" You Bet Your Garden "

Here is Mike McGraths' TEDTalk on composting . He has a show on NPR called " You Bet Your Garden " . Usually very informative with conventional organic methods {as in Rodale etc. } . He also has great ideas for keeping out squirrels , deer , insects . He promotes raising habitat for bees and wasps . A few weeks ago he had an interview with a person who clears municipal properties of brush and weeds with goats and gets paid. If this fellow is not a closet permie I think it would only take a slight nudge to tip him over to our side . Come out of the closet Mike McGrath !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9OhxKlrWwc

Here is also a link to the " You Bet Your Garden " website :

http://whyy.org/cms/youbetyourgarden/

He's from my neck of the woods. I used to listen to him a lot, but sometimes his demeanor with folks calling in can be a little "lofty"...most of the time he seems to have sound advice, but his composting talk annoyed a few of us in the "18 day compost" camp. I agree that the forest does compost naturally with no intervention...but the timeline for that breakdown can take years. Most of us are looking for quicker turnaround than that, or are in a hurry to improve the soil for whatever reason.

I agree, Wayne - he could be moved to Permieworld, but he would have to see it in a full-swing setting that has been functioning well for a few years (think Zaytuna or Sepp's) to really get the concept thru to him. I'd love to see Paul on his show, but that will never happen - Paul is a bit too smart for him, I think, and far, far funnier.

Very stupid question: what happens if you don't shred but place in wire bins? Shredding is just not going to happen for me. It took me 2 days just to get the leaves into the bins. I moved 3 truck loads and another is on the way.

I'm currently adding an occasional water/urine mix.

Although I live in #12 of the highest per-capital coffee drinking countries, and although there are 6 coffee shops for a town of 10.000, I haven't yet been able to tap into the coffee waste stream. Getting bar owners to change their behavior to suit my compost needs just isn't happening.

William

Not a stupid question at all, William! Based on your question, I would think the biggest issues would be moisture and nitrogen. Our oak leaves, which are some of the toughest leaves going, break down really quickly in chickenwire bins, but only when adequate green (nitrogen) material is added as an alternating layer. We layer with grass, pulled weeds, kitchen veggie waste...anything green and moist. We water the pile rarely, and it sinks down amazingly fast. Check out the book "Lasagne Gardening" - basic composting info, but it works. I don't think you need to do an 18day compost ala Geoff Lawton for your needs.

Shame about the coffee grounds. They can be fabulous substrate for mushrooms and other stuff.

Yup, oak leaves are tough! We pile them up and throw the ashes from the woodstove on them. Put them through the compost pile every other year or so. Seems to work OK.

I am not much on shredders, either. Make no mistake, I'd like to have one, am just too cheap (thirfty) I reckon.... We pile the stuff up and let it rot awhile, then no need to shred.

I would on the whole be opposed to shredders, unless you already happen to have something lying around that can do the job quickly and easily.

I have someone drop truckloads of leaves on my property, so shredding isn't much of an option. A good chipper-shredder that really performs runs in the thousands of dollars, so not really an option either. Plus it smells and it's loud.

My plan is to pile it, wait until spring, consolidate the piles, dig out the good stuff and mix it with compost that's been composting all winter. That will be my spring re-charge for the soil. Potentially going to trench compost it in. Or perhaps just plop it on the ground here and there, put some soil over the mini-mounds and seed them. Last year I saw better growth in and around these mounds, and that was just from mounding up winter garden waste.

William

Haha,

"SPB's - Stupid People Bags - for collecting leaves to put on curb"

"IF you're doing hard work while gardening, you're not paying attention."

This guy's pretty good.

Also an interesting point that all your garden needs is the leaves, not really the kitchen scraps and everything else you throw in there. If nothing else, knowing that leaves are enough is a good thing.

He also said the only thing better than leaf compost is worm castings. What comes out of worms is worth more than what went into them.

Mike's a knowledgeable and experienced person.. I wrote into his show a couple years ago asking him about permaculture, and he called it a, "growing philosophy". The show tried to get me to schedule a time to ask my question to Mike so he could answer "live". Couldn't do that due to my schedule. Truth is that "You bet your garden" is not live. It's pre-recorded... at least all the calls are pre-recorded.

I respect Mike a lot, I think he has the potential to be a permie... I feel like his show is part of the "wardrobe" of permaculture as Bill described it. We can take the good and leave the rest.

I agree about the composting issue, by the way.