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).

Tempting fate as ever, I am going to stage my own private One Straw Revolution–thank you Mr. Fukuoka–and reinvigorate the native loamy sand of this, our little one acre slice of heaven.

* It’s going to start this way: step one: pull the noxious weeds before mowing broadcasts the seeds–straight to the green waste can for this lot!
* step two: mow the dead stuff (Before 10 a.m., so’s not to get the dreaded knock on the door from the fire department, seeing as it is high fire season–the Mediterranean climate: a blessing and a curse.)
* step three: broadcast cool season cover crop seed, maybe some light hand cultivation on the rises prior to broadcasting seed–to prevent bald rises and lush cover crops at the bottom of same; possibly cover with light layer of broadcast composted year old garden waste.

Waste not, want not, eh? Also, the light layer of compost will help keep the seeds evenly damp while we pray for the coming of the rainy season–not too much, but please, oh please, not too little–and thwart a few birds.

Yup, that’s how it’s going to start. Are there different and perhaps better ways to do it? Oh, heck yeah! By the same token, the best time to do it would have been seven years ago when we first moved to this lovely spot. Faulting that, anything will be an improvement and at least I am not dousing the place with alternating courses of Round-up and Miracle Gro. Even if we were not in the Elkhorn Slough watershed, that would be bad. And, given that our water source is directly under us, it would be dumb.

I do try not to be bad and dumb when I can avoid it, but things don’t always go as planned. Just ask Hamlet!

Yet another exciting episode of Guerrilla Gurl’s Ongoing Organic Garden Adventure!

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.

Tempting fate as ever, I am going to stage my own private One Straw Revolution–thank you Mr. Fukuoka–and reinvigorate the native loamy sand of this, our little one acre slice of heaven.

It’s going to start this way:
• step one: pull the noxious weeds before mowing broadcasts the seeds–straight to the green waste can for this lot!
• step two: mow the dead stuff (Before 10 a.m., so’s not to get the dreaded knock on the door from the fire department, seeing as it is high fire season–the Mediterranean climate: a blessing and a curse.)
• step three: broadcast cool season cover crop seed, maybe some light hand cultivation on the rises prior to broadcasting seed–to prevent bald rises and lush cover crops at the bottom of same; possibly cover with light layer of broadcast composted year old garden waste.

Waste not, want not, eh? Also, the light layer of compost will help keep the seeds evenly damp while we pray for the coming of the rainy season–not too much, but please, oh please, not too little–and thwart a few birds.

Yup, that’s how it’s going to start. Are there different and perhaps better ways to do it? Oh, heck yeah! By the same token, the best time to do it would have been seven years ago when we first moved to this lovely spot. Faulting that, anything will be an improvement and at least I am not dousing the place with alternating courses of Round-up and Miracle Gro. Even if we were not in the Elkhorn Slough watershed, that would be bad. And, given that our water source is directly under us, it would be dumb.

I do try not to be bad and dumb when I can avoid it, but things don’t always go as planned. Just ask Hamlet!

Yet another exciting episode of Guerrilla Gurl’s Ongoing Organic Garden Adventure!