Get Ready for Summer Homestead Projects Week continues with the second book – Composting for a New Generation: Latest Techniques for the Bin and Beyond by Michelle Balz. We compost everything we can here on the farm. I’ll discuss what we do after I give you the information about the book.
About Composting for a New Generation:
Composting is no longer only in the realm of environmentalists! It’s not just about reducing food waste; most composters get their hands dirty because of the benefits it brings to the soil in their garden. All the extra nutrients makes for well-fed gardens with plenty of nutrients and rich moisture.
Composting has “been under the radar screen until now, and seen as a boutique, West Coast thing,” says Jared Blumenfeld, who oversees California as well as two other Western states and the Pacific for the Environmental Protection Agency. “But now everyone from Massachusetts to Minnesota has programs starting up, and pretty soon there will be a critical mass.”
Composting for a New Generation includes tried-and-true composting methods and new, innovative techniques. You’ll learn the science of composting, traditional bin composting (including how-to sections on building your own bin), vermicomposting (with worms), composting with nature, keyhole gardens, organic composting, and using your finished compost. Composting for a New Generation is the most complete book to date for your organic soil needs.
ALL AMAZON PURCHASE LINKS ARE AFFILIATE LINKS WHICH MEANS IF YOU MAKE A PURCHASE I RECEIVE A SMALL COMMISSION (AT NO ADDITIONAL COST TO YOU)
About the Author:
Michelle Balz is a long-time backyard composter with a passion for reducing our impact on the planet. She spends her days writing laid-back advice for home composters in the Confessions of a Composter blog, teaching classes on backyard composting, and learning everything she can about composting, recycling, reusing, and waste reduction. Since 2002, Michelle has worked as a solid waste (a.k.a. garbage) professional encouraging residents and businesses to reduce their waste and use fewer resources. Michelle has a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies and a master’s degree in Professional Writing both from the University of Cincinnati. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her high-school-sweetheart-turned-husband Adam and two adorable children Benjamin and Emily.
How We Compost on the Farm:
Any and all vegetable matter gets used in one way or another. I consider it carefully when I am trimming the fruit or vegetable; for example – last year when I was preparing the strawberry harvest to freeze for the winter I kept the caps aside to feed to the chickens. When the carrots come in I clean the greens and freeze them so I can use them in soups and stews. If I have too many they go out into the main compost pile now that the goats aren’t here to eat them. The same goes for any other vegetable – if I think the chickens will eat the trimmings I save it for them, otherwise it goes into one of the two big mulch piles.
He always has always maintained two piles; one “hot” and one “cold.” The cold pile is the one he uses in the current year for the garden. The hot pile is the one that we add to over the course of the year and is actively breaking down. Weeds, the vegetable matter that the chickens don’t get and the chicken (and duck) poop from their houses all go in to that pile.
The compost piles are all part of the nothing goes to waste on the farm thought process. If I can’t use it for flavoring for soups or stew and I can’t use it to feed the chickens and ducks into the mulch pile it goes. This is beneficial in two ways; we produce less trash which we have to pay to have hauled away and we have to buy less feed for the chickens and ducks!
Worm Castings
Another type of compost that we have used here on the farm is worm castings. What are worm castings you ask? Worm poop! We used them this year to enrich the garlic that we planted. Check it out:
I can’t tell you how well they worked as the garlic hasn’t come up yet. It still has a couple of months ’til it starts showing signs of life.
But I will!
Now be sure and enter the giveaway for a copy of Composting for a New Generation and check back tomorrow where we will be discussing bees.
The Giveaway:
One lucky US reader will win a copy of Composting for a New Generation. Just enter as many ways as you would like on the Gleam widget below. Full rules are on the widget. At the end of the week there will also be a multibook giveaway including this book. All giveaways will be ending on the same day. If you win a single copy and are lucky enough to win the multibook giveaway you will have the option to choose which giveaway you would like to keep as your win. You can only win one.
If you are lucky and win two single book giveaways you can maintain both of those wins. What I am trying to say with all of these words is that you can only win one copy of a book. Sheesh, why could I have not figured that out a paragraph ago?
