons and toys, not to mention timber for houses, fences, boats and bridges.  But perhaps most significant of all, trees have provided fuel for fire, which, once it was tamed hundreds of thousands of years ago, became the engine of civilization.  Trees are our strongest allies. 

The entire spectrum of human existence is reflected in tree lore through the ages: from birth, death and rebirth to the age-old struggle between good and evil, and the quest for beauty, truth and enlightenment.

Our ancestors recognized that there is a vital balance in life: you take and you give.  So they celebrated the forces of nature by offering them gifts, songs, prayers and blessings to revitalize the natural world – a world of which they felt themselves to be an intimate part.  Many cultures saw (and still see) everything in creation as imbued with spirit, which means that all living things are regarded as sacred.”

Every year our trees drop their leaves and needles to replenish the nutrients in the soil, provide food for the micro and macro organisms and protect the roots from the harsh winter conditions.  They are a marvelous and free gift to us gardeners because leaves provide most of the nutrients you’ll need to have healthy soil and rich mulches.  Layer leaves into your compost bin with wood chips, grass clippings (find piles in vacant lots or remember to store some for next year) needles, rotten apples, Halloween pumpkins, kitchen compost, etc. and just see what you get for next years gardening season – beautiful, black, rich, wonderful soil loaded with worms and microbes!  Make sure there is sufficient moisture between the layers and cover it up so that nutrients are not lost from rains and snow.

So lets take a moment to honour and appreciate our beautiful, precious trees that grace our streets, parks, gardens, public spaces and yards.  I can’t imagine what our world  – and what our gardens – would be without them?  I sure hug  ‘em, because I love ‘em!

Gaia column Nov ’12

IT’S TEA TIME IN YOUR GARDEN!

(Image by: http://www.goinghometoroose.com)

“While it is relatively easy to recognize the perennial grasses and seed-eating sparrows as characteristic of meadows, the ecosystems exist in their fullest sense underground.  What we see aboveground is only the outer margin of an ecosystem that explodes in intricacy and life below.”

 Amy Seidl, ‘Early Spring: An Ecologist and Her Children Wake to a Warming World

About 20 years ago, I took a harrowing night ride down to the coast in the middle of winter with my two fellow gardening friends, and in order to take our minds off the tension and terror of that trip, we kicked around the idea of starting a business selling manure teas in little tea bags.   Some of the crazy names we came up with were Turkey Turd Tea, Llama Bean Tea, Chickpee Tea, Barn Apple Tea, Moo-Poo Tea, Donkey Dung Tea and a Blue Chip Special Blend – just to name a few.  We were giggling and laughing so much that those six hours of blinding blizzard blessedly passed quickly, and we still have a good tea-hee about it to this day!

But in hindsight, maybe we should have poured our time into the “Tea Time with Turds” biz, because using the extracts of excrement, as well as compost, plant and other teas, is all part of the green garden movement, which is not only shifting away from chemical fertilizers and eliminating the use of toxic herbicides and pesticides, but to start digging into nature’s powerful toolbox and medicine cabinet!

These loaded liquids, used both on soils and as foliar sprays, are used to:  re-vitalize damaged and dead soils by increasing good microbial populations to break down organic matter; potentially adding biodiversity to your soil; can be used as natural inoculants to suppress disease; are excellent for more nutrient-based foods by cheaply increasing the quality, yield and health of plants and soil; allows nutrients to become more readily available to plants through the soil, stems and leaves; is inexpensive and simple to make; spreads farther than compost; is great for shoulder and growing seasons; can’t be overused and plays an essential role in the transition to organic practices.  Teas can be particularly useful when large amounts of organic matter are not available, which is the case for a lot of gardeners.  (See International Compost Tea Council for more info.)

What’s important to remember and understand is that each field, garden and natural ecosystem is unique with respect to microclimate, soil, biological diversity, amounts of organic matter, water conditions, etc. and our goal as gardeners and farmers is always to support ecosystem processes and health.  Most living organisms are able to produce most of the vitamins they require in a healthy, biologically diverse soil ecosystem, so increasing the biological activity in the soil is our number one priority by maintaining a diverse amount of nutrients to feed the soil food web and let nature do it’s thing, rather than us trying to figure out what it needs and doesn’t need.  Remember, just because something is “organic”, doesn’t mean it’s harmless.  Ecosystem balance is always key and just like in our bodies, too much of one thing can be detrimental – even toxic – rather than beneficial.

Microbial extracts (or leachates), teas and brews can be loosely divided into two main groups:  a) compost, soil, and plant extracts and b) specific microbial cultures.  “Compost tea” is a loosely used term and applied to many different kinds of brews.  (Note:  Mycorrhizal fungi cannot be propagated in compost teas, as they are symbiotic – or buddy system – organisms that can only live in association with plant roots).   Many plant extracts contain powerful organic or chemical substances, which have been used by mankind in the preparation of food, medicine, pest control, bio-stimulants, liquid fertilizers and a source of plant hormones.
When making any kind of these teas, use water from rain, ponds or streams if you can because household water from a municipal source has chlorine in it, which of course kills microbes.  If not easily available or convenient, fill your bucket and leave the water sit overnight to let the chemicals off-gas or aerate it for approx. 30 minutes.  (You should do that with your drinking water too, so they don’t kill the beneficial microbes in your gut, or at least have a good filter system).
Compost and other plant teas are usually fed to the roots of your plants, so simply water into the soil.  Foliar feeding can also be done and the helpful microbes and bacteria in the tea aid in fighting off viruses, fungi, pests and diseases.  Teas can be used as frequently as you wish, but it’s especially effective in the shoulder seasons.  The best time of the day to apply the tea is in the early morning and evening to avoid the killer UV rays, rapid evaporation or chance of burning the leaves.  Also, keep your garden properly watered so the microbes, like all living things, can stay alive to do their important jobs!
There are lots of brews to concoct and create and most are simple and easy to prepare, taking anywhere from 24 hours to 14 days to brew – depending on your methods and money.   Most are totally safe to make BUT you could be getting into some murky water when it comes to compost and manure teas and here’s why.  There are 3 basic kinds of microbes: the aerobics, which need oxygen, the fermentative, putrefactive anaerobics that need no oxygen and the facultative anaerobics that can survive in both environments.  A pathogen is a plant or animal-feeding predator microbe, such as E.coli and Salmonella in humans and Camplyobacter, Listeria, and Crytosporidium in animals, and it’s these nasties that survive in the zero to low oxygen environments.  With these two teas, you need to be able to extract and multiply the beneficial or aerobic microbes from the organic matter and avoid the production and introduction of the putrefying, disease causing anaerobic microbes as well as the plant and human pathogens.  So please do your research to avoid a possible toxic soup if you use them!

So here are a few tea-rrific teas to try and cost nothing to make unless you buy an expensive brewer:

SOIL TEA:  Soil tea is a little different than compost tea in that one can select and trap a mix of beneficial microorganisms from the best performing soil from a local ecosystem, such as using humus and litter from a healthy garden or forest.

PLANT TEA:    Many plant and herb extracts contain powerful organic or chemical substances, which have been used in the preparation of food, medicines, pest control, etc. for centuries as well as benefiting plant growth and contributing to overall soil health.  Extracts are made by soaking healthy plants such as clover, comfrey, horsetail, stinging nettle, yarrow, seaweed, parsley, dandelion, plantain, etc. for 3 – 10 days, then strained and diluted.  (Note:  Alfalfa pellets are not recommended, as they are high in salts, which accumulate in your soil).
MANURE TEA:  Again, not all excrement is created equal and poop is a processed end product so a lot of the nutrients have already been absorbed, so fresh is always best!  If you want to use manures, make sure the critters are not from factory farms or feedlots and that it’s well aerated when you brew so you don’t breed the bad guys.
COMPOST TEA:  Compost tea should not be confused with other organic extracts, which are used as fertilizers, bio-stimulants or for pest and disease control.  A properly aerated compost tea is one of the most effective ways to promote health, prevent disease and revitalize dead soils in our gardens.  One of the most important functions of our compost is to breed beneficial microbes, but the nutrient value and type of microbes in your compost depends on what you put in it and whether it’s aerobic or anaerobic.  You can either create a fermented compost tea, which is made from immersing compost into a bucket of water for 7 – 14 days and stirring occasionally or use a store-bought or homemade compost tea brewer, using a strong aquarium bubbler that takes about 24 hours to make.  They say not to apply compost tea to any veggie garden within 3 weeks of its planned harvest date.
TINKLE TEA:  His or her tinkle tea typically contains an NPK ratio similar to a commercial fertilizer, so sprinkle it into the compost or dilute it and use it.
WORM TEA:  Worm castings are loaded with nutrients and minerals, so if you breed ’em, use ’em!
There’s never enough space to get into the recipe details, so you’ll have to take it from here.  Just remember to avoid microbe-killing chlorine by using rain or pond water or an off-gassed bucketful.  These are wonderfully beneficial teas from nature’s pantry and toolbox, so go ahead and sprinkle and spray away!

(Gaia column Aug ’13)

THE INS AND OUTS OF MANURES

(Image: http://www.uri.com)

Birdy, birdy in the sky, dropped some whitewash in my eye.
I’m sure glad that cows don’t fly!

Perhaps now is a good time to assess and address the indelicate topic of turds, because some gardeners may be a bit sheepish about using it or concerned about getting a load of crap.  So here are a few fecal facts and follies so you don’t get a bum deal before it’s a dung deal!  (Oh boy, that stunk…!)

 

For centuries now, there’s been a lot of fuss over feces because these treasures from the tush have added precious organic matter and important nutrients to soils and many a millionaire has been made selling the muck too.  Apparently the ‘s’ word comes from the 1600’s when manures for market were stored in bundles and transported by ship below deck, which occasionally got wet, then fermented, creating a dangerous build-up of methane gas.  The first poor sailor with a lantern would blow up the ship and crew, so eventually instructions were stamped on the fabric to “(S)tow (H)igh (I)n (T)ransit”, and that’s hence the term was born!

 

There’s a multitude of number 2’s that you can use, but not all excrement is created equal because whatever the critter eats, is what it excretes – be it herbi-, omni- or carnivore – and those end products can really range in nutrient value and contents.   However, it’s from whence it came that’s the most important, because the droppings may come from some dubious derrieres such as the factory farm chickens or pharma-fed bovines in a feedlot.   That stuff could almost be considered hazardous waste due to the cocktail of residues that tag along with it, such as pesticides, pathogens, parasites, fertilizers, herbicides, hormones, de-wormers (that keep on working), arsenic and antibiotics.  So buyers beware and do your ‘doo’ diligence!

 

Using the local “safe” stuff can have plenty of perils too!  For instance, some seeds stay intact through the digestive tract, which will happily sow themselves in your garden beds and if it’s poop from the neighbour’s coup, it’ll need to mellow for months because it’s too hot to handle for the plants.  Some raisers of grazers say take it away, but it can sure poop you out trying to shovel it into the back of the pickup, unless you can pay for the loading and trucking.  It may also come mixed with shavings, so check that it’s not cedar.

 

Buying it by the bag can sure rack up the bill at the till if you need lots of it and those sterilized stools will have lost much of the microbes and nutrients in the process, leaving you with basically denatured organic matter along with possibly some icky things in it.  The steer manure at the local fund-raiser or from your neighbour’s nag Nellie will be more “alive”, though it may come with some weed seeds.
Mushroom “manure” is compost waste from commercial farms, which is a mix of wheat straw, dried blood, horse poop and chalk.  Another source says it has wheat straw, peat moss, cottonseed meal, gypsum, lime and chicken litter, so I guess it depends on where it comes from.   Either way, it’s all mixed, composted and then sterilized for the growing process, which only lasts a few weeks.   The sellers say it’s a good source of nutrients and trace elements as well as a useful soil conditioner, ‘butt’ much of the nitrogen and other good stuff has been used up, the beneficial microbes will have been wiped out from the heat and the chalk is very alkaline and not be used on acid-loving plants.  If that doesn’t get you down in the dumps, then this might – it may also contain nasty pesticide residues like organochlorides, which are used against the fungus gnat and chemicals to treat the straw, as well as to sterilize the compost.

 

Humanure and doggie doo are sometimes used in garden beds and composts, so if you want to dally with it – that’s your deal!
If you do want to muck with manures,  then I’d layer it into your compost (considered a ‘green’) along with as much variety of other organic matter you can such as leaves, woodchips, kitchen waste, clean sawdust, etc. and let the critters do their thing with it first to get rid of any nasties.  But really, what these grazers are giving us is a lot of processed, nutrient-deficient, recycled greens, so I’d stick with good fresh cut grass myself and mix  into your compost with all that other great stuff for a beautiful mulch or soil amender later.

 

Nature’s truly perfect poo comes from the wonderful worm, whose rich castings produce the ideal blend of NPK and minerals for your plants.   So make sure your soil food web is consistently fed so that they can keep pumping out that marvelous manure from the mulches into fantastic and free fertilizer!

(Gaia column July ’13)

(Note:  Saw this on a cupboard door in an office recently:  “Just remember that someone else’s shit isn’t always yours to shovel.”   Good advice, if you ask me!)

THE JOY OF KITCHEN COMPOSTING!

Before

After

(Photos of my kitchen waste turned into black gold!)

If I Were An Orange Peel  (by Zoe, Grade 1)

If I were an orange peel
And went into the trash I would squeal.
I would rather go into the compost
Along with my friends French toast.

So put your old food in the compost bin
Like my good friend handsome Finn.
So put your old food in the compost
If you want good soil most.

When it comes to food scraps, I guess I’m one of the hard-core types!  I save them when I travel to take home or give away to another gardener, occasionally have the cheek to ask my host for their scraps after a meal if they’re chucking them out and I’ll even get the server at a restaurant put the scraps in a doggie sometimes.   I collect these garden goodies from a number of places in town that are willing to separate them for me, but it’s a small drop in the bucket compared to what ends up in the landfill.  It’s such an incredible waste to just bury them with the garbage when I know what it can turn into for my gardens!

At home, every crumb goes into my compost container including tea, coffee, juices, cooking water, soups – you name it.  There’s little worry of waste when a meal wasn’t finished, a plate full of food had fallen on the floor or an expired item or something gross was discovered in the fridge, because if we don’t want it, the microbes and worms sure do!   They’ll turn that vitamin and mineral-rich smorgasbord of food scraps into wonderful healthy humus, full of nutrients, castings and bazillions more microbes!

Besides my big yard waste bins, I keep a separate, two-sided bin for food scraps for critter control purposes.  To smother any smells that may attract unwanted visitors and also increase the volume and diversity of nutrients, I keep a supply of woodchips, shredded leaves and grass clippings to layer in over the scraps every time I dump a bucket in.  Clean wood ashes are great too, but don’t make the same mistake as my hubby, who dumped in some live coals and set the bin on fire!  Just about anything organic can be composted, but some items such as meat and dairy (small amounts are OK), tend to not only attract animals and scavenging birds, but also can carry disease organisms and bacteria and should be left out.  All food waste composts over time, but chopping up the bigger pieces as well as items such as thick orange peels or tough avocado skins, will help speed up and aid the digestion process.

It’s always important to have the right moisture content in the bin, so if I can’t use the hose in winter, I just add some water to my food bucket before dumping, add some snow between the layers or bring along the watering can.  I have no solid lids on my bins, so I use heavy rubber mats as a cover and pin the corners down with pieces of granite or rocks.  Between that and layering with other materials, no smells advertise my food scrap stash and I have no critter problems.  When there’s enough to fill one side, I flip it over into the adjacent bin and start another.

The nutrient value of your food scraps has a direct bearing on the nutrient levels in your finished compost.  Foods grown organically will have a much higher amount of vitamins, minerals and nutrients than chemically grown foodstuffs, plus they won’t have the contaminants on them from being sprayed with herbicides and pesticides, which you don’t want in your compost either. The Gaia College message is “feed the soil, which feeds the plant”, so the more variety of nutrients we can provide for our plants, the healthier and stronger they’ll be to resist any diseases.

The journey from the farmer’s field to the food table requires many stages of handling and trucking, so plenty of icky things can end up on our fruit and vegetables.  My brother once worked in a food warehouse and said that everything in there was coated with a fine layer of dust particles of who-knows-what that’s been floating around in the air, as well as rodent droppings and dead insects.  That had enough of a “yuck factor” for me, so I always take the time to soak my fruits and vegetables in the sink with soapy water before I put them away.  This also reduces the amount of contaminants that goes into my composting bin and ultimately into the soil.

In a world where so many are living in famine conditions, us humans chuck out about a third of the food that’s grown and prepared.  If we’re not going to eat it, then the least we could do is turn it back into soil to grow food in once again.  Composting your food scraps is easy and gratifying and takes little time and effort to produce, so start composting all those wonderful food scraps so they don’t go to waste!

LEAVES ARE A VALUABLE RESOURCE!

(I took this photo of the sun on the leaves in a pretty forest in Qualicum Beach)

 

THE LEAVES  (anonymous)
The leaves had a wonderful frolic.
They danced to the wind’s loud song.
They whirled, and they floated, and scampered.
They circled and flew along.
The moon saw the little leaves dancing.
Each looked like a small brown bird.
The man in the moon smiled and listened.
And this is the song he heard.
The North Wind is calling, is calling,
And we must whirl round and round,
And then, when our dancing is ended,
We’ll make a warm quilt for the ground.

 

What a goofy and frustrating year for collecting leaves!  The majority of them hadn’t begun to fall before the weather turned cold and wet and then it snowed before half the leaves came off the trees.  My chipper and leaf shredders got mucked up working with the wet leaves, so that really slowed the processing down, let alone having frozen hands and feet feeding the bags into them! And so much for the fun fall ritual of making a giant pile of leaves for my daughter to jump into and bury herself under.

 

However, on those few nice days that we did have to collect them, it was a pleasure to be under the crimson, golden and orange canopies of those glorious trees and it was astounding to me how many leaves one average tree could produce.   While my kid was knocking on doors Halloween night, I was right behind her asking people if I could have their leaves, but I was almost sorry I did, due to the unanticipated volume I had committed to.  One big maple tree produced 50 stuffed bags and I had at least 10 yards to rake up, but hey, I was more than happy to have them!
The tree and shrub leaves that accumulate around your yard represent a valuable natural resource that can be used to provide a good source of organic matter and nutrients for use in your landscape and are excellent in your compost.  In forests, meadows and other natural settings, leaves and other organic wastes form a natural carpet over the soil surface, which conserves moisture, modifies temperatures and prevents soil erosion and crusting.  In time, bacteria, fungi and other natural occurring organisms decompose the leaves and other organic material, supplying the existing plants with a natural, slow release form of nutrients. Leaves contain the perfect mix of carbon and nitrogen and provide up to 80 percent of the nutrients a plant extracts from the soil and air during the season, thereby eliminating the need of damaging synthetic fertilizers.
After weeks of gathering materials around town, I now have 5 big composting bins cooking away, all nicely layered with moistened grass clippings, shredded leaves from a variety of different species of trees, pine and larch needles, chopped up garden waste, wood chips, clean sawdust, apples off the ground and whatever else I could find.  This will provide me with a great blend of nutrients for my gardens for next year, along with a teaming population of microbes.  I’ve also covered all my roses and shrubs with a thick layer of leaves to prevent frost damage and winter kill, added another layer of leaves to my lasagna beds to add extra nutrients, used more to suffocate some weedy areas and stocked-piled a heap of bags to layer into my spring compost.   All it cost me was labour and time and the organic material will never damage or poison the environment.
The trees in one acre of forest shed as much as two tonnes of leaves each fall but it takes 100 years to make 1” of topsoil.  We’ve got them everywhere, every year, and we can produce soil 10 so much faster than that.  Compost them, give them away to a gardener, put them in the woods, pile them up in the back corner of your yard for later use or spread them around and mow them into your grass.  Ask Santa for a leaf shredder this Christmas because the smaller the leaf and needle particles, the faster they’ll decompose and become available to your plants.
No wonder we have a maple leaf on our Canadian flag, because someone must’ve known that leaves are a national treasure and a resource worth treasuring.  The last place they belong is the dump – so next year, if you don’t want them, I’ll sure take them!

 

Gaia column Dec ’11