Chapter 3
The How and the Why of the Heap
How does a compost heap disintegrate? If you know the answer to this question, you will be a hundred per cent successful in the making of one.
The compost heap is one great co-operative
workshop of living entities. Heat, the natural heat of disintegration, plays an important part. It comes from the quick breaking down of living tissues, leaves, stems and flowers; intense heat for a few days; then, with the release of the plant juices, it tempers to a moist pleasant warmth, ideal for the life and action of countless millions of microscopic soil workers. I repeat, countless millions, in the space of one teaspoon; bacteria, fungi, microbes, microflora, each one working at the further transformation of the vegetable matter, dying themselves, adding their minute beings to the sum total of the humus in the heap. They are supplemented by larger life
maggots, insects, and above all, worms, each with its own individual task; all working to turn the vegetable matter into food for new plant life. These beings need air. They must breathe; therefore, both aeration and the retention of heat are essentials for a successful heap.
The Bin
To achieve this, we use a simple wooden bin: a box with four sides and no bottom. It stands directly on the soil.
Why
wood? Because it is warm, alive, generally obtainable, and easily erected. But there are substitutes, and in these wartime days we may have to use them:
Oak staves of old barrels
Brick walls, with spaces for aeration, say five a side.
Turf placed grass downward, and freed of squitch.
Bales of straw built round the heap.
If no protection is available, build the heap like a haystack with straight firm sides. The inside will become compost. The outside six inches will act as protection; it will not decompose, but you can use it in the next heap.
Size of the Bin
Suit it to the size of your garden. Aim at filling it within two months -- the quicker the better; the fresh material shrinks tremendously, and a bin holds far more than you would think. Everyone is apt to start too big! It is far better to have two smaller bins than one large one, though you can always sub-divide a large one with light movable boards. A good general size is:
For a small garden: 18 in. x 18 in. x 2 ft. high.
For a medium garden: 3 ft. x 4 ft. x 3 ft. high.
For a large garden: 6 ft. x 6 ft. x 3 ft. high.
Site of the bin -- any aspect except north.
Protection Against Rain
This is important because:
Heavy rain will douse the heat.
A sodden and confined heap cannot breathe. It is the aerobic (i.e., air-breathing) microbes that produce compost; the anaerobic microbes exist without air, and the result of their activities is putrefaction. Therefore, it is important to have adcquate
shelter to ensure both heat and air. Place a sheet of corrugated iron at a slant, so that air can pass under and rain run off it: or, as an alternative, make a shelter of stretched canvas or strong sacking.. Rubber is not advisable, as it is an insulator.
The Foundation
Good drainage is essential. If your soil is light, place the bin directly on it. If it is heavy, dig down about six inches and fill the space with rubble and a cover of soil on top. Why? Because the heap produces a lot of moisture, especially when plants are succulent. This must be able to disperse, or it would saturate the compost and exclude the air.
Charcoal
It is advisable, though not essential, to scatter a few handfuls of charcoal on the floor of the bin. Why? Because charcoal absorbs unpleasant gases, and remains itself unchanged. For this reason, it is given in the form of charcoal biscuits to relieve indigestion. It is also used in filters, and, in increasing quantities, in gardens, especially as drainage for pots and seed boxes. It is easy to make. Build a small bonfire, with brash wood (old
pea sticks) and when it is red hot, pour some water on it -- you will get charcoal.
Plate 2. In the compost yard: The main range of bins
Building the Heap (Materials)
Use any vegetable matter. Weeds, clearings of beds and borders, lawn mowings, cabbage leaves, vegetable peelings, tea leaves,
coffee grounds, straw, old hay: animal. manure, if you can get it. Don't use meat refuse, skin, bones, fat, or cooked stuff. Why? Because if kitchen refuse other than vegetables, are admitted to the heap, you will get greasy water, greasy remains, in short--swill. Such grease makes a scum and keeps out the air, and that will lead to putrefaction. Also a daily libation of this refuse will over-balance your heap, and the result, again, will be putrefaction, smell and flies. In a large farm heap with manure, kitchen refuse might be risked, but I strongly advise against it.
People may say: 'But animals that die go back to soil!' Yes, of course they do, but most wild animals do not die a natural death. They are the prey of others, right down the scale. Hunt for the body of a dead beastie, hunt through an acre of woodland -- you may find one, possibly two, but I doubt it, and we are dealing with an area of a few square feet!
Following this line of thought, I have heard of people getting offal and remains from the butcher's refuse, as a weekly offering to the compost heap; but again, to do so would be to over-balance the heap, and go beyond Nature's own scheme. One or two odd
mice or birds buried in the heap will disappear, and be absorbed by the mass of vegetable matter and the work of the micro-organisms, but for a garden heap, I counsel no weekly offerings of flesh and no metal. Don't call it a rubbish heap, or it will be treated as one!
Plate 3. In a town garden: 'Lightly treading it down'
Weeds
Use all weeds, even seeding and rampant ones. Place seeding weeds in the centre where the heat will destroy their power of germination. Have no fear of rampant weeds. The more they ramp, the more vitality they have to give to the heap. Better not put them near the top; in late autumn, they may grow to the light, but they will not
root, and can easily be pulled out and used on the next heap. I am thinking of bind-weed, a bad ramper, but it disappears entirely in the heat of a heap. The only plants to avoid are heavy tough evergreens, i.e. old ivy leaves, old privet, and yew.
Use the green stuff as fresh as possible. The fresher it is the more vitality it holds. If you can't use it at once, throw a sack over it, to prevent sun and wind drying it up. If it seems shrivelled, spray it before adding it to the heap; cut your long stems into short lengths, six to twelve inches. Why? It releases the juices and the short bits pack better. Use a sharp heavy spade for this job, which is soon done. Incidentally, if a stem is too tough to be severed with a spade, it is too tough for the heap. Burn it.
Building the Heap
Build in layers four inches thick. Alternate layers of tough stuff with soft green weeds or grass, the one will help the other. If you have anima1 manure, or poultry manure, put a two-inch layer or less, in every foot. If you have none, throw in a scattering of soil. Introduce three dustings of lime. I repeat dustings only, at twelve, twenty-four, thirty-six inches.
Keep the heap level. It will tend to build up in the centre and sink at the sides; a light treading or packing with a spade will correct this. It will also break down crossing stems, which make air pockets.
Always keep some sacking on the last layer. This is very important. Why? Because sun and wind dry up and shrivel the exposed area, and heat, moisture and vitality escape from the heap. This heat can be intense, it reaches 160 to 180 degrees F. (71-82 deg C) for a short time, then dies down; it rises again when fresh material is added. To maintain a steady heat make new additions as often as possible. Decomposition is quicker, and the intense heat destroys weed seeds and disease.
The heap will shrink tremendously as you build it. As long as there is heat in it, you can go on adding fresh material. When it is full and firm, cover it with four inches of soil, let it settle for two or three days, then treat it with the 'activator'.
The Treatment
The activator comes in the form of a herbal powder (formulae, Appendix 2). Drop one grain (a pinch, as much as will cover a sixpence or an American cent) into a pint bottle of rain-water. Shake it well; let it stand for twenty-four hours. Shake again before using it. It will keep in solution for about a month or three weeks. If it smells sweet it is all right.
Inoculation
Make holes with a crowbar from approximately twelve to twenty-four inches apart, and to within three to six inches of the bottom of the heap; pour three ounces of the liquid into each hole. Fill them up with dry soil, and ram it down to prevent air pockets. Cover the heap with a sack, and forget it for a month.
Result
When you open it, burrow into it with a trowel. If it smells sweet (and it has a lovely smell) it is all right: dig further, breaking it up as you go. If rightly built it will be very rich dark soil.
Remember, it is impossible to give a definite date for the ripening of any heap. There are so many differing factors: season, weather, building materials -- one can only give an average and approximate time. Roughly speaking:
A spring and early summer heap takes four to six weeks. A summer heap six to eight weeks. An autumn heap eight to twelve weeks.
A winter heap moves very little if at all. The earth sleeps in winter and this seems to affect both growth and decay. You may make a wonderful heap of winter weeds, between 21 December and March: it develops no heat, it just remains as you put it in. But when you get some fresh spring growth, or, best of all, the first lawn-mowings, remove the top half of your winter collection, introduce a four-inch layer of the living green, and build. up the heap in alternate layers of winter weeds and fresh growth. That heap will decompose in about a month, and you will get the advantage of increased bulk with the help of the winter collection.
If, when you open your heaps, you find they are not entirely soil, there is usually a reason, and always a remedy.
1. You my find a sodden corner, or possibly a sodden layer. Why? Probably rain has seeped in, or it may be after a wet spell your plants were full of moisture which could not drain away. Remedy: Let it remain in the air for a few hours, it will soon disintegrate.
2. It may be that some stems or tough grass have not broken down. Why? Probably they were too wiry, too dried up; dry old grass is difficult. Remedy: Fork them into a loose pile in the open, and pour some compost or manure water (see below, The Manure Tub) over them; in a couple of days they will be fit to put on the garden.
Storing Ripe Compost
When the compost is ripe and you need the bin, you can stack it in a compact heap, with steeply sloped sides, covered with soil, so that rain will run off. It will go on ripening and come to no harm.
Autumn Leaves
Do not use fallen leaves in a mixed heap. A few odd ones don't matter, but a thick layer makes an impenetrable barrier and holds up the heap. Why?
Because their flat surfaces press tight together and exclude air.
Because they have already lost much of their vitality. They are half dead, or they would not have fallen, therefore they decompose more slowly than living green matter and they slow down the decomposition of the whole heap. They make first-rate humus, but it is better to make a separate leaf-stack, in the open. A surround of wire netting keeps it tidy. An occasional scattering of soil is all to the good -- do not tread it down. Leave it for six to nine months. Then turn it out, and treat it. In two months it will turn to a very rich black mould, like 100-years'-old leaf mould. Once you start a rotation, you need never be without it. It carries not only its own leafy smell, but the added aroma and richness of the Q.R. compost.
Manure
Some compost makers believe that animal manure is essential to making a good compost. I do not agree. I have tested entirely vegetable compost, against compost made with manure, and found no difference in its effect.
After all, cow manure is just plants, composted by the cow. She is the best compost-making machine in the world! She breaks up the herbage by the combined heat of her body and the incessant chewing of the cud. She withdraws the vitality of the plants into herself, for her own needs (and ours), bones, blood, flesh and milk. She has seven stomachs to complete this work and should do it thoroughly. What she cannot assimilate, she returns to the earth as dung, i.e. composted plants. (Note that the smell of cow dung, and the smell of rotting lawn-mowings are almost identical.) But this cow-made compost is full of very strong animal digestive juices; if it is used in the garden when it is fresh, it burns plants, and introduces pests into the soil; but, if you wait two or three years, it turns to a beautiful black soil, like the best compost.
Now in the vegetable compost, we use the entire plant, with its vitality whole and unimpaired. We have learnt from the cow! We use both pressure and heat, but instead of the digestive juices we, use the herbal activator containing the chief plant elements, in living plant form. Moreover we beat the cow at her own game, as regards time! Instead of having to wait for two or more years, the vegetable compost is ready for the garden in six weeks -- or less!
If it were true that animal manure is essential to good compost it would be a tragic outlook for millions of gardeners and smallholders. Even before the war, I found that between 85 and 90 per cent of gardeners were unable to get farmyard manure for their holdings.
I arrived at these statistics by questioning the audience, at every meeting I addressed. I called for 'Hands-up' from all who could get farmyard manure for their gardens. The average was always the same, with one exception -- a private meeting for farmers' wives in an entirely
dairy country.
The lack of farmyard manure was so universal, that I decided on a drastic test.
I excluded all manure from the compost heaps designed for the flower garden, using only vegetable compost for four years, and I found that soil, health, and beauty of growth and colour were not impaired in any way. I further know from reports that purely vegetable compost has had, and is having, splendid results in all parts of England; and it is the greatest comfort to garden lovers, to know that they need not be dependent on something they can't get!
Instead of liquid manure, they can soak a trowelful of ripe compost in a pail of water, dilute it to tea colour and use it as a feed for the plants that need it. The response is amazing.
At the same time, while not essential, manure is a help. It has wonderful heating and activating qualities and once it is ripe it is the finest natural humus that exists. A farmyard manure heap treated with Q.R. activator becomes ripe and friable in a few weeks (again we help the cow!). For those who cannot get it in bulk, it is possible to make a little go a very long way. Thus:
The Manure Tub
Sink a tub, barrel, or box, in the soil, to within six inches of its rim. Fill it to earth level with fresh cow dung. (Most farmers will allow you to collect a few pailfuls, from gateways and byres.) Treat the manure with three ounces of the diluted solution; cover it with a wooden lid to keep out the rain. It will be fit to use in about three weeks, and you use it for liquid manure. A trowelful in a gallon pail of water makes a strong brew. One pint of this to one gallon of water is the best strength for tomatoes or any plant needing food. Further, a bucketful of this, or the stronger liquid, can be poured into a ripe compost heap and will add to its richness.
A curious point about manure treated this way is that though it loses its rank smell, it preserves its fresh appearance for years, and one barrelful will last a very long time.
Another method is to fill the sunk tub with dry cow-pats; treat them in the same way; cover them, and forget them for three months. When you go back to them they will have crumbled into the finest black soil, perfect for top dressing, but not for liquid manure.
This was a purely chance discovery. An order was misunderstood, and a tub, meant for fresh manure, was filled with these dry pats. Labour was scarce, time scarcer, so I left it, and treated the tub, just to see what would happen, and a miracle happened! Several experts who saw the results this summer pronounced it some of the best stuff they had ever handled and could not guess what its origin had been.
Poultry and Rabbit Manure
With the war, there has been a tremendous increase in domestic poultry and rabbit keeping; consequently many appeals come from compost makers for advice in handling poultry and rabbit manure.
While very light layers of poultry manure can be used directly on the compost heap, we find the most satisfactory way is to make a separate small heap, like a miniature dung heap. We use the droppings, the litter, straw and hay. The dry straw is thoroughly wetted before building it into the heap. For this we use the strong manure or compost water. We build the heap up to two and a half feet, protect it from heavy rain, throw a spadeful of soil over it at intervals, and treat it with the solution. It breaks down in less than a month, and looks like farmyard manure. We put this on to the compost heap in two-inch layers. It makes good stuff. Rabbit manure could be treated in the same way, either in a separate heap, or with the poultry droppings.
Farm Heaps
It is obviously impossible to have bins all over the farm; therefore, farm heaps must be built in the open, and, as farm material is brought in by the cart-load, instead of the barrowful, they must be of larger dimensions. A section eight feet long by six feet wide and six feet high is a useful size. One section can be completed before going on to the next; the sections can touch, and so make an ever-lengthening clamp. If the top is sharply ridged rain will not seep in. The procedure of building is the same as for the garden heap. Good drainage is necessary. Build in layers of four inches. If there is a mass of one material, break it by narrow layers of soil, or better still, manure. This should be available on the farm and can be used in two-inch layers throughout the heap. Material like old dry hay, tough grass, and above all, dry straw, should be saturated with treated manure water.
In Eire the Ministry of Agriculture advises soaking straw for twenty-four hours. A nursery gardener, who runs an 'intensive' garden with Q.R. compost, told me recently that he used a quantity of straw in his heaps, and soaked it overnight in a long bath filled with manure water. The results were first-rate.
If a farm is equipped with a
urine tank, the tank itself can be treated. Soak some sand, or dry soil, in the diluted Q.R. solution, allowing one pint to each six cubic feet of tank space. Scatter the soaked sand over the surface. The sand will sink, and free the solution to do its work from the bottom. Straw soaked, or even sprayed with this urine, would make valuable compost, and break down very quickly.
In an all straw heap, include if possible two-inch layers of fresh green nettles or bracken. The green gives vitality; nettles, wetted and bruised, will raise heat more quickly than anything! Manure, if possible, otherwise soil in narrow layers, will steady the heap. Treat it; it will go to rich black mould, without turning, in from four to six months. It can then be spread with a shovel.
The method is very elastic and open to infinite variations. The three chief rules are:
Keep heat in.
Keep rain out.
Let the heap breathe.
Other Materials
While the foregoing is about compost making by the more ordinary materials, there are some people who may have unusual, yet priceless raw matter, within easy reach -- perhaps thousands of tons of possible compost -- going to waste.
An interesting example is the story of a friend who lives near the New River, the chief water supply for London. Twice a year water-men clean the river of water weed, mud and the heavy growth of its banks. The water weed, green and crinkly, has untold vitality. It cannot be used on the land for seven years, or it would start growing! It smells like pig manure; the river mud smells worse. The water-men pile it up in huge dumps and leave it. No one thought of using it, till my friend, a keen 'composter' and gardener, had the inspiration to try it.
The first heaps were made entirely of the water weed, in various stages:
The fresh weed as it came out of the river.
The slimy stuff, a week old from the bank; and
A very small proportion of the dry seven-year-old rotted stuff.
With these ingredients, a layer of lime, and some layers of soil, several heaps were made, covered with earth and treated with the Q.R. 'solution'. In fourteen weeks, they had rotted to a friable dung, not good enough for top dressing, but good for putting into trenches to retain moisture for peas.
The next experiments were an even greater success.
The heaps were made with water weed, straw, and chipwood bedding from a large stable. The water weed wetted the straw, while the chipwood bedding, which had horse manure in it, made a dry, steadying layer.
Several such heaps were built and treated, and in three to four months had turned to a rich black compost, of first-rate quality. It produced one and a half tons of onions, and six cwt. of fine peas on one-half acre of poor land, and this in a very dry season, a universally bad one for peas.
The original heaps of treated water weed are now, after fifteen months, good black compost, described as 'like Lincolnshire silt'. The untreated water weed dumps seven years old are not compost, but described as 'a useful rather dirty muck'.
Thousands of tons of this first-class potential manure are wasted -- and the land is hungry for it.
In every country there must be waste products, tremendous growths, overwhelming weeds, which could be turned to compost, with imagination and a little care. Anything within the vegetable kingdom will turn to soil, with pressure, heat and aeration -- and the earth needs all we can give her.
Chapter 4
The Compost and the Garden
The building of the heap may sound laborious! As a matter of fact, it is very simple, it soon fits into the routine of garden work, and always carries with it a sense of anticipation. Opening a ripe heap never loses its thrill of amazement! The change is so dramatic, the aroma so sweet and satisfying, the soil so clean and vital, one cannot keep one's fingers away from it. But I am not sure that the results of using the compost in the garden are not even more astounding.
It gives the soil whatever quality it lacks, no matter what it may be! It transforms heavy clay into friable mould; it gives thin soil substance, and hungry soil food. It suits every kind of plant. A clever Dutchman, an expert on soil, explained that point, in his slightly broken English: 'But of course -- do you not see? You are not giving to your plants one dish. You are offering them a restaurant and they can choose for themselves.'
It is easy to use. Keep it in the top four to six inches of the soil, and either fork or 'cultivate' it in. It is soil, and will amalgamate quickly with its surroundings. Use it at about six tons per acre; the equivalent is two and a half lb. per square yard. The quantity is approximate. You can't hurt the land by using too much. It will never make it sour, so you can be generous to hungry land and to hungry plants.
In intensive
gardening, where crop follows crop, fork in a fresh dressing of compost, as you plant each successive one (other than
roots, of course). If you are short of it, give a little, to each individual plant.
Plate 4. 'It will be rich dark soil'
Plate 5. In the flower garden: 'A vista of colour bordering
a broad turf walk curving in harmony with the wall'
A good mixture for seed boxes and frames is
Loam, 5 parts; compost, 2 parts; sand, 1 part.
For seed drills: line the drill with a sprinkle of sifted compost and sand.
Tomatoes in Pots
Start with the normal mixture, loam 5 parts, compost 2 parts. Plant low in the pot -- the soil level about half-way up. When the roots appear on the surface put two inches of top dressing:
1st dressing: 4 parts loam; 3 parts compost.
2nd dressing: 3 parts loam; 4 parts compost.
3rd dressing: 2 parts loam; 5 parts compost.
When the first truss sets and is the size of a golf ball, use pure compost. When the fruit is ripening, give either manure or compost water, every ten days. When the roots grow out of the drainage holes, put compost on the stage. This method has proved most successful.
Special Uses
For peas and beans we mix a layer of compost into the top of the second spit to hold the moisture, and of course add the usual dressing to the top soil.
It makes a perfect mulch for soft fruit, greedy vegetables, and wall fruit.
For feeding orchard trees, we make up a strong brew of 'manure water' from the fresh manure tub (see above, Chapter 3, The Manure Tub) (or compost water) one gallon manure to twenty gallons water. We fill a wheel water-barrel with the strong mixture, dilute it to tea colour for use (roughly one pint to one gallon of water). We run a fork straight into the soil, at three-foot intervals, round the outside stretch of the branches and pour one gallon of the liquid into the the holes. This is done in early spring.
The result is amazing. Old tired trees (the orchard is very old) have taken a new lease of life, with vigorous healthy foliage, and bear outstandingly good crops.
Before the war I had a staff of three men: a chauffeur-handyman, who also mowed the lawns, and two men in the garden. There is a kitchen garden of three-quarters of an acre and two glass houses, besides many fencing jobs on the farm and round the woods. The place is 150 acres, of which 50 are woodland. The farm was let for grazing, but the woods and fences are my responsibility. The fences are mostly dry Cotswold walls, so the men were busy.
My own garden work was entirely the flower garden -- now a place of beauty. The whole of the enclosure is protected on the north side by the curving grey wall. It was always a vista of colour bordering a broad turf walk, curving in harmony with the wall; green lawns were dominated by a group of trees, including a copper beech, and a marvellous cedar; all this in a setting of woods and hills with a view down the Golden Valley giving both vista and space.
The sole care of this garden, plus the compost work in all its branches, filled most of every day. The kitchen garden, and fruit, was left entirely to the gardener. He made his own compost, at first grudgingly and without much care. He was 'set in his own ways' and his results were not first-rate, till one day, he confessed he had no compost fit for use -- what was he to do? I told him to use one of my heaps, from the 'garden' yard, and left him to it. When I next saw him his face was wreathed in smiles. 'The best stuff I have ever handled, Miss!' After that, there was more care and better results.
One half of the kitchen garden had been literally carved out of a field. The soil was originally two inches in depth, then came rock! We pick-axed it out, three feet deep -- pure, Cotswold stone -- tons of it -- and then had to fill up with whatever we could get. It came from old field dumps, from the woods, and the roadsides; a stupendous task and a weird mixture, but the compost pulled it together and today it is a good garden, though still a stony one.
In 1940 the whole staff joined up, and in their place I had one very old man; an odd job labourer, well over seventy, crippled in both hands, and lame. A gallant old fellow, who talked such broad 'Gloucestershire' that at first I couldn't understand him, he was a first-rate stonewaller (a Cotswold craft), good at straightforward digging, but beyond that not much of a gardener. The cry then, as now, was 'Dig for Victory', so all my efforts went to the kitchen garden, and the flowers had to look after themselves.
I had a lot to learn and I loved it. I made and used far more compost than the garden had been having and some of the results were startling.
Strawberries
I had been told that strawberries would not grow on the Cotswolds, certainly they had never succeeded hitherto. I divided some old plants, took a few runners, made a rich bed, heavily composted, rammed the friable earth till it was firm. (They like hard planting.) After the first year they were a wonderful sight: healthy, large plants roped with berries, immense and very sweet. Everyone coming to the garden would stop, and gasp, 'Oh, LOOK at the strawberries!'
Plate 6. 'Oh look at the strawberries'
Plate 7. In the kitchen garden. Note the bins and the stony soil.
This is an outstanding case, but looking back on the garden as a whole, the general appearance of the crops has been consistently good. I remember a delightful instance before the war. A party of professional gardeners came to see the compost and its results. They started politely but frankly sceptical; when they reached the kitchen garden there was a silence: we came into view of the asparagus bed (the month was September). A voice said: 'Coo! Look at they! I thought they was young larches!' We went on and there were a few murmured words of appreciation. When we had done the rounds, the leader, with a charming gesture, took off his hat and said, 'Well, Miss -- I have learnt something. You often see one or other good healthy crop, but you very seldom find all the crops equally healthy. You've got that, here. There's something that's all right. Thank you.' He was an old man and it meant a lot. Incidentally, one of the party became a gardener to a nursing home on the Cotswolds and the Q.R. system is used as a matter of course -- and success.
Weather Resistance
This is important in England and the resistance to extremes of weather was proved in the severe winter of 1940. Frost, a partial thaw, then a fine rain that fell -- and literally froze as it fell. Every blade of grass became a column of clear ice. Every twig was coated with inches of ice. Birds froze on the trees. Branches crashed every few minutes, borne down by sheer weight of ice, and in falling broke those beneath them. We woke to a world of clear ice, great beauty, and appalling devastation.
Visiting gardeners during the following summer told me they had lost 90 per cent of their brussels sprouts. The crop in this garden came through undamaged -- and the vegetable garden faces north at an altitude of 750 feet.
Resistance against drought is also noteworthy. In this stony friable soil, we would welcome rain every week! But now the soil holds the moisture and the plants flourish even in a prolonged drought.
Pest Resistance
One of the happiest results of this vegetable manure is increased resistance to pests and disease.
It is common sense, of course! If plants (like humans) are well fed and full of vitality, they withstand diseases. Disease or pests may show themselves, but they do not get the upper hand.
Even in the worst cabbage butterfly years, when caterpillars reduced plants to skeletons, only a few scattered holes showed amongst the compost-grown brassica. One theory is that the marauders eat a little, and are satisfied, while with devitalized plants, 'they go on eating, seeking for something that is not there', till they have destroyed the whole.
The 'Old Man' soon became a convert; his wife is a good gardener, and together they made compost for their own plot. Last year onion mildew was rampant in his village, and he told me that his two immediate neighbours lost the whole of their crops: his rows escaped without a touch of the disease. He added that he had only been able to compost half his row of beans, and -- 'Thee could'st tell to an inch, where us left un off.'
A correspondent from Nottingham wrote that ground pests had played havoc all round the countryside. His plot was in the centre of three ravaged gardens -- yet it came through unscathed, and, what was more striking, a friend of his lost every plant in his garden with the exception of some cabbage plants, raised on compost, and given to him by the writer.
An equivalent to this happened here during a season when blue aphis was prevalent. After a careful survey, I found only 3 per cent of my brassica were attacked. Of these only three were my own plants, in each case weaklings with double stems, that should not have been planted out. The rest were plants given to me from a non-composted garden.
So the evidence grows, and is repeated from many sources.
Now -- what about quality?
Quality
Size alone is nothing. The supreme test is taste, texture, and feeding qualities.
I recall a young visitor who blew in one morning to see the garden and the compost. He was an enthusiast -- almost sang the praises of a certain shop that sold compost-fed vegetables. Never was there such food! It was a revelation! We discussed this and many matters till the morning flew. and the lunch bell rang. 'Come in and take pot-luck,' I said. He accepted, and we sat down. The vegetable was spring cabbage. He was talking eagerly. Suddenly he stopped short and realized what he was eating; he took a second mouthful, then a third, in complete silence. Then he laid down his fork, leant over the table, and said impressively, 'Miss Bruce, this has the -- -- beat to a frazzle!'
It is a curious fact that while ordinary cabbage smells when cooking, a compost-fed cabbage does not smell at all. There is a delicious, subtle sweetness about all the vegetables and fruit -- a curious reminder in taste, of the aroma of the compost itself. It is noticed, and commented on, by all visitors (even those who know nothing about the garden). It is eagerly recognized by those who use compost themselves. It is also discernible in the honey from the garden hives.
A passing visitor from Birmingham told me this story. He had been a keen Q.R. compost maker for three years, and was convinced of the different taste, and better quality of his own home-grown vegetables but, fearing his enthusiasm, he wanted an outside and conclusive proof. So one morning, instead of getting the potatoes from the garden, he secretly bought them from the greengrocer. At the midday meal he watched his wife. She ate a little, looked puzzled and dissatisfied, and finally said, 'What potatoes are these?' He answered grimly, but truthfully, 'They came from a different row.' After a time, when she showed obvious distaste, he remarked, 'You don't seem to be getting on with your potatoes, my dear. What is wrong?'
She burst out, 'Well, they are entirely different from the ones we have been having. They have no taste, they are exactly like the stuff we used to buy at the shop!' He had his proof. He confessed his trick, and both are more compost-minded than ever.
From a commercial point of view this aspect is very valuable. A smallholder specializing in compost-grown vegetables should, and does, command top prices.
One composter told me that a
local greengrocer was so struck with the produce of his garden, that he offered him retail prices for all the vegetables he could supply.
A smallholder, running his garden on the French intensive system, wrote that he had solved the problem of the early market by the combination of 'Cloche and Compost'. He had got ten shillings a pound on open market for very early peas.
The comment of the tenant-farmer who now tills my land, is illuminating: 'There's something in it! Here's these fields, just the same land, let for twelve shillings an acre -- and there's the garden growing crops as if it were land worth five pounds an acre!'
A chance seed of wheat was dropped by a bird in a corner of the garden. It grew magnificently, had forty stems like young bamboos, and yielded two ounces of seeds.
The farmer lives ten miles away and has to bring his team of workers by lorry. He has not the available local labour to make farm compost heaps; but after threshing, my 'Old Man' made up several heaps of straw, cavings, weeds, and a little manure. They were treated, and the farmer tried them on a breadth of field, to be sown with oats. The stooks on this part of the field stood a foot higher than the rest, and the grain was infinitely heavier.
The foreman was thrilled, and he and several of the hands begged for some compost, to put into their own gardens.
Feeding Quality
This is the most important matter of all. If a plant is healthy, and growing up to its own perfection, it must have great vitality, and it is the vitality, the living force of the plant, that heightens its food value. The satisfying quality of the vegetables is noticed by all visitors, and is of value in these days of rationing. A vegetable cannot give what it has not got; what it has, it gets from the soil. It cannot reach its 'own perfection' in starved ground, still less in ground doped with chemicals.
Most artificials are soluble salts, so strong that a warning is given to avoid touching the foliage, for fear of burning it. (Lime is not an artificial fertilizer. It is a natural mineral. It does not dissolve and feed plants directly. It sweetens the soil and helps to release plant food.) The salts dissolve on the damp soil, or are watered in. The unfortunate plants are bound to absorb them. A burning salt solution! What harm can it not do? It may act as a stimulant, but to feed on a stimulant eventually ends in weakened constitution, disease and disaster.
Chapter 5
Effect on Human Health
Right feeding is the biggest single factor in good health -- but the food must be right in quality as well as quantity. (From Organic Gardening -- Rodale Press, U.S.A.)
These words are taken from the Daily Mail, written by the Radio Doctor, a well-known voice on the air.
'Good health' -- the feeling of wholeness, not the negative: 'I don't feel ill', but the positive, radiant, good health affecting body, mind and spirit.
Modern statistics show how rare it is.
From America: 'More than 4,000,000 -- i.e. one-third of its young draftees, were rejected, as physically or mentally unfit': and again: '95 per cent of Americans need some dental treatment'. (From Organic Gardening -- Rodale Press, U.S.A.)
The Peckham Health Centre, known as the 'Peckham Experiment', has published some startling facts. (From The Peckham Experiment, by I. Pearse and L. Crocker, George Allen and Unwin.) The Health Centre is a family club, under the supervision of medical and biological experts. The conditions of membership include a periodic ' ' overhaul of the entire family, with a service for subsequent consultation and advice. Social and recreative activities form an integral part of the scheme. The members were a cross-cut section of the community, and therefore a fair sample of the national health.
The statistics are startling:
Out of 500 families examined only 9 per cent of the individuals were 'healthy', i.e. 'without disorder'.
Out of a second list of 500, taken at random from a total of 1,206 families examined, only 10 per cent were healthy.
Pretty grim figures! What is wrong?
In The Labouring Earth, Mr. Alma Baker pointed out that general ill health was not confined to man. It is prevalent in domestic animals, and cultivated plants. If' men were ill, and stock were healthy, or if animals were diseased and plants had good health, there would be no common ground for judgment. But as all three lack good health, there must be a common cause. Unhesitatingly he states that the common cause is the soil. (The Labouring Earth, by C. Alma Baker, Heath Cranton.)
Again it is common sense! A devitalized soil cannot produce vital plants, and as the plant is the foundation of all food, whether animal or vegetable, if the plant is deficient in vitality all suffer alike.
Vitality is the one thing that man cannot give, clever chemist as he is.
There are many synthetic foods on the market to-day. Chemically speaking they may be perfect, but -- I wonder! Have they life? Vitality? If not, they cannot give it. To my mind, there is only one way of testing food, and that is testing it on life. It can't be judged by the chemist's test-tube, or even by the immediate response of the human body; it may act as a dope, or a stimulant. Its feeding properties can only be judged by its effect on living entities, viz.: the white rats and other animals of the biologist's laboratory and a long-term test on human beings.
If such a test were made obligatory for all synthetic food -- yes, and all artificially-fed vegetables -- the safety of human health would be better guarded.
In Your Daily Bread (by Doris Grant -- Faber and Faber), a delightful book, full of wisdom, knowledge, stories, and a keen sense of humour, the author says: 'Why cannot man leave good food alone? It seems impertinence on his part to think he can improve on the wonderfully intricate and involved designs of Nature by processing, bleaching, refining, de-vitaminizing, by taking live things out and putting dead things back, most of all by separating the wholeness of foods. We are finding only too surely that this interference brings sooner or later its own penalties. In fact, it has been said that neglect or contempt of natural laws is the sole cause of all our misfortunes'.
'Our misfortunes!' One of the foremost of our national worries is the low birth-rate. It hastened its downward grade in 1872 when the roller mills destroyed the wheat germ-and white bread came into being.
'The wheat germ oil contains Vitamin E. Vitamin E encourages fertility.' (Your Daily Bread)
One of the major surprises of the home front has been the steady rise in the birth-rate since the war started. May not the reason be that the 85 per cent national loaf includes the wheat germ?
This belief has been strengthened by the issue of the latest quarterly birth-rate statistics (September 1945). For the first time since 1942 the return shows a fall instead of a rise. Why? Last year, during the summer of 1944, the 85 per cent loaf was reduced to 82.5 per cent and later to 80 per cent. The difference in the bread has been obvious. It is now white, poor, and completely unsatisfying. We 'eat and eat, seeking for something that is not there'.
The change has caused grave anxiety amongst scientists and doctors, and was the subject of a lively debate in the House of Lords in February 1945. The debate, led by Lord Teviot, was deeply interesting. It touched many subjects from national health, in all its aspects, to the fertility of stock. It was barely reported in the Press, but it has been printed in full in the June issue of 'The Compost News Letter'. (The Compost News Letter, Hon. Sec.: Dr. L. Picton, Saddlers Close, Holmes Chapel, Cheshire.) It is well worth reading. It reveals the details of the debasement of the loaf. I believe this debasement to be the immediate cause of the present decline in the birthrate. The following figures, gathered from The Times of 28th September 1945, confirm this belief.
In 1941 the birth-rate had dropped to 669,000. Between 1942 and 1944 it
rose by 174,000. This rise coincides with the general use of the 85 per cent loaf. In the summer of 1944 the loaf was debased to 82.5 per cent and later to 80 per cent, and (I repeat) the quarterly birth-rate return of September 1945 records the first fall since the introduction of the 85 per cent loaf. (Official statistics of the numbers of poultry and pigs show a steady decrease till 1944, when both started a definite and startling rise. This again is no coincidence, once more the children's bread is being Cgiven unto the swine'.) This fact must be more than a coincidence. There are, of course, other contributory factors; one, that is generally accepted, is Nature's reaction to widespread destruction of life by the urge to create life in wartime, but this is not borne out by the facts of the 1914-18 war when the loss of life was heavier than the loss in the last war; the birth-rate in World War I dropped continuously during the war and only rose for a short period when it ended. One thing is certain. Nature is swift to respond or retaliate as man keeps or breaks her vital laws. Bread has not been called the 'Staff of Life' for nothing.
Surely in the name of common sense and national health, whole-meal bread will be obligatory in the future and the acknowledged peril of a falling birth-rate will be stopped.
Add to devitalized plants and denatured food, the long list of poison sprays used as insecticides and fungicides. Arsenic, a deadly poison, is widely used as an insecticide. It has caused the death of millions of
bees, is a menace to pollination and a loss to bee-keepers. Apples sprayed with arsenic are on the market, and much latent, yes, and active ill health must be caused by this insidious poison. Another danger is copper sulphate, used in Burgundy mixture for potatoes and tomatoes with the advice 'to wipe tomatoes before sending them to table!' There are many other poisons thus used.
Again it is common sense. If a poisonous remedy is strong enough to kill a pest, it is strong enough to harm a human being: not kill, but undermine his health: to say nothing of the harm done to the myriads of unseen soil workers, for no poison is wise enough to kill the pest, and spare the friend. All perish alike, to the detriment of the fertility of the soil. Feed the plant with natural humus, and it will give, as it was meant to give, full vitality to mankind.
Now for the other side of the picture. Are there any definite examples of improved health arising from fertile soil? There are -- plenty. Examples have been given in The Living Soil, by E. Balfour, the most outstanding and constructive book on the subject. Here are a few others:
A well-known landowner in Surrey adopted a system of composting, in place of artificial manures. The produce was given to pigs and poultry, with the following results:
Mortality among new-born stock practically ceased.
General health of the stock improved
A reduction of 10 per cent in the ration was obtained because of the satisfying power of the home-grown produce.
A large school with both day boys and boarders started the Indore method of composting for their vegetables, instead of using artificial manures. The results were both interesting and satisfactory.
Before the change-over, the school had suffered from epidemics of colds, measles, scarlet fever, and the like. After the adoption of compost-fed vegetables, illness was confined to sporadic cases, brought in from outside. In short, the disease resistance noticed in the plants was repeated in the humans who ate them. The 'common cause' is 'the fertile soil'.
In my own experience, several Q.R. compost users have written about the amazing improvement in the health of themselves and their households, since they started using the compost.
I have noticed the same improvement in my personal friends again and again -- after a few weeks' visit.
Here is another story.
At the Anthroposophical farm in Holland, the produce was sent to customers direct, and by a specialized system of delivery and order. Costs were higher than the current market prices. In time a certain family demurred at the extra price, and returned to the market stall. After some time they came back to their old allegiance, saying they had had to pay so much in doctors' bills since eating the market stuff, that it more than counterbalanced the higher prices paid for vital food!
These are a few of the practical effects. But the tide of public opinion is slowly rising, and with the weight of medical statements, and growing conviction, the truth will have to be faced that indeed:
Right feeding is the biggest single factor in good health, but the food must be right in quality as well as quantity.
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