permaculture

[Bob Waldrop <bob@bobwaldrop.net>]

This charcoal thread was very interesting.  Toby's comments --
> Because Elaine says that most compost is garbage, so if we are going 
> to hold the biochar folks to the high standard of carefully controlled 
> temperature and oxygen levels of pyrolysis in technical equipment, I 
> don't think its right to talk about compost as something that just 
> makes itself. To quote Elaine, from what Lawrence posted on Nov 2:
> > a sign on a pile of organic matter
> > that says "compost", does not in fact make it compost.
> >   
> > If the material is 70% cocoa color, rich earthy, old-growth forest
> > smell, wide diameter, colored filamentous fungi present, good numbers of
> > flagellates and amoebae (aerobic protozoa) and beneficial
> > nematodes present, then it can be called compost.
were food for thought for me.  I generally do the long and slow compost 
methods, I rarely turn my compost and it usually sits around for a year 
or a little less and it smells like what I imagine a "rich earthy, 
old-growth forest" would smell like, and it is dark brown in color. I'm 
also doing more composting in place.  But now I want to get it tested, 
lol, and I wonder "who does that kind of testing?" This is something 
more I think than taking it in to the county extension office and asking 
for a soil test on it.

AND. . .

what are some "good compost best practices?"  Toby said something about 
the compost had to get hot to get the right mix of micro flora/fauna, 
but then somebody else replied that he thought getting compost hot burns 
out the micro flora.   Does a forest floor ever actually get "hot" the 
way we think of a compost pile?

Bob Waldrop, Oklahoma City
http://www.ipermie.net  Permaculture your urban lifestyle & protect yourself 
from the four horsemen of the modern apocalypse: peak oil, climate instability, 
economic irrationality, and political criminality