Composting
Spring Stockpiling
Soil Food Web-minded folk tend to focus on building compost piles in the spring and fall, when materials are abundant. As this abundance occurs across different seasons, some forward planning is required. If your goal is to create a pile that is high in microbes and thus has the potential to regenerate soil, in the […]
Bioreactor Buzz
With things shifting economically these days, it seems like a good time to focus on what can be done to increase local resilience – especially in the realm of food security. We are so lucky to live in a region that still has plenty of rainfall (if only we did a better job of storing […]
Spread that Fall Compost!
Fall finds me smiling for many reasons, not least of which is thinking about all the Soil Food Webbers out there happily and diligently applying microbes to the soil. Where do those microbes come from? Compost of course! Conventional wisdom would have us see compost as a fertilizer; containing soluble nutrients prone to leaching or […]
Biologically Complete Compost
When we are looking to restore life to the soil, our most important tool is compost. But not just any compost. To increase diversity and restore missing groups of plant-beneficial organisms, we need to create an effective inoculum of these microbes. You could think of the inoculum aspect a bit like a yogurt culture or […]
Winter Composting Tips
At this latitude there probably aren’t too many people actively winter composting, unless you have an indoor space for thermophilic piles (and are hardcore!). Most folks tend to have a static pile out the back, where yard waste is thrown during the warmer months and kitchen scraps tossed year-round. Small worm farms are also becoming […]
Bring Back the (Right) Microbes!
Every region has unique microorganisms dwelling in the soil, adapted to the climate, flora, fauna and geological history of a place. Unfortunately there are some parts of the planet where the soil has become so degraded – in watersheds where forests are long gone and in lands where the soil has long been tilled and […]