Organic Gardening

I was browsing through cactus pictures, looking for something along the lines of our red-flowering specimen shown below … but didn’t really have much luck. Before I looked closely I thought it was a Christmas Cactus (Schlumbergera spp), because of the pads — elongated, growing in jointed series — but instead of being flat, these are triangular in cross section.

Apparently the Barrel Cacti (Ferocactus spp.) are blooming around Phoenix, which are very pretty but nothing like what we are dealing with. This guy bloomed at night, and closed up during the day. The flower only lasted a few days, early in June. This is in Mexico, and was sold by a nursery, so I have no idea if it is a native species or a cultivar, they sell both. Since it was a gift, I didn’t have the opportunity to ask the seller.

Unidentified Red Cactus Flower

This flower is about 15 cm (6 inches) across. If anyone reading this is a cactus expert, it would be great to know what species this is. I suspect it is a Selenicereus but I’m not 100% sure, and would like to know more about it. Just leave a comment or pingback if you know!

We are often reminded not to waste water. Clean water is a precious commodity, and as gardeners we need a plentiful supply to keep our gardens growing. As organic gardeners, we prefer natural rainwater whenever possible. City water supplies are often ‘hard’ with dissolved minerals, and have been chlorinated or treated with other chemicals, to make it safe to drink. In your garden, the chlorine quickly dissipates, but many people believe it lasts long enough to kill off some of the beneficial bacteria in the soil. Undoubtedly, clean rainwater is best, and using more of it will reduce your municipal water usage.

Collecting rainwater is not as easy as it sounds. Just putting a bucket out in the rain doesn’t catch enough to be very useful. But those downspouts coming off your roof convey a lot of rainwater. The problem is, pollution in the air and on your roof gets into that water. If you have an old asphalt or asphalt shingled roof, the roof itself may contribute contaminants, and the rainwater probably shouldn’t be saved. But if you have a modern roof with a good gutter system, rainbarrels may work for you — just don’t think the water is so clean you can drink it!

Most contaminants get washed off your roof and out of the air during the first few minutes of rainfall, but I have never seen a good system for avoiding capture of that dirty water. Some people use a diverter on the rain spout that can be set to let rain go down to the normal outlet at first, then be switched to divert rain into the barrel after a while — but how many people want to go out in the rain to do that? And how many people are home every time it rains? So the best we can do in most cases is just catch all the water and hope there is enough to dilute the pollution, and use a screen to make sure nothing large can pass into the barrel.

You need a screen on the opening to your barrel anyhow, to keep the mosquitoes from being able to get inside to lay their eggs. Most people use the large plastic barrels that are common for shipping foods and chemicals, rather than steel drums that used to contain petroleum products — those metal barrels are hard to clean out completely, and will rust with time. For aesthetic reasons, some people use wooden barrels, such as are made for wine and whiskey storage. Some of these actually have a spigot at the middle of the barrel — meaning you can only use half the water — which makes me wonder if those users are really interested in capturing rainwater, or just want the barrel for landscaping effect.

Many of the commercially available plastic barrels also have the drain spout too high. They are designed to let you put a bucket or watering can under the spout. A better solution is to have the spout near the bottom of the barrel, and raise the barrel on a base of decorative cement blocks, flat building stones, etc.

Your rainbarrel should also have an overflow drain near the top. These are often designed to allow you to attach a hose, and divert the overflow to some distance from the house. That is especially useful with older homes where moisture penetration of the foundation is a problem. But does it have enough capacity to divert all the water flowing into your full barrel? Depending on where you live (how much rain falls at one time) and how large of roof area the downspout serves, you may have more incoming water than a hose can handle, and the water will go splashing over the sides of your rainbarrel. Here again, having the barrel on a solid foundation can help ensure that excess water is drained away from your home foundation, simply by adding a slight grade to that base. This will tilt your barrel a little too, and ensure that the excess comes off the side where you want it.

Another alternative is to use a larger overflow drain, using pvc pipe or large hose, and diverting the water to where you want it. Just be sure your overflow is also covered with screen, to keep mosquitoes out of the barrel.

If you routinely get more water than your barrel will hold, you can either replace it with a larger water container, or connect additional barrels in sequence. Many homes have multiple downspouts, serving different parts of the roof. If that is the case, I suggest you start with just one rainbarrel and place it under the spout that serves the largest roof area. If it turns out to be too small, you can move it to one of the spouts serving less area, and put a larger container under the main drain.

Don’t forget to empty your rainbarrels when the weather turns cold, ice can damage the barrel. A cracked barrel that doesn’t hold water isn’t much use! And whatever type of barrel you decide to use, make sure it is light-proof. Translucent plastic will allow algae to grow in the barrel, which is not really harmful if you are only using the water for your garden, but it is unsightly. If you don’t like the appearance of the barrel itself, hide it behind a bush or decorative slat screen covered with flowering vines — just be sure to arrange the spout in a direction that gives you access to it after the screening is in place.

Herbs are among the easiest of garden crops — they can be grown anywhere: in pots on the balcony if you live in an apartment, or interspersed among your vegetables in the garden, or even among your flower beds. Fresh herbs taste better than those dried out and ground-up sprinkles that are so expensive at the grocery store. They will make your food taste better, look better and even make meals more nutritious!

Just as plenty of oxygen can help your compost break down, too much oxygen in your body’s cells will lead to their break-down. Biological processes in your body lead to the formation of what are called ‘free radical’ forms of oxygen, that can damage your body at the cellular level. Many scientists believe this is one of the main causes of aging.

So how do you fight back? Perhaps you take vitamin pills, omega-3 fatty acids, or other supplements. Most of those are ‘anti-oxidants’ — they fight free radicals by combining with them to make innocuous compounds, so they are not available to do damage to your cells.

Well guess what? Herbs are very rich in anti-oxidants. Getting vitamins and other anti-oxidant compounds from herbs is a better and more natural method than taking supplement pills — your digestive system is designed to extract what it needs from healthful foods, and herbs are one of the most concentrated sources of healthful compounds.

In a recently reported study of phenols (compounds that give herbs their taste, and are strong anti-oxidants) in herbs, scientists found that they help protect the body from the effects of high blood sugar and reduce the ill-effects of unwarranted inflammation:

Researchers, whose results appear in the current issue of the Journal of Medicinal Food, tested extracts from 24 common herbs and spices. In addition to finding high levels of antioxidant-rich compounds known as phenols, they revealed a direct correlation between phenol content and the ability of the extracts to block the formation of compounds that contribute to damage caused by diabetes and aging.

Herbs are very low in calories too,  so there is no excuse not to use plenty (within the range of enhancing, rather than over-powering the taste of your food, of course). Grow your own fresh herbs organically, and use them every day — your body will thank you.

As the final article in our home composting series, we look at the simple option of burying any organic material you want composted. This is how the makers of Bokashi EM suggest you finish their Bokashi treatment — simply bury the fermented (but not fully composted) organic materials. Come back in a month or two and you can dig up the finished compost.

You can also bury the raw organic material, though it will take longer to fully compost. Buried matter is broken down primarily by anaerobic bacteria, with the help of earthworms. Under average conditions, people usually expect it to finish in about six-months to a year. The variables we discussed under cold compost all apply, and the type of material you are composting makes a difference too. Woody or hard material will break down slower than softer materials. Smaller pieces will break down faster than larger pieces of the same material.

If you bury bones or spoiled food, animals may dig it up again. Other than that, there are no real restrictions on what types of organic material you use for buried compost — excepting the time factor, as noted. Bury large pieces of wood, and it may take decades to fully decompose.

One common technique using buried composting is rotation trenching. This method typically utilizes three parallel rows: one is a narrow trench with the dirt taken from it piled on one side, ready to be re-filled as compost is added. The second row is a typical garden crop, and the third row is a path, next to which is the next trench row, garden row, and another path, etc. The trench gets gradually filled with well chopped-up compostable materials, and the dirt taken from the trench is put back on top of the organic matter. Fresh compost locks up nitrogen and encourages fungi, so it is not a good place to grow plants until has had time to fully decay. So the trench is left for a year, then planted with a vegetable row. The former path becomes the next year’s trench, the planted row becomes a path.

If your compost is not working fast enough to support that system, simply reverse the order of row rotation — so the compost row becomes a path in the second year, the former path is used to plant your garden crop, and the former crop row becomes your new trench. That way the compost has two years to fully decompose before it is planted.

Advantages of Buried Compost:

• Some work involved, but not much
• Puts the compost right where it will be used
• Encourages earthworm activity

Disadvantages of Buried Compost:

• Slow composting
• Creates areas where plants will not grow well (while it is working)

Nature uses the cold composting method, which means it is the most natural way to create compost. People often combine cold composting with the method we will discuss in our next post in this series, buried compost — that is, they begin with cold compost, then bury it before it has completely finished breaking down.

Cold compost is created when organic material is left in contact with the ground. As with any composting method, it works best if the materials are kept moist, but not wet. If you make a regular hot compost pile, then never turn it, it will turn into cold compost.

Depending on how thick the organic material is piled, cold compost may rely primarily on anaerobic bacteria, or a combination of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. If the pile is spread thin, then both aerobic and anaerobic bacteria will go to work on it. This was probably the earliest form of composting — simply cut down the weeds or spent crop residue on a plot of land, and leave them there to compost a while. In northern climates the fields are cut in autumn, and left over winter to decompose. The winter snows help provide moisture, and the layer of organic material traps moisture in the soil. Then in the spring the half-composted material is plowed under, to complete its decomposition underground. This is sometimes referred to as sheet composting.

Alternatively, compost may be piled in one place, with or without enclosing walls to keep pests out, and left to turn into compost. The process is much slower than hot composting, but if you live in a moist climate, or water the compost frequently, it may break down in just a few months. Under average conditions it usually takes about a year. If you live in the desert and don’t water the compost, it could take several years to finish decomposing. Likewise if you live in a cold climate, low temperatures will slow the composting process, while the hot temperatures of the tropics will speed things up.

One website about making a composting toilet recommends a combination of hot and cold compost. The compost pile is fairly large — 1.5 meters on each side, and about the same height. The area is first filled with about half a meter of vegetative organic materials, such as weeds, grass clippings and straw. Then each time the composting toilet is emptied, its combination of human waste and sawdust is dumped in a shallow depression dug in the center of the compost pile, and then covered with a layer of additional vegetative organic materials. The pile is never turned — thus the upper center part of the pile is always hot, but as the pile grows the lower layers turn cold and revert to anaerobic processes. When the pile reaches about 1.5 meters — which the author claims takes about a year for a family of four — a second compost pile is begun, and the first is left a full year to finish decomposing.

Advantages of Cold Composting:

• Requires little effort
• You can compost any organic material, even meat and bones in moderation, if pests are kept out

Disadvantages of Cold Composting:

• Takes more time, much more if conditions are not ideal
• If you use too much high-nitrogen material in relation to the high-carbon materials, bad odors may develop
• It can take up a lot of space since you can accumulate a couple years worth of compostable materials before the first batch is ready
• Since the compost does not get hot, it doesn’t kill weed seeds or disease organisms