The Daily Dirt: Day 4. An urban girls' guide to composting.

 BEER, BEANS, AND BARNYARDS: A GUIDE TO THERMAL COMPOSTING.

Want to grow some gourds or perhaps culture a cabbage patch?

Are you looking for a thick, mulchy humus to spread on your flowerbed?

Compost is the companion you’ll need on your quest for gardening goodness,

and if decomposition is your thing, baby, things are about to get hot.

Thermal compost is the name and fermentation is the game.

You’ll need your garden greens to throw in the mix, but there are also some creature comforts

that get the ball rolling.

So grab a brewskie, cold brew a coffee, and saddle up your horse,

it’s time to take a ride through the garden of earthly delights. 

1. Coffee grounds (large bag/small bucket). 

Most students start their day with a a piping cup of Jo - we’ll skip the drink and go for the grounds left over.

Ours were sourced from a local coffee shop, though any dorm room cafetière will do. 

2. Beer… mash. (1 bucket)

It is a well known fact that a cold one can enhance a hot day in the yard - Germans call it a biergarten

for a reason. A by-product of the brewing process - beer mash - is an even better starter for a garden party.

A barrel of fermented barley is just the right stuff to activate the decomposition of your compost mix. 

3. Manure (5 buckets)

Tired of waiting for your hay to rot away? Try running if through a friendly neighborhood horse.

The agreement is equitable to your equus- it gets a healthy meal - you get… a wonderful rich fertilizing

spread. You will need quite a lot of manure, so try employing a few horses or pressing your local stable for

spare leavings. 

4. Greens and Browns (oodles, about 10 buckets of each)

Green - fresh cuttings (we used some lovely mowed grass). 

Brown - dry or partially composted cuttings. Our large garden has a pile of this stuff as big as the Ritz. 

5. Process and Mix

Using an exciting array of garden implements, break down your compost into a fine slurry of chunks

and bits. Ideally,  nothing bigger than a medium leaf. We hoed, forked, and raked our compost until it was

the desired consistency.

6. Store

Place your new compost mix into a container of your choice. Something robust but breathable -

fermentation without aeration equates to gaseous explosions and unsatisfactory compost. 

7. Water

Soak everything. The water will give all the microbes powering decomposition something to sip on.

Braking down plant life is thirsty work. 

WOULD YOU STILL LOVE ME IF I WAS A WORM?

One of the activities of our lovely morning consisted of a guest speaker; Vermicompost aficionado Melissa Nascimento. We learnt that there are many different types of worms! Who knew that “earthworms” were not the only worm? And actually…they’re not even the preferred worm. Red Wigglers, and Nightcrawlers are. Red Wigglers…yes you guessed it…are red…and they wiggle, which are different from other worms as those definitely don’t wiggle… Nightcrawlers…um, crawl? Anyworm, we learnt about this company https://www.theboxoflife.com/ who make AMAZINGLY aesthetic worm homes for inside your home!

CAN SOMEONE PIN-POINT ME IN THE RASH DIRECTION?

We then moved on from worm composts to thermal composting.

Putting on our baker's hats, we accumulated horse manure, beer mash,

coffee grounds, browns (dried leafs and such), and greens (dried grass).

Which, unfortunately for me, included a lot of grass.

I have, in my adult years, seemed to have developed an allergy to grass.

Which as we discussed today, does not seem to be the best response in our evolution as humans.

Nevertheless, I type this with itchy arms and itchy legs that look like the limbs of someone

from the 14th century who has unfortunately been touched with Black Death.