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| A mulch of weeds and grass clippings |
Compost
Bob Flowerdew is an organic gardener to be admired and respected: he seems to take a scientific view of everything he does, testing his hypotheses and controlling his experiments. Sadly, his book, Composting, makes the process seem very complex and very hard work. If you want to know the details of garden compost-making; this is the book to get. But if you're a lazy gardener . .
If a mulch of weeds and grass, and other organic matter, is left on the surface of bare soil for a few weeks it starts to compost.
Humus is what the gardener wants, and it is the main product of composting. It absorbs water, it releases minerals slowly so that plants can feed. It is said to protect plants against diseases.
Composting weeds into humus can be complex or simple, or anything between these two extremes.
Commercial composters make huge heaps with the right proportions of carbon, nitrogen, water and air. Their heaps get hot, and the thermophilic bacteria work fast to digest the complex plant molecules into humus. The heat kills weed seeds and pathogenic bacteria, and degrades proteins and pharmaceutical products.
Gardeners rarely achieve these efficient compost heaps. Their heaps are smaller and cooler: weed seeds often survive. Some gardeners spend up to half their gardening time building (or buying) compost bins, filling them, mixing the contents, turning the heaps and sieving the product. Many of them spend hours of effort digging the resulting compost (excellent stuff!) into the veggie beds. As they dig they destroy the mycorhiza, kill the earthworms and damage the soil structure.
Other (busier or lazier) gardeners simply dump the weeds on an empty patch of soil and let the micro-beasts do their jobs.
Slugs and snails eat the soft leaves, and digest the cellulose and lignin: their droppings contain bacteria and humus.
Woodlice feed on the dead plant (and animal) remains, digesting the cellulose and lignin and egesting humus in their droppings.
Fungi (yeasts and moulds) and Actinomycetes (filamentous bacteria) digest the lignin and cellulose of plant walls. The less complex molecules produced are eaten (and digested) by bacteria. The products of these digestive processes are carbon dioxide, water, heat and humus.
Bob Flowerdew is an organic gardener to be admired and respected: he seems to take a scientific view of everything he does, testing his hypotheses and controlling his experiments. Sadly, his book, Composting, makes the process seem very complex and very hard work. If you want to know the details of garden compost-making; this is the book to get. But if you're a lazy gardener . .
If a mulch of weeds and grass, and other organic matter, is left on the surface of bare soil for a few weeks it starts to compost.
Humus is what the gardener wants, and it is the main product of composting. It absorbs water, it releases minerals slowly so that plants can feed. It is said to protect plants against diseases.
Composting weeds into humus can be complex or simple, or anything between these two extremes.
Commercial composters make huge heaps with the right proportions of carbon, nitrogen, water and air. Their heaps get hot, and the thermophilic bacteria work fast to digest the complex plant molecules into humus. The heat kills weed seeds and pathogenic bacteria, and degrades proteins and pharmaceutical products.
Gardeners rarely achieve these efficient compost heaps. Their heaps are smaller and cooler: weed seeds often survive. Some gardeners spend up to half their gardening time building (or buying) compost bins, filling them, mixing the contents, turning the heaps and sieving the product. Many of them spend hours of effort digging the resulting compost (excellent stuff!) into the veggie beds. As they dig they destroy the mycorhiza, kill the earthworms and damage the soil structure.
Other (busier or lazier) gardeners simply dump the weeds on an empty patch of soil and let the micro-beasts do their jobs.
Slugs and snails eat the soft leaves, and digest the cellulose and lignin: their droppings contain bacteria and humus.
Woodlice feed on the dead plant (and animal) remains, digesting the cellulose and lignin and egesting humus in their droppings.
Fungi (yeasts and moulds) and Actinomycetes (filamentous bacteria) digest the lignin and cellulose of plant walls. The less complex molecules produced are eaten (and digested) by bacteria. The products of these digestive processes are carbon dioxide, water, heat and humus.
The fungi, Actinomycetes and bacteria are eaten by rotifers and (along with large amounts of soil) by earthworms.
Three species of worms (Allolobophora longa, A. nocturna and sometimes Lumbricus terrestris) produce worm casts, and so spread the humus on the soil surface (actually, at the interface of weeds and soil!) while the rest spread it through the topsoil to a depth of a metre or more.
For the lazy gardener, that 'mulch' of weeds (which prevents the soil from drying, tends to inhibit growth of weeds and leaks a rich liquid into the soil) slowly turns into humus which the worms then 'dig' into the soil.
When the LG wants to sow seeds he simply moves the mulch to another place.
Three species of worms (Allolobophora longa, A. nocturna and sometimes Lumbricus terrestris) produce worm casts, and so spread the humus on the soil surface (actually, at the interface of weeds and soil!) while the rest spread it through the topsoil to a depth of a metre or more.
For the lazy gardener, that 'mulch' of weeds (which prevents the soil from drying, tends to inhibit growth of weeds and leaks a rich liquid into the soil) slowly turns into humus which the worms then 'dig' into the soil.
When the LG wants to sow seeds he simply moves the mulch to another place.
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