Timothy Norton

Psychrophilic Composting

We have heard about thermophilic composting and mesophilic composting but did you know there is a third state? Introducing psychrophilic composting! Thes composting aerobic bacteria thrive in the low temperature range of 70 degrees Fahrenheit down to a chilly 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes, even in the wintertime your compost is slowly being processed by microbes. It has been reported that the sweet spot for psychrophiles to thrive is around 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The rate of decomposition through psychrophilic processes decreases the further away from this sweet spot the pile goes. The natural life cycle and biological processes of psychrophiles generates heat that eventually warms the pile. This eventually, when the critical mass of the pile increases in temperature, allows for mesophilic bacteria to flourish and overtake the psychrophiles in population size. It is good to note that your compost pile can indeed freeze in the right conditions and psychrophiles will not be processing down waste at a appreciable rate.

Due to not reaching the temperatures of thermophilic decomposition, weed seeds can retain viability through psychrophilic composting.

A heat wave has settled over my town for the next few days, joy!

It is amazing how much your comfort can be influenced by the clothes that you choose to wear. I'm not talking necessarily about the obvious clothes choices like wearing a snow suit on a hot day but more so the particular weight and weave a clothes item has.

I changed just my t shirt from something that was closer to a medium weight shirt to a light weight shirt and I was instantly feeling cooler. I was wearing socks at the start of the day but I shed them around noon and felt relief.

I think I am going to invest in some shorts!

I used to take online gardening advice for specific USDA zones as gospel but have more recently learned more and more about utilizing microclimates. Techniques such as sun scoops and frost pockets can help you push the zone and grow things that might not normally grow in you area.

It seems that I have been blessed/cursed with volunteer cherry tomatoes in several of my raised garden beds. Even with a particularly nasty winter last year and allowing my chickens to comb over the beds for small stray tomatoes, they persist.

I'm settled that this year I am going to try and learn the most delicious ways to prepare the cherry tomatoes. Maybe then the risk of the smallest tomatoes over ripening and dropping is reduced? Who knows.

A question that I'm sure has many answers, I am curious to know how different livestock keepers manage to store their animals feed. Bins? Barrels? Silos?

I keep chickens and I store their feed inside of their enclosed run for convenience. Two galvanized garbage cans can store at least a month's worth of feed and many months more of supplements/accoutrements. Their feed come from a local grain mill and I can fit several standard feed bags in each can.

Learning moment of the day.

Just because your compost pile is "shrinking" does not mean that it is composting. I have a smaller compost pile that I have been building by consistently adding kitchen scraps and household compostables to, dating back to the start of spring.  I have not turned it, thinking I would just let it be a cold compost pile and it would figure itself out, but got the sudden urge to flip it today. It is a good thing that I did because I found that there was a lot of carbon dense materials that was not breaking down. I unfortunately think there was some matting that ended up repelling water and further slowing the whole process down.

The good news is that the pile has been flipped, rained on, and hopefully will perhaps go into a thermophilic phase if I have any luck.

We will see!

I'm sorry to hear about your pigs!

I'm not very familiar with hogs but just spitballing possibilities here. The cracked corn is a new introduction that you have mentioned. Could it possibly be tainted with mold? Anything funny with how it has been stored? I have heard of mycotoxins in improperly stored grains can cause issues with livestock.

I use a variety of 18v Ryobi tools and have their tire inflator. The operation lasts quite a long time with the 4ah battery. My old car had a leak in a tire that I babied for way to long and put the inflator through its paces during that time.

I agree with the previous comments that mention if you have a suite of electric tools that you use that getting the associated tire inflator tool would probably be a good idea.

Sawdust, as previously mentioned, has an incredibly large amount of carbon stored in it compared to nitrogen. The ratio can be a stunning 200:1 to 500:1 which is incredibly carbon dense.

Personally, I do not use sawdust directly in my growing spaces. Sawdust, especially if its thickly applied, tends to create a compaction layer and can wick/repel water in a way that does not benefit plants. I much rather use it as a carbon addition to my compost or as an addition to my woodchip paths.

Anna Hutchins wrote:I think it instantly removed the seasoning from my cast iron because the onions that I was cooking suddenly turned bright yellow!

When I was learning to caramelize onions, one of the tips involved adding a very small amount of baking soda to the onions to encourage the process to happen faster. I was a little ham fisted with the soda and ended up creating a yellow sludgy onion mess. I can't speak to the cast iron seasoning but I do know that the PH shift causes the color of onions to change. I now just skip the soda and substitute time.

A recommendation that I would pass on for meat to get better browning is to utilize some kind of weight on top like a burger press. Personally, I just use a smaller cast iron pan on top of the meat to have that much more contact to the hot surface.