Podcast: Download (Duration: 10:58 — 12.6MB)
Today’s Stories:
Target Misses the Mark with Organic Food
San Franciscans Forced to Compost and Not Bothered By It
Coal Plants Not Smoking, But Pollution Still Exists
Blue Earth, an environmentally friendly mobile phone
2009 Solar Decathlon Winners Announced

Share October 29th, 2009 | Posted in Podcasts | 2 Comments »
Podcast coming – sorry for the delay…
Soil Prep
Time to get those seedling gowing. If you haven’t already the warmer weather signals it’s time to start prepping your back yard garden for this year’s growing season. It all starts with the soil. Whether your soil is sandy or clay the best way to improve it is with organic matter in the form of compost. We’ve got a beginners video guide to composting with master composter Elisa Margarita at newlygreens.com. Ideal soil is deep, loose, and well-drained.
- Spread 2 to 3 inches of compost over your garden
- Turn it in with a pitchfork or tiller. Loosen soil to a depth of 12″ or more, this gives plants more room to spread roots and gather nutrients.
- Give any existing media time to break down, at least a couple weeks before planting. If you have have material like straw or leaves that are not completely broken down you may have to add some nitrogen to the soil for your plants as these rob nitrogen while they are breaking down.
- Do this process again in the fall and cover your garden with mulch or a cover crop. I tried leaving my leaves in the garden this last winter as mulch. I’m hoping these leaves will eventually become compost at the end of this season when I turn things in. There is a link to a good guide about using leaves as compost and one to the difference between mulch and compost. This is my first year to try it so I’ll report back in the fall and let you know what I did wrong.
Finally if you are in the Montclair area, Terra on Church St. has a nice selection of organic herloom seeds available. Nice if you did not get your seeds on order yet as they usually take a few weeks to arrive and it’s really time to get things started.
*SUPPLEMENTAL INFO*
I was just speaking to our friend Matt (Episode 3) who spent a couple years working on an Organic CSA (Episode 4) about soil prep and he had some great additional advice:
Greg: I recall you using some kind of organic plant feed, like seaweed or something. Where did you find that?
Matt: It was Neptune’s Harvest Seaweed Extract. You can also purchase Kelp Meal (dry seaweed) which feeds the soil. I am going to be tilling in Kelpmeal in my garden next week. I got it from www.gardensalive.com
Greg: Any experience using leaves as mulch or compost?
Matt: We always used leaves in our garden, straw resists more weeds through the season because it breaks down slower.
Greg : There is still straw in my soil and I’m a little concerned its going to burn up my nitrogen. I hear pee’s got a lot of nitrogen in it.
. Any thoughts?
Matt: Pee is actually a great fertilizer, 10 parts water to one part urine. If you ate a lot of seaweed you could do away with the kelpmeal 
You could also use bloodmeal (not smelly) or fish emulsion (which smells awful but works great, wear gloves). Blood meal would be tilled into the garden along with kelp meal, compost etc to build soil. Fish emulsion is a concentrate (same brand as that kelp extract, neptunes harvest) that you mix with water and feed like conventional fertilizers.
Share March 30th, 2009 | Posted in Podcasts | 1 Comment »
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Here come the leaves! While you’re out picking up Mother Nature’s doin’s, take the opportunity to give back to your soil by composting. At the most basic, you can use a mulching lawnmower to mow your way to a healthier yard (and save yourself some backbreaking labor). With a little more effort you can collect your leaves to use as your “Browns” stock all year long. The golden rule of compost is 50% Greens / 50% Browns layered together like a lasagna. Sprinkle in finished compost as the “Cheese” to get things started. Whenever you add food waste (Greens) add a shovel full of your leaves (Browns) to control smells and insects. Turn once a week.
Yard trimmings and food residuals together constitute 23 percent of the U.S. waste stream, as documented by EPA. An estimated 56.9 percent of yard trimmings were recovered for composting or grasscycled in 2000, a dramatic increase from the 12 percent recovery rate in 1990.
What to Compost – The IN List
- Animal manure
- Cardboard rolls
- Clean paper
- Coffee grounds and filters
- Cotton rags
- Dryer and vacuum cleaner lint
- Eggshells
- Fireplace ashes
- Fruits and vegetables
- Grass clippings
- Hair and fur
- Hay and straw
- Houseplants
- Leaves
- Nut shells
- Sawdust
- Shredded newspaper
- Tea bags
- Wood chips
- Wool rags
- Yard trimmings
Top of Page
What Not to Compost – The OUT List
Leave Out/Reason Why
- Black walnut tree leaves or twigs
- Releases substances that might be harmful to plants
- Coal or charcoal ash
- Might contain substances harmful to plants
- Dairy products (e.g., butter, egg yolks, milk,
sour cream, yogurt)
- Create odor problems and attract pests such as
rodents and flies
- Diseased or insect-ridden plants
- Diseases or insects might survive and be transferred
back to other plants
- Fats, grease, lard, or oils
- Create odor problems and attract pests such as
rodents and flies
- Meat or fish bones and scraps
- Create odor problems and attract pests such as
rodents and flies
- Pet wastes (e.g., dog or cat feces, soiled cat
litter)
- Might contain parasites, bacteria, germs, pathogens,
and viruses harmful to humans
- Yard trimmings treated with chemical
pesticides
- Might kill beneficial composting organismsThis list thanks to:
http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/rrr/composting/basic.htm
Share October 17th, 2008 | Posted in Podcasts, Press | No Comments »