BOAST THE MOST COMPOST

Part 1: Fast and Easy Compost

When we moved to the Ranch in 2007 the compost pile went up the next month. It was February and the weather wasn't even ready for the early onions, peas and lettuce to be planted but I knew from what little I'd read that without yet a flock of chickens to feed food scraps to we would have plenty of raw material to compost. Let's combine this with the fact that we had a first year garden to put in soon and this was the ONLY year I wanted to buy compost and manure by the bag full. That was our first and last compost purchase.

By Harvey Ussery

Starting to build a new garden isn’t difficult. Most people begin by going out into their yards with a shovel or garden tiller, digging up the dirt and putting in a few plants. Following the organic and natural methods, add a little mulch or compost, and you’re well on your way to make good soil for your homegrown vegetables. But in the long run, the success of your garden depends on making healthy garden soil. The more you can do to keep your soil healthy, the more productive your garden will be and the higher the quality of your crops.

In the last issue, I discussed the value of soil care methods that imitate natural soil communities. These include protecting soil structure, feeding the soil with nutrients from natural and local sources, and increasing the diversity and numbers of the microbes and other organisms that live in the soil.

If I could show you how to manufacture a product anywhere in the country and if I offered to find you the raw materials free, would you be interested? If so, here is a business plan that works. Have you seen those weathered wooden pallets stacked behind grocery stores, piled beside feed stores or next to the dumpster in your local lumber yard? Those pallets, your initiative, and the information that follows could mean money in your pocket for years to come.

Pallets are often available free for the asking. Businesses are glad to get rid of them so they don’t have to pay to haul them away. There are two kinds of pallets—reusable and throw away. The reusable pallets are often made of oak, poplar, and occasionally maple. If there is a big stack of them, some stores will give these away free too. But the ones I like best are the throw away pallets made of pine, oak, or poplar wood.

Windows in a home are important. They invite the sun in with light, and heat. And in the winter, we crave both. But at night, or on those very cold, gray days, those windows aren't so friendly. They draw out that precious heat, and light, too. But there is a friendly compromise-window quilts.

Over the years, and many window quilts later, I've learned that a winter window covering needs to be easy to use, both going up and coming down. It needs to be cheery when in place (light colors help), and it needs to be inexpensive to make-so you can make them for all of your windows.

Milkweed isn't your average weed; in fact, I feel guilty calling it a weed at all. The common milkweed, Asclepias syriacqa, is one of the best known wild plants in North America. Children love to play with the downy fluff in autumn, while farmers despise it as a tenacious weed of hayfields and pastures. Butterfly enthusiasts adore milkweed as the sustenance for their beloved monarch. Hardly any country dweller can fail to notice this unique, elegant plant so laden with fragrant, multi-colored blossoms in midsummer.