Andy White

Owing to a change of circumstances I've been considering using Bokashi to process kitchen waste that my worms can't handle easily. Bokashi seems to be an anaerobic pickling/fermentation process rather than a composting one, but the acidic material produced composts (breaks down) readily once it's mixed with soil.
Seems to me that there's a definite possibility for tweaking acidity levels using this stuff.

Cheers,

Andy.

Don't know if anyone's still reading this thread but I came across this site a few years ago:

webpage

He's also got plans for a solar powered dynamo that has to be seen to be believed!
Actually, I'm not really sure if I really do believe it, but it's quite awesome.
I seem to remember that he was having problems with the local authorities about having a giant rotating structure in his garden.

The man is definitely on a mission!

Cheers All.

X.

Er...

No - not really.

Compost.

It's autumn, and there's nothing growing except the winter green manure crops.

It's time to reflect on the year that has passed, and prepare for the year ahead.
The year that's gone was a bit shite. There's only one thing that can save us in the year ahead -
Loads of compost.
My world is one of bags of coffee grounds, leaves and slightly off vegetables. I dream of steaming heaps.

Compost - there's nothing else.

HH.

Hey boss,

Can we have a compost corner?

XXHH.

Matthew - you fortunate SOB. Leaves delivered to your door!

I've been lugging leaves up to the allotment by the bin bag load for the last 3 weeks. I suppose it's good exercise, but it took a while before I got over feeling really self-conscious about the whole thing. I guess the secret is to just act like it's your job. Even so, weird things happen. I was on my way to the allotment with my empty sack when I spied some perfect leaves just inside the gate of the local crematorium. (perfect = not too wet (too heavy), not too dry (a sackful is loads of air with not much leaf)) so I went into collection mode. I'd got my sack 1/2 full when an emergency vehicle pulled up with flashing lights. "Oh God, how embarassing, I'm going to get busted for stealing a sack of leaves from council property." It turned out that the wagon was an ambulance and the paramedic was answering an emergency call from the crem! He just wanted to know if I'd seen any injured people around.

I see that you're a gardener. maybe you could advise me on a composting question.

I've made a rotating composter. I feed it with coffee grounds, dead stuff from the allotment, newspaper, and urine. It gets going amazingly quickly and gets extremely hot, but after about 2 weeks the exciting bit seems to be over. Even after the pyrotechnics, however, the fibrous stuff is still intact, so I transfer to a holding bin that I've put loads of earthworms in. I was wondering if the addition of some part-rotted leaf mould to the bin would introduce some of the necessary moulds and fungus required to deal with the lignins and other tough stuff, or whether I'd be better off just leaving it to the earthworms.

Cheers
HH.

Hi All,

Been reading loads about HK and I'm really fired up about it for many reasons. It's been a crap year and I think that's been due to the soil lacking nutrients, but more importantly to a lack of structure - water just runs off the surface of the soil, and if you disturb the surface and give it a really good go with the hose, the top 2" or so, gets wet, but that's it.

I'd been planning to dig trenches, line them w/ cardboard boxes and newspaper, flood them and re-fill them thus creating a sort of underground reservoir.
The idea that I could achieve the same thing with the pile of slash that would have to be burnt otherwise is a wonderful revelation indeed.

There is a fence at the edge of the patch. It runs SSW so it's a bit of a dead spot at that side of the plot, only getting sun after about 2pm in summer, almost no direct light in winter. I had the thought that I could pile the slash up against the fence and have a Hugel bed running along it.

It's an unpromising location, but I kind of fancy doing it. For one thing, it will improve the view (tall galvanised metal posts are a bit oppressive - they'd seem less tall with a Hugel bed in front), and another is that my co-worker will probably want to have proof that it works before he's OK with it. This is the most non-productive least attractive area, so if I can improve it life will be so much better - and I'll prove the principle and pave the way for future HK beds.

A couple of questions for all you Hugelers out there:

By choosing this location am I squandering my resources (slash)?
Do I need to put a barrier against the fence, or can I just pile the slash up against it?

I don't know what I used to do before I found this site 

HH.

PS. The local Turkish greengrocers has some red savinas in - they blow the crap out of the bhuut jolokias I happened to have in the fridge.
Awesome.

Hi All,

When it started it was meant to be a compost bin, but it's turned into a worm bin all by itself. There's loads of fat juicy worms that seem to eat practically anything that I throw at them, and loads of creepy crawlies of all sorts and... slugs.

Not being a slug lover I used to just spear them with my fork, but I'm starting to think that maybe they have a job to do in that amazing decay factory that turns food into soil. My partner says that they'll lay loads of eggs and that basically when the compost is used it'll be like inoculating the garden with slugs. I think that the large population of centipedes are likely to eat most of the eggs, but I don't know for sure.

Anyone got any thoughts on slugs in compost?

HH.

Hi All,

Leila
A few thoughts on the subject of cigarette butts in leaves.

Several of my gardening books list nicotine as an insecticide. I remember my grandad having a jar of water with cigarette butts in it for that very purpose.
Here's a quote from Laura Pickett Pottorff, Colorado State University Cooperative Extension horticulturist and plant pathologist

"Nicotine is extracted from tobacco or related Nicotiana species and is one of the oldest botanical insecticides in use today. It's also one of the most toxic to warm-blooded animals and it's readily absorbed through the skin. (Wear gloves when applying it, follow label directions and keep pets away from application areas.) It breaks down quickly, however, so it is legally acceptable to use on organically grown crops."

As far as I know the only thing they add to tobacco is potassium nitrate to keep it lit. Of course nasty chemicals are produced when you burn tobacco, but that happens when you burn any organic material, and it's been shown that frying, roasting and grilling produce many chemicals that are pretty dodgy.

I've never checked any of the references, but the humanure guy mentions studies that show that the composting process breaks down many hazardous compounds, and can even bind heavy metals and prevent their absorption by plants.

http://www.weblife.org/humanure/chapter3_12.html

I guess that inevitably there will be dog ends in leaf piles, but over the last 3 weeks of manic collecting, I can honestly say I haven't harvested one that I've noticed. I'm more concerned with the possibility of Aminopyralid in the horse muck that my co-worker wants to bring in!

Best HH.

to unsure good germination/transplant adjustment,

ensure

IMO since they took the lead out of petrol, the worst thing you get in with roadside leaves is dog poo which is only going to be there in small quantities and will rot down anyway. Cigarettes are just tobacco, paper, and charcoal which I can't see as being a problem, and wrappers and plastic can be pulled out when the stuff's being used.
Whenever I go to the allotment, if I'm not carrying a sack of coffee grounds from the local coffee shop, or a bag of wilted fruit and veg. from the local Turkish food mart, I take a large sack and fill it with leaves on the way. There's usually enormous piles in the park or by walls, and it takes about 3 min. to fill up, but if someone's already bagged them up, so much the better.

I'm starting to think I'm more into composting than actually growing things