Composting Made Easy | Edible Landscaping Made Easy With Avis Licht

4 Important Fall Tips For Your Edible Landscape

Composting Made Easy, Plant information, Sheet Mulching No Responses »

Oct 302012

Fava beans make a wonderful winter cover crop

by Avis Licht

Whether you plant edible crops for the winter or not, there are a few things you can do to keep your garden healthy and protected for the winter.

Clean up under your fruit trees and mulch with compost

1. Clean out the old beds and if you have room, be sure to compost your old foliage. There are a lot of nutrients in those plants that came out of your ground and you can put those nutrients back into the soil. Composting is an important part of garden health.

Fava beans make a wonderful winter cover crop

2. Plant cover crops to protect the soil from erosion and add nutrients as well as humus to the soil. Fava beans and bell beans can be sown even in cold, wet weather.

3. Sheet mulch to cover large areas to improve the soil, get rid of weeds and prepare for future planting without having to dig the soil. Sound too good to be true? Well it really works. Here’s an article about sheet mulching in my own back yard.

Mulching around plants

4. Mulch the soil around plants. This is one of the most important things you can do in the winter to protect the soil from erosion, hold moisture, protect roots from extreme weather and add nutrient. There are many types of mulch. Leaves, straw, wood chips, compost, and manure are some of the most common and easiest to use. As with everything else in the garden, there’s always lots to learn. Different mulches work better in different conditions. Check out my article on best mulching practices.

Frost on fallen leaves

Worms – A Great Investment for your Edible Landscape!

Composting Made Easy, Soil and Amendments 1 Response »

May 302012

Worms multiply quickly in the right conditions

by Avis Licht – I really love worms. Some people think I’m a little crazy about my worm love, but when you know more about them, you’ll love them too. It’s hard to believe such a small creature can do so much heavy lifting. Check out these facts:

1.When compared with soil, worm casts also contain:

5	times more nitrogen;
7	times more phosphorus;
1.5	times the calcium;
11	times more potassium;
3	times more exchangeable magnesium.

2. Worm compost is organic, non-burning and rich in nutrients. Vermicompost contains eight times as many microorganisms as their feed, which promotes healthy plant growth.

3.Worms tunnel deeply in the soil and bring subsoil closer to the surface mixing it with the topsoil. Slime, a secretion of earthworms, contains nitrogen. Nitrogen, as we all know, is an important nutrient for plants.

4. When expelled, worm casts consist of granules, surrounded by a mucus, which hardens upon exposure to air. When granular castings are mixed into garden or houseplant soils there is a slow “time release” of nutrients. However, the hardened particles of mucus do not readily break down. Instead, they serve to break up soils, providing aeration and improving drainage. Worm casts therefore provide an organic soil conditioner as well as a natural fertiliser.

5. The casts are also rich in humic acids, which condition the soil, have a perfect pH balance, and have plant growth factors similar to those found in seaweed.

Worms live where there is food, moisture, oxygen and a favorable temperature. If they don’t have these things, they go somewhere else. Don’t let this happen to your worms!

Here’s how to provide your worms with a happy home:

1. Get a multi layer worm box. It allows the worms to travel to new food in the next layer, keeps the rain out, collects worm juice at the bottom and lets you collect finished castings without sifting. The worms move up to the next layer when they’ve finished the food in the first layer.

Multiple layers let you add materials and keep your worms happy.

2. Layer bedding material in the box. It can be torn newspaper, sawdust, leaves, dried leaves or any biodegradable, carbon based material. You can use horse or composted rabbit manure. Earthworm bedding should retain moisture, remain loose, and not contain much protein or organic nitrogen compounds that readily degrade. Don’t put the box in the sun. It will get too hot for your worms.

Lay bedding of newspaper, leaves, or sawdust

3.Add moist materials like composted manure, soil, leaves and worms. I got these worms from Urban Worm Composting.

These worms are from Urban Adamah in a composted material. Lay them in the box.

4.After worms are added, keep the bedding moist but not soggy. If you’re using kitchen scraps, cut them up into 2″-3″ pieces. It’s easier for them to eat. Feed them 2 or 3 times a week, a few cups at a time. If you leave on vacation, don’t worry, they’ll be fine. Just make sure they have a little food before you go. Cover the food with cardboard or shredded newspaper. It keeps them moist.

Egg shells, banana peels, lettuce, coffee grounds - all good.

5. What NOT to feed your worms:

Use Caution When Adding These:

Breads — can attract red mites
Potato skins, onions, garlic, ginger — get consumed slowly and can cause odors
Coffee grounds — too many will make the bin acidic

Do Not Feed:

Meat, poultry, fish, dairy — protein attracts rodents
Potato chips, candy, oils — worms do not like junk food and these attract ants
Oranges, lemons, limes — citrus has a chemical substance (limonene) that is toxic to worms

Let me know if you have problems. There’s usually a simple solution.

Gotta love those worms!

Earthworms galore

Coffee – Good for You AND Good for your Edible Landscape

Composting Made Easy, Soil and Amendments 2 Responses »

Feb 202012

by Avis Licht -

Drink your morning coffee, then put it in the compost.

Great news for coffee drinkers in the gardening world! Although many people love to drink coffee, it has often gotten a bad rap about its health effects. Well, I’m here to say that a very reputable source has reported that coffee is very good for your health. Especially if you’re a woman. What has this got to do with your garden? Keep on reading!

Here’s what Dr. Sadja Greenwood has to say about coffee in her health blog.

“Positive news about caffeine and coffee is on the rise! Annia Galano, a Cuban chemist, recently published a paper suggesting that coffee is one of the richest sources of healthful antioxidants in the average person’s diet. It scavenges free radicals that can have damaging effects on the body. Here is a summary of recent research.Less Cognitive decline: A study found that women over age 65 who drank over three cups of coffee a day showed less cognitive decline over 4 years than those drinking one cup or less. No such relationship was found for men in this study.(Too bad for you guys.) Decaf coffee and caffeine alone did not give this protection.” That’s the good news about coffee drinking for us coffee lovers.

The better news about all those extra coffee grounds is that they are fantastic for your garden.

They contain nitrogen, and provide generous amounts of phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and copper.
It is a myth that used grounds are highly acidic. The acid in coffee is reduced by the water when the coffee is brewed. What’s left is not highly acidic.
Grounds are best used in the compost, or mixed into the soil. Don’t use them as a mulch on the surface, as the grounds tend to grow moldy and get hard.
Worms love coffee grounds. You can safely put them into your worm bins.

Enjoy a cup of coffee while walking around your garden in the morning

Helpful Kitchen Accessories for the Gardener

Composting Made Easy, Gifts for Gardeners, Tools 1 Response »

Dec 122011

Glass tea pot is elegant and beautiful

In a previous post I wrote about herbal teas from the garden and the fun of having nice tea pots. Here is a glass teapot that really shows off your tea.

There are many wonderful reasons to grow your own food. But when we harvest the bounty of onions or potatoes, we’re also left with the problem of what to do with the food that’s piled up on the kitchen counter.

One way to store tubers and bulbs is in a beautiful basket. These baskets work for onions, potatoes, small winter squash, yams and garlic.

There are different ways to store your harvest. Baskets are great.

Another vexing problem can be fruit flies. When you bring in a basketful of tomatoes or apples you can find your kitchen visited by fruit flies. Extremely annoying. These pretty glass containers will take care of those pesky flies with no harmful chemicals.

Lures contain yeast, sugar and other natural ingredients

I’ve saved the best for last though. We’re always looking for a good way to store composting scraps in the kitchen and finally someone has made a bucket that fits under the sink with a good tight top. I mean really, it’s about time. You can find all these useful kitchen helpers at Gardener’s Supply Company.

Finally a good compost bucket to store out of sight

Sheet Mulching- Winter is a good time to start

Composting Made Easy, Soil and Amendments 2 Responses »

Dec 072011

Layers for sheet mulching

Sheet mulching is the simple act of layering greens,(weeds, garden greens, kitchen waste), cardboard, manure (although not absolutely necessary) and mulch. By doing this over the winter, you allow decomposition of weeds and the proliferation of worms under cover of cardboard.

Use sheet mulching instead of digging. It saves your back and brings new fertility and health to your soil. By using manure, you introduce worms into the soil and they proliferate under the protection of the cardboard.

You can use this method for both large and small areas. Sheet mulching around fruit trees keeps down weeds and will add fertility in the Spring when the tree comes out of dormancy.

In large areas, you can use it to remove that old, tired lawn. At my own home I replaced the backyard lawn that the kids and dog had used and abused and no longer looked good. I didn’t want to dig it up; that would have killed my back. Instead I sheet mulched it.

Earthworms can turn your weeds into beautiful, healthy soil

I mowed the lawn, leaving the clippings on the ground. I rounded up all the other weeds and greens from the yard and laid them down over the lawn.

I laid down approximately 3 inches of manure over the whole lawn. If you don’t have access to manure, just use as many fresh greens and kitchen compost as you have.

Next comes the cardboard. I went to an appliance store and picked up large cardboard boxes, free, of course. Be sure to overlap the edges to keep the weeds from sneaking through.

On top of this I put another layer of manure and then covered all of this in 6 inches of mulch. You can use free shredded tree trimmings from your local tree service, or lay out straw from bales of hay.

If it is dry in your part of the country, be sure to give the area a good soaking to get things decomposing. Then let the winter take care of the rest. Come Spring, you will find that the area is ready for new plantings.

Take a look at my back yard. I promise you I did not dig up one square inch of the lawn that used to be there. Worms did the hard work. You just have to invite them in with a little manure and cardboard.

Without digging up a spadeful, I turned lawn into this edible landscape

P.S. If you prefer to use custom made fabrics for your sheet mulching, Amazon and Gardeners Supply
sell some good products. Both of these links I’ve provided will take you directly to fabrics for sheet mulching.

How to Make Composting Easier

Composting Made Easy No Responses »

Nov 302011

Make sure you have something that looks good to hold your kitchen scraps

It’s always a challenge to get those kitchen scraps and old food from the refrigerator into the compost pile. You need something right on counter to throw those trimmings into until it’s time to take the long walk outside. Actually, it shouldn’t be a long walk. If it’s snowing or raining, you want that compost bin easy to get to. However, you don’t want it so close to the house that there are smells or flies. (Of course, ideally, there shouldn’t be any smells or flies, but, alas, life is not always “ideally”).

Positioning your compost bin is almost a fine art. It needs to be near the kitchen, out of site of window views, away from outdoor sitting areas, and accessible to get the finished compost.

Positioning also depends on the size of your bin. How big is your family and how much waste do you produce in the kitchen and from the garden?

This small composter keeps out all critters and fits on a deck or small area easily

If you have 1 or 2 people and a small garden, you should consider one of these round bins that take up very little room and work quite well. This bin is large enough to accommodate regular contributions from both the kitchen and a small garden.

The main concern is food scraps that may attract unwanted pests. The best way to deal with this is to use an enclosed bin and have leaves or sawdust to add each time you add wet kitchen garbage.

The most deluxe composter available is this electric one, which you can put in the garage or on a porch. It really does the work and gives you finished compost in two weeks.

This composter works fast and is really easy to use

Click Here For Great Composting Supplies

Easy Composting for the Edible Landscape

Composting Made Easy 6 Responses »

Sep 272011

Inside the composter, worms eat the food and make soil

Composting is one of my favorite subjects. How many ways can you take garbage and turn it into gold. The only way I know is by composting your kitchen and yard waste and getting Garden Gold as the result.

There are few additions to the garden that are as useful as compost. You can’t use too much of it, it won’t burn your plants like too much nitrogen and it increases the entire health of the soil as well as the plants. It is easy to put your kitchen wastes and some dried leaves in the bin and let the worms do their thing.

This small composter keeps out all critters and fits on a deck or small area easily

In the picture on the left, you put the food in the little trap door. Mix your wet garbage like food scraps with dry matter, like leaves, weeds and sawdust at the rate of 1 part wet to 4 parts dry. Introduce worms into the bin, either by putting some topsoil from your garden into it, or buying some earthworms from the nursery. You can also find that a little manure added will get your compost going fast.

The difference between a “hot” compost pile and a “cold” pile is the rate of decomposition and the heat generated by the breakdown of nutrients. In the bin on the left, regular additions of kitchen waste keep the pile cool, and worms find that they like this atmosphere just fine. Piles that get too hot do not have worms. Both kinds of composters work. It is more a matter of how you use your pile that decides which way it goes, hot or cold.

Happy worms can get big

Worms in the compost

This set of photos shows a partial break down of the food. Worms did all the work.

From this point on you can put the compost into the soil around your plants. You’ll also be introducing more worms into the soil which is a spectacular thing to do.

There is lots more to know and learn about composting and worms, but I really just want you to get started. Here is an interesting article that will tell you more on worms. Never throw another banana peel away. Your edible landscape will be healthier and produce better tasting food using this free garden gold.

Compost Made Easy

Composting Made Easy 2 Responses »

Aug 302011

Easy compost bin (click to enlarge)

Let me tell you that composting is one of the greatest things you can do in the garden. It’s the hidden treasure at your house. First of all, the ingredients are FREE. They are the scraps from your kitchen, the weeds you throw away, the prunings, scrapings and left overs from your garden. Usually, people throw them in the garbage, put them in the green bin or worst of all, put them in PLASTIC Bags and then throw them away. Yikes!

Why would you throw away your greatest asset? Because you didn’t realize that what looks like garbage will be turned into gold. It’s easy to do and you’ll love the results.

Inside my compost bin

I’ve been using this compost bin for about 20 years. I never turn it, water it, or futz with it. I just throw those kitchen scraps inside it and cover them with some dry leaves, weeds or a little sawdust. You need to pay little attention to what you put in the bin, because there needs to be a combination of wet and dry elements. Too wet and it gets all mushy, too dry and it doesn’t break down.

Don’t put noxious things in the pile like bermuda grass, poison oak or ivy or noxious weed seed. Unless your compost gets very hot, it won’t kill these pesky plants.

It may take a little time to break down, but as I like to say, “Life composts”. Eventually everything organic breaks down. It’s just a matter of time.

The indoor compost holder

This is the can I use in the kitchen to hold my food scraps until I put them outside. It looks good, holds several days worth of food and has NO odor or flies. With the foot pedal I have two hands free to scrape the bowls. Nobody would even know you are hiding old food in the kitchen.

I call this guilt free living. Have you ever looked in your refrigerator and found bags of old, rotten lettuce, or food in containers with blue green mold? Have you felt guilty about throwing away good food? Well, never again, because all that good stuff is going into the compost and then into your garden to feed your plants. Definitely a win-win situation.

There is more to learn about composting, but the most important thing to do is get started!

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