I came across an interesting article on the Discovery Channel website, relating – as the title of this post implies – to the use of human hair as a natural fertilizer. I was glad to see that this wasn’t being touted as some revolutionary new concept, since people have almost certainly been farming/gardening (not to mention composting) with animal and human hair for a long time!

As mentioned in my last post, I took a bit of a hiatus from Compost Guy this fall – partially to give more attention to Red Worm Composting, and partially due to a new time-challenged schedule (I decided to take on the role of ‘Mr. Mom’ for my baby girl most days during the week). I’m not sure what’s gotten into me lately, but I’ve recently had a strong gut feeling telling me that it’s time to get back at it! So here we are…face to face…a couple of silver spoons.

Sorry – you can blame too much TV watching as a child!

Anyway – I thought I would start with a MUCH needed update on my ‘Sandbox Self-Fertilizing Garden‘. Last time I wrote about it was just after setting it up in July. As you can see from the picture above, the garden did ok with the assistance from my vermicomposting trench system (link to article on RWC) – one of two I set up last summer. It was pretty funny watching the trench as my pumpkin patch grew – it was almost as though someone (in this case, the pumpkin patch) was taking a big straw and sucking down the contents of the trench.

I have little doubt that some of the shrinkage was indeed due to a significant removal of water leached from the organic matter largely food waste) as it decomposed, but the worms and other compost critters certainly helped by reducing the wastes down to some beautiful humus (also undoubtedly appreciated by the plants).

..but my herd of composting worms are helping me look pretty good this year!

I’ve had an interest in ‘growing things’ for quite a few years, but to be totally honest I’ve never actually dedicated myself to the task of becoming a real gardener. In a sense, one of the things I actually love about gardening is the fact that you don’t really need to be a green thumb in order to make something happen. If you put some plants in the ground and give them some water, they will generally grow. This is why I strongly encourage everyone to give it a try – regardless of your skill level!

Still, when I see what serious gardeners are able to create, I can’t help but be a little envious. The problem likely stems from the fact that I’ve always preferred to do things my own way (not necessarily “by the books”), so I’ve never focused on learning all the proper techniques or the special requirements for different plants – I just ‘wing it’ for the most part!
Here are just a handful of things I do wrong, year after year:
1) My veggies always go in late
2) I never give any thought to the fact that some types of plants don’t grow well when planted close to one another.
3) I do little to nothing about pests and disease
4) I don’t do anything different for plants that are acid/alkaline loving
5) I often don’t provide enough spacing between plants (without using any ’square foot gardening’ techniques to compensate)
6) Most years, I let weeds run wild – undoubtedly sucking up valuable nutrients and water that could have otherwise been used by my plants.

My gardening efforts have always produced fair to good results – and to some people who aren’t gardeners themselves, it might seem like I know what I’m doing. But when it comes down to it, I really don’t. Having a care-free attitude, while perhaps making my gardening efforts more relaxing and enjoyable, certainly won’t help me win any gardening awards!

Given the quantity of wastes, I’ve had to get a little creative with my methods, and I’ve certainly discovered some methods that really work well, and others that…well…don’t work quite so well!

Most of my efforts have focused on various forms of vermicomposting. I have been adding lots of food scraps to my traditional worm bin systems, but I’ve also been creating a variety of large-scale outdoor systems to help me to deal with all the waste.

One simple technique that seems to be working quite well for me is what I refer to as ‘Garbage Gardening’ (although this name could actually be applied to much of what I’m doing in my backyard this year). Basically, you dump a bunch of waste directly on the soil, you then add a decent amount of good (composting) worm habitat, lots of worms, and some sort of carbon-rich mulch over top. The worms convert the waste materials into worm castings which in turn fertilizes the plants in a slow-release manner.