Grace Gershuny - Compost, Vermicompost and Compost Tea: Feeding the Soil on the Organic Farm

Organic Principles and Practices Handbook Series

A Project of the Northeast Organic Farming Association

Compost, Vermicompost, and Compost Tea

Feeding the Soil on the Organic Farm

Revised and Updated

Grace Gershuny

Illustrated by Jocelyn Langer

Chelsea Green Publishing

White River Junction, Vermont

Copyright 2004, 2011 by the Northeast Organic Farming Association Interstate Council.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Editorial Coordinator: Makenna Goodman

Project Manager: Bill Bokermann

Copy Editor: Cannon Labrie

Proofreader: Helen Walden

Indexer: Peggy Holloway

Designer: Peter Holm, Sterling Hill Productions

Printed in the United States of America

First Chelsea Green revised printing March, 2011

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 11 12 13 14

Our Commitment to Green Publishing

Chelsea Green sees publishing as a tool for cultural change and ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book manufacturing practices with our editorial mission and to reduce the impact of our business enterprise in the environment. We print our books and catalogs on chlorine-free recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks whenever possible. This book may cost slightly more because we use recycled paper, and we hope youll agree that its worth it. Chelsea Green is a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Compost, Vermicompost, and Compost Tea was printed on Joy White, a 30-percent postconsumer recycled paper supplied by Thomson-Shore.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gershuny, Grace.

Compost, vermicompost, and compost tea : feeding the soil on the organic farm / Grace Gershuny ; illustrated by Jocelyn Langer. -- Updated.

p. cm. -- (Organic principles and practices handbook series)

A Project of the Northeast Organic Farming Association.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-60358-347-3

1. Compost--United States. 2. Vermicomposting--United States. 3. Compost tea--United States. I. Langer, Jocelyn. II. Northeast Organic Farming Association. III. Title. IV. Title: Feeding the soil on the organic farm. V. Series: Organic principles and practices handbook series.

S661.G45 2011

631.875--dc22

2010053923

eISBN: 9781603583480

Chelsea Green Publishing Company

Post Office Box 428

White River Junction, VT 05001

(802) 295-6300

www.chelseagreen.com

Best Practices for Farmers and Gardeners

The NOFA handbook series is designed to give a comprehensive view of key farming practices from the organic perspective. The content is geared to serious farmers, gardeners, and homesteaders and those looking to make the transition to organic practices.

Many readers may have arrived at their own best methods to suit their situations of place and pocketbook. These handbooks may help practitioners review and reconsider their concepts and practices in light of holistic biological realities, classic works, and recent research.

Organic agriculture has deep roots and a complex paradigm that stands in bold contrast to the industrialized conventional agriculture that is dominant today. Its critical that organic farming get a fair hearing in the public arenaand that farmers have access not only to the real dirt on organic methods and practices but also to the concepts behind them.

About This Series

The Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) is one of the oldest organic agriculture organizations in the country, dedicated to organic food production and a safer, healthier environment. NOFA has independent chapters in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

This handbook series began with a gift to NOFA/Mass and continues under the NOFA Interstate Council with support from NOFA/Mass and a generous grant from Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE). The project has utilized the expertise of NOFA members and other organic farmers and educators in the Northeast as writers and reviewers. Help also came from the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture and from the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.

Jocelyn Langer illustrated the series, and Jonathan von Ranson edited it and coordinated the project. The Manuals Project Committee included Bill Duesing, Steve Gilman, Elizabeth Henderson, Julie Rawson, and Jonathan von Ranson. The committee thanks SARE and the wonderful farmers and educators whose willing commitment it represents.

Contents

Compost Poetry

On Top

All this new stuff goes on top

Turn it over, turn it over

Wait and water down

From the dark bottom

Turn it inside out

Let it spread through

Sift down even.

Watch it sprout.

A mind like compost.

Gary Snyder

Kneeling Here, I Feel Good

Sand: crystalline children

Of dead mountains.

Little quartz worlds

Rubbed by the wind.

Compost: rich as memory,

Sediment of our pleasures,

Orange rinds and roses and beef bones,

Coffee and cork and dead lettuce,

Trimmings of hair and lawn.

I marry you, I marry you.

In your mingling under my grubby nails

I touch the seeds of what will be.

Revolution and germination

Are mysteries of birth

Without which

Many

Are born to starve.

I am kneeling and planting.

I am making fertile.

I am putting

Some of myself

Back in the soil.

Soon enough

Sweet black mother of our food

You will have the rest.

Marge Piercy