Recently in Compost in Landscaping Category

Don't you love this idea?  I can just see this as a rose garden :-)


In the heart of a residential neighborhood there is a wonderful community garden with some amazing surprises. Community gardens are very special for a multitude of reasons. They provide small growing plots to people who may not have access to any other planting area. They are popping up all over urban and suburban centers all over the United States . In place of debris, abandoned neglected vacant lots, greenery, flowers and vegetables are sprouting. People are taking pride in their new gardens and neighborhoods improve because of them. New friendships bloom. Going green, producing your own locally grown food and being politically correct: it's all great!

Read more about urban gardening at Robert's Tropical Paradise Garden

A study of the magicians of the soil is an endless endeavor! Paul Stamets makes it a bit easier to learn about mushrooms with this TED talk. Mushrooms are both a citizen of the micro world of soil, but they are the manufacturers of the very soil in which they live. What a sentient approach to sustainability.

Not so long ago, finding good quality compost was not that easy. But times have changed. Nowadays, and for the years to come, good and affordable compost can be found in a lot of places due to the establishment of new legislations all across North America. In fact, municipalities, institutions and businesses are already using the sorting-composting approach, or will have to, in a near future. So, following the principle of supply and demand, you can now get good compost at a good price.

Landscaping Business Opportunities with Compost
 
This is excellent news for landscapers and a promising future with great business opportunities. Since the recent legislations are limiting the use chemical products and putting in place water restrictions for irrigation in several states for lawn care and landscaping, the need for compost is increasing.

Today, good quality compost is not as expensive as it used to be and it is available at several places such as garden centers, landscape suppliers or compost producers for 15$ - 25$/yd3.

 
Top dressing with compost is the best way to maintain a beautiful and healthy lawn and landscape. In fact, this method is part of a professional and complete maintenance program and it will improve the entire landscape. Top dressing with compost is perfect for grass, trees and shrubs. It provides all the essential nutrients for an excellent soil and healthy plants.
 
1.         What are the benefits of compost spreading?
 
A.        Provides all the essential nutrients needed for a rich and a healthy soil;
B.        increases resistance to all kinds of parasites such as fungus and harmful insects;
C.        helps the soil structure in retaining water;
D.        stimulates microbiological activity;
E.        neutralizes the pH of the soil.
 
2.         How do we spread compost?
 
Top dressing with compost

By using the top dressing method in combination with other services such as re-seeding, core aeration, corn gluten or/and organic fertilizer application = 1 yd3/2000 sq.ft.
 
Turf renovation

To repair damages caused during winter or during a draught, and by insects, or to improve poor density turf: (1 yd3/1000 sq.ft)
a)        Core aeration
b)        Seeding
c)         Top dressing.
 
Seeding with compost
Seeding with compost is more efficient than hydro seeding and without the need for synthetic fertilizer. For the landscaper, seeding with compost generates more profit for his business. 

This service is highly in demand (1.5 yd3/1000 sq.ft.)
 
 3.         How much does it cost?
 
The best way to determine the cost you will charge your clients is counting by the cubic yard. You need to measure the dimensions of the area to be top dressed.
 
For top dressing, we suggest the application of 1 yd3 for 2000 sq.ft.
For turf renovation it should be 1 yd3 for 1000 sq.ft.
For seeding with compost, you will need to calculate 1.5 yd for 1000sq ft.
 
Then you multiply the cost of the compost, including delivery, by 3, 4 or 5:
 
$ X 3 times for municipalities (parks/ sports fields);
$ X 4 times for commercial;
$ X 5 times for residential (or less than 10 000 sq ft.)
 
It is as simple as that!
 
Any questions please, e-mail Ecolawn at:  info  (AT) ecolawnapplicator.com.

Daniel Cote
Ecolawn
62 Railroad Ave
Norton, Vermont
www.ecolawnapplicator.com

Growing food almost year round in the mountains of Colorado is a green solution for localized food. It's a bit beyond farming -- this cozy dome greenhouse, the plants are growing happily. Take a grand tour with Buckhorn Gardens manager this cozy dome greenhouse, the plants are growing happily. Take a grand tour with Buckhorn Gardens manager.

Nutrient Delivery to the Gulf of Mexico Among Highest Measured in 30 years!


Too many nutrients, which are essential for plant growth, are not necessarily a good thing. Excessive nutrients can be harmful by decreasing the amount of oxygen in the water, also known as hypoxia.

This can result in an area experiencing stress or death of near or bottom dwelling organisms called a hypoxic zone, or "dead zone."

Hypoxia, along with overfishing, habitat loss and toxic contamination, can significantly impact the Gulf of Mexico coastal region, an important resource for the Nation providing about 1.2 billion pounds of fresh seafood every year.

The amount of nutrients transported from the Mississippi River Basin to the Gulf during the spring is a major factor controlling the size of the hypoxic zone. The northern Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone is the second largest in the world, and threatens the economic and ecological health of one of the nation's largest and most productive fisheries.

Nutrients can come from many sources, such as fertilizers applied to agricultural fields, golf courses, and suburban lawns; atmospheric contributions; erosion of soils containing nutrients; and sewage treatment plant discharges.

USGS releases estimates of nutrients from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers to the Gulf of Mexico in early June each year. The estimates are used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, and other researchers to predict the areal extent of the hypoxic zone. 

The amount of nutrients delivered to the Gulf each spring depends, in large part, on precipitation and the resulting amounts of nutrient runoff and streamflow in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin. Streamflows in spring 2009 were about 17 percent above average over the last 30 years. Last year's elevated levels were most likely due to the flooding during the spring.

States and Federal partners serving on the Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Taskforce are trying to reduce nutrients transported to the Gulf to reduce the size of hypoxic zone to less than 5,000 square kilometers by 2015. Tracking nutrient levels every year is important to determine if partners are on target with that goal.

Predictions of the size of the 2009 hypoxic zone reflects USGS estimates of about 295,000 metric tons of nitrogen (in the form of nitrate) delivered in April and May 2009 to the northern Gulf. In 2008, the hypoxic zone exceeded 20,000 square kilometers, an area similar in size to the state of New Jersey. Spring delivery of nitrogen in 2009 was about 23% lower than what was measured in 2008, but still about 11% above the average from 1979 to 2009.

USGS has monitored streamflow and water quality in the Mississippi River Basin for decades, to access more information visit the USGS nutrient flux webpage.

For more than 125 years, the USGS has served as the Nation's water monitoring agency, including flow and (or) quality in selected streams and rivers across the U.S. Access data from more than 7,400 streamgages, many of which provide real-time data in 15 minute increments at the USGS WaterWatch site.

For an even larger variety of USGS data, such as for ground water and water quality, access the National Water Information System Web Interface, which contains over 1.5 million sites, and averages over 25 million hits per month. 

On Lincoln's 200th birthday, Feb. 12, 2009, the new Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack "broke pavement" on The People's Garden during a ceremony on the grounds of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) commemorating Lincoln's birthday.

Green for Watershed Protection

Secretary Vilsack declared the stretch of pavement permanently closed and returned back to green, and encouraged other Administration officials and the general public to join in to protect the Chesapeake watershed.

"It is essential for the federal government to lead the way in enhancing and conserving our land and water resources," said Vilsack. "President Obama has expressed his commitment to responsible stewardship of our land, water and other natural resources, and one way of restoring the land to its natural condition is what we are doing here today - "breaking pavement" for The People's Garden."

The dedication comes on the 200th anniversary of the birth of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln founded the Department of Agriculture in 1862 and referred to it as "The People's Department" in his last annual message to Congress.

Green for Beneficial Gardening Promotion

Secretary Vilsack announced a goal of creating a community garden at each USDA facility worldwide. The USDA community garden project will include a wide variety of garden activities including Embassy window boxes, tree planting, and field office plots.

The gardens will be designed to promote "going green" concepts, including landscaping and building design to retain water and reduce runoff; roof gardens for energy efficiency; utilizing native plantings and using sound conservation practices.

Green Space for Runoff Reduction

The USDA People's Garden will eliminate 1,250 square feet of unnecessary paved surface at the USDA headquarters and return the landscape to grass. The changes signal a removal of impervious surfaces and improvement in water management that is needed throughout the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

Demonstration Habitat for Backyard and Green Space Applications

The new garden will add 612 square feet of planted space to showcase conservation practices that all Americans can implement in their own backyards and green spaces.

As a component of the garden, pollinator-friendly plantings will not only provide important habitat for bees and butterflies, but can serve as an educational opportunity to help people understand the vital role pollinators play in our food, forage and all agriculture. The garden plot is adjacent to the site of the USDA Farmer's Market.

Watershed Protection of the Chesapeake Watershed

About 100,000 streams and rivers thread through the Chesapeake's 64,000-square-mile watershed, which is home to almost 17 million people in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware, New York and the District of Columbia. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in North America, with a length of 200 miles and 11,684 miles of tidal shoreline, more than the entire U.S. West Coast.

The Chesapeake Bay supports more than 3,600 species of plants, fish and animals.

Reduce Pollution on Wildlife Habitat, Forests and Water Resources...and Improve Community Natural Resources

USDA leads efforts on public and private lands to help reduce the impact of nutrient and sediment pollution on wildlife habitat, forest lands and water quality, as well as supporting community involvement in managing natural resources, urban green space and land stewardship. For more information about USDA, the People's Garden, the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and other conservation and agriculture related programs available in local communities, visit a USDA Service Center or go to the USDA Web page at www.usda.gov.

Complementary education materials such as the distance-learning project MonarchLIVE and partnerships with schools and the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign which will extend the impact and reach of the USDA garden initiative are available at na.fs.fed.us. Backyard conservation and other materials also can be obtained by dialing 1-888-LANDCARE.

Written by Barbara Eisenstein,
Horticulture Outreach Coordinator
Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden

Each year I look forward to the burst of spring wildflowers in the planted strip along the sidewalk beside my house. I await the towering sunflowers that follow in the summer. The blues of the sages, ceanothus and penstemons calm me, while the bright orange and reds of the mallows and monkeyflowers bring excitement. The coolness of the woodland garden with its rich, deep greens is comforting.

The Compost Pile

But the compost heap is the wildness of my suburbia. It is teaming with life, with hunters, grazers, scavengers, and decomposers. They take the form of mammals, lizards, insects, snakes, spiders and unknowns. It is my favorite garden spot.

The rear corner of my backyard is where I put most of my yard waste. It is not a pretty sight. A black plastic bin contains household vegetable waste, hopefully keeping the rats from the sweet, succulent food they so enjoy. Leaves, twigs, branches, and grass clippings are piled high.

Beautifying The Compost Pile

Though it is my favorite place, I realize it is not much to look at, and so I planted a tree mallow (Lavatera assurgeniflora) to keep it from view. Within about six months the mallow grew from six inches to four feet tall and at least 6 feet wide, effectively screening the pile of debris.

Easy Composting

I am a lazy composter. I throw the yard waste into a heap, spreading grass clippings over layers of twigs, branches and leaves. This ensures that the mound does not compress into an air-tight, anaerobic, rotting mess. I do not turn my compost, rather, I dig into it whenever the need arises.

What to Layer Onto Your Compost Pile

On top are the least decomposed leaves and grass. Slightly below is the partially decomposed material, perfect for mulch in my woodland gardens. Digging in a bit further I come across deep brown, rich organic soil. Occasionally I sprinkle this over my turf instead of using fertilizer. It has seeds from weeds, but on balance my lawn is dense and healthy with a tolerable quantity of weeds. I add perlite (available at most garden shops) to this rich organic soil to make potting soil. Again, my pots have some weeds, but for the most part, my container plants do well. I incorporate extra perlite for succulents and other plants requiring excellent drainage. This mix has worked well for pots of dudleyas, sages, and even a woolly blue curls, now two years old.

Native Species Habitat In The Compost Pile

Whenever I climb the mound to add more greens, I see thousands of spiders scurry away. Digging into the pile I uncover large, juicy translucent grubs, and slender pink earthworms. Millipedes slither on. A startled lizard slides away as I turn over a log. Earwigs, sowbugs, snails and slugs join the mix. The compost heap is always warm as bacteria, in concert with all of these other critters, go about the everyday work of recycling organic debris into rich soil. It has a rich earthy smell.

And if all of this activity were not enough, now when I go to the pile, I see a carefully excavated hole, with a neat pile of fine soil beside it. My imagination goes wild trying to visualize this meticulous excavator. I don’t have gophers. Maybe it is Mole from Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.
 

About Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden

RSABG is the largest botanical garden dedicated exclusively to our state's native plants. Visitors are welcome to enjoy the meandering pathways of this 86 acre natural setting which offers panoramic mountain views throughout the year. Self guided interpretive brochures are available at the California Garden Shop and enable visitors to fully enjoy the three distinct areas of the Botanic Garden: Indian Hill Mesa, the East Alluvial Gardens, and the Plant Communities.

The Botanic Garden is a private, non-profit organization, open to the public daily from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is free; a donation of $4.00/person and $8.00/family is suggested.

Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden
1500 North College Avenue
Claremont, CA 91711-3157
Telephone: (909) 625-8767
www.rsabg.org

Composting can be simple, or high tech.  But compost is what nature does naturally under canopies of trees, under bushes, under groundcover...in the thin layer between air and soil. 

Doug Green highly recommends composting strategies that make great common sense...and he takes it a step further with "compost tea".

Compost is the heart and soul of the garden and the more research that’s done on soil structure and health, the more that compost and composting becomes important for both home and commercial gardening. If you do nothing else this summer, get the compost bin working. And if you have compost working and want to take it one step further for your lawn and garden health, learn to make compost tea. Making tea properly allows you to take the small amount of compost you make and multiply it like loaves and fishes so your entire property gets the benefit. (DougGreensGarden.com)

Compost Tea

By using compost tea to replace chemical-based fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides, you can garden safer and be more protective of the environment. Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection gives an easy pictorial guide to making compost tea:

Supplies needed: 2 - 5 gallon buckets 1 gallon mature compost 1 aquarium pump 1 gang valve (to divide the air supply into several streams) 4 gallons of water 3 feet + of aquarium hose unsulfured molasses

And Wikipedia provides more options for selecting different kinds of compost tea and how Europe handles this earth friendly solution for ground nutrition.

Wikipedia:  There are several kinds of compost tea, depending on the method and ingredients with which the tea is made. In Europe compost teas are largely distinguished on the basis of whether or not they have manure content, the latter preferred for having more consistent disease suppressive capabilities.

The Land Institute's strategy includes collaboration with public institutions in order to direct more research in the direction of Natural Systems Agriculture.  

The team at the Land Institute feels comfortable having demonstrated the scientific feasibility of their proposal for a Natural Systems Agriculture. Because this work deals with basic biological questions and principles, the implications are applicable worldwide. If Natural Systems Agriculture were fully adopted, we could one day see the end of agricultural scientists from industrialized societies delivering agronomic methods and technologies from their fossil fuel-intensive infrastructures into developing countries and thereby saddling them with brittle economies.

Perennial Grain...a hybrid of intermediate wheatgrass and triticale could produce a more sustainable food crop that lives for years and builds deep root systems to tap deeper water sources. 

According to Scientific American's article about the Land Institute in 2007, Americans assume food production is easy and highly efficient already.  However, reality is that agriculture requires vast areas of land, regular high quantities of waer, energy and chemicals to meet the demands for our escalating human and animal populatons.

The UN sponsored Millennium Ecosystem Assessment suggested that agriculture may be the "largest threat to biodiversity and ecosystem function of any single human activity."  OUCH!

"Today, most of humanity's food comes directly or indirectly (as animals feed) from cereal grains, legumes and oilseed crops.  These staples are appealing to producers and consumers because they are easy to transport and store, relatively imperishable, and fairly high in protein and calories.  As a result, such crops occupy about 80% of global agricultural land.  BUT, they are all annual plants, meaning that they must be grown anew from seeds every eyar, typically using resource-intensive cultivation methods. More troubling, the environmental degradation caused by agriculture will likely worsen as the hungry human population grows to eight billion or 10 billion in the coming decades."

Plant Breeders, Agronomists and Ecologists Strive for Solutions

Grain-cropping systems that functin much like natural ecosystems that have been displaced by agriculture is the holy grain for agriculture researchers.

Significant advances in plant breeding science are bringing this goal within sight at last!

Kansas plant geneticist Wes Jackson looked at the ecosystems that preceded agriculture to look for a solution. Mixtures of perennial plants once dominated nearly all the planet's landscapes and they still do in uncultivated areas today. 

More than 85% of North America's native plant species are PERENNIALS.

Because annuals have relatively shallow roots -- most less than 0.3 meters -- farming areas have problems with erosion, foil fertility depletion and water contamination...and lack of nature's natural farmers, wildlife.

Today the traits of perennials are becoming better appreciated for their root depths of more than two meters, plant communities that regulate ecosystem functions such as water management and carbon and nitrogen cycling.  They are also highly productive yet resilient in the face of environmental stresses.

Timothy grass, a perennial hay crop, is roughly 54 times more effective in maintaining topsoil than annual crops.  Scientists also find a fivefold reduction in water loss and a 35-fold reduction in nitrate loss from soil planted with alfalfa and mixed perennial grasses compared with soil under corn and soybeans.

Carbon sequestration by perennials is also boosted.  Carbon is the main ingredient of soil organic matter and can contain 50% more than annually cropped fields.   And perennial fields do not need to be worked every year, so less farm machinery cycles and less fertilizers and pestcides also reduce fossil fuel use.

Wildlife also benefits -- bird populations can be seven times more dense in perennial crop fields than annual crop fields. 

And perennials are far more capable of sustainable cultivation on marginal lands, which already have poor soil quality or would be quickly depleted by a few years of intensive annual cropping.

Perennial plant breeding research are focusing on wheat, sorghum, sunflower, intermediate wheatgrass and other species as perennial grain crops.

At The Land Institute, breeders are working both on domesticating perennial wheatgrass and on crossing assorted perennial wheatgrass species with annual wheats.  Although perennial crops such as alfalfa and sugarcane already exist around the world, none has seed yields comparable to those of annual grain crops...and  here is where creative plant breeding  works with  the growing environment, selective  breeding stock, and  judicious use of fertilizers to increase the yield of these perennial grains.

Deep roots mean resilience, and that trait might be more important than many short term plant attributes currently valued by agriculture.

Additional programs include the Climate and Energy Project (CEP)   See www.climateandenergy.org . The Land Institute formed this new project on climate and energy in February 2007. Because of the close connections between climate change, energy from coal, and agricultural vulnerabilities -- research is growing to explore the issues and find solutions to the issues that connect energy and farming.

The Land Institute
2440 E. Water Well Road,
Salina, KS 67401
785-823-5376
www.landinstitute.org

Nancy Jackson, Project Director
Climate and Energy Project
P.O. Box 442217
Lawrence, KS 66044
Ph: 785-331-8743
jackson@climateandenergy.org
www.climateandenergy.org

Inspired by ecosystems as old as the earth itself, John Todd Ecological Design, Inc. rebuilds ecological balance for clients with The ECO Machine - a wastewater treatment system that naturally treats sewage and industrial waste to re-use quality. Ecological function is an important consideration as fresh water becomes one of the most important commodities in our urbanized world.

Nine Principles for Designing ECO Machines for Ecological Restoration

1. Microbial Communities: The primary ecological foundations of living machines are predicated upon diverse microbial communities obtained from a wide range of aquatic (marine and freshwater) and terrestrial environments. In addition, organisms form chemically and thermally highly stressed environments are critical. Genetic engineering cannot do what constellations of natural organisms can accomplish when they work in concert.

2. Photosynthetic Communities: Sunlight-powered photosynthesis is the primary driving force of these systems. Anaerobic phototrophic microbes, cyanobacteria, algae, and higher plants must be linked in a dynamic balance with the heterotrophic microbial communities.

3. Linked Ecosystems and the Law of the Minimum: At least three distinct types of ecological systems need to be linked together to produce living machines that carry out self design and self repair through time. Such systems have the theoretical ability to span centuries and possibly millennia.

4. Pulsed Exchanges: Nature works in short term/long term pulses which are both regular and irregular. This pulsing is a critical design force and helps maintain diversity and robustness. Pulses need to be intrinsic to design.

5. Nutrient and Micro nutrient Reservoirs: Carbon/Nitrogen/Phosphorus ratios need to be regulated and maintained. A full complement of macro and trace elements needs to be in the system so that complex food matrices can be established and allowed to "explore" a variety of successive strategies over time. This will support biological diversity.

6. Geological Diversity and Mineral Complexity: Living machines can simulate a rapid ecological history by having within them minerals from a diversity of strata and ages. The geological materials can be incorporated into the sub-ecosystems relatively quickly by being introduced as ultra fine powders which can be solubilized over short time frames.

7. Step Gradients: Step gradients are required within and between the sub-elements of the system. These include redox, pH, humic materials, and ligand or metal-based gradients. These gradients help develop the high efficiencies that have been predicted for living machines.

8. Phylogenetic Diversity: In a well engineered ecosystem all phylogenetic levels from bacteria to vertebrates should be included. System regulators and internal designers are often unusual and unpredictable organisms. The development of various phyla has arisen to a large extent from the strategic exploration of the total global system over a vast period of time. This time can be compressed with the consequences of this evolution.

9. The Microcosm as a Tiny Mirror Image of the Macrocosm: This ancient hermetic law applies to ecological design and engineering. As much as possible, global design should be miniaturized in terms of gas, mineral, and biological cycles. The big system relationships need to be maintained in the living machine.

CONTACT:
John Todd Ecological Design, Inc.
P.O. Box 497
Woods Hole, MA 02543 USA
1.508.548.2545
www.toddecological.com