Mike McGrath

My Pile: Ashes to Ashes to ‘Black Gold’

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After a long, cold week of work and further digging out from an additional dumping of snow, I finish up Saturday morning errands and indoor chores, pondering my pile all the while.

I glance across the backyard through a bedroom window. Like the ground that surrounds it, my pile is still thick with snow, though I can see from afar several craggy holes across the top created by the furnace of heat-producing microbes within. A good sign on a frigid winter day.

My pile, in the process of shrugging off its mantle of snow.

Still, I worry that the weight of the snow covering my pile will squeeze the life out of it.

Through the fall and into these winter months, my pile’s lung-like movement up and down has amazed me. It absorbs the blankets of leaves and buckets of seaweed I add to it, rising high. A day or week or so later, it settles back into itself. My pile is like the science experiment taught to grade schoolers: Here’s a glass of water and here’s a shaker full of salt. Add all that salt to the water, stir it up and wonder: where did all that salt go?

So now I wonder: will all the water locked up in the snow douse my pile’s inner fire? Or will the water melt into sips that will sustain my pile’s inner workings until the sun is potent enough once again to boil it off?

Like my pile, my musings about it are anything but dormant. I enjoy provoking it and prodding it along in all seasons. My pile, even in winter, is my favorite hobby, and more.

I gather dustballs from under the beds and empty the fireplace of its ashes. Rather than dump the resulting brown paper bag half-full of indoor detritus into the kitchen trash bin, I decide to sprinkle it all across the top of my pile. My fast-filling bucket of kitchen scraps has nowhere to go at the moment except into cold storage in the tool shed, but perhaps this dusty blessing of gray ash and carbonized wood will help further melt the snow.

I bundle up and trudge out across the snowpack to my pile. Setting the bag of ash and furry dander aside, I pick up the rebar rod I keep leaned up against the back side of the tool shed. I pierce my pile 20 or so times, from all angles and sides, circling its flanks like a caveman finishing off a woolly mammoth. I focus my prodding on places still thick with snow.

I’m wagering that my pile can continue to thrive under its blanket of insulating snow, and stabbing it a few more times will activate the now dormant areas of the pile underneath.

A 7-ft. length of ribbed rebar is a handy way to prod my pile, creating airshafts through and through.

A 7-ft. length of ribbed rebar is a handy way to prod my pile, creating airshafts through and through.

It’s a good, quick workout, and before long I’ve created a score of shafted pathways for meltwater to soak down through the cold, dry compartments of leaves that surely surround the areas into which I’ve forked in supplies of fresh green rotting stuff. As all the compost guidebooks say, a heap of compost should be like a damp sponge.

I lean over the log wall to peer inside one of the vent holes, rimmed with hoar frost. Within is a cavern of space, creating in part by the pile subsiding and its ceiling of icy snow rising. Like some salt dome down South, my pile’s covering of snow could easily collapse upon itself into a sinkhole of snow. But I figure the leaves inside have now fallen to about the level of the log walls; I decide to add more snow, if only to keep my pile high enough to pee on it in privacy.

I set the bar aside and pick up the wide snow shovel to scoop swaths of crusty powdery snow from an ever-widening ring around my pile, tossing the mushed-up snow across the top. I stop to heft a few chunks of snowbergs to plug the biggest vent holes. My aim is not to smother my pile but to seal any escape hatches of heat. A thermal blanket.

A dozen or so helpings of scrapped-up snow soon reforms my pile into a crested white butte between log walls.

Happy and panting with my handiwork, I grab the bag of ash and furry dustballs. I try to stay upwind as a tilt and flick the bag full of soot across the top of my pile. Chucks of charcoal tumble down the front face, but most of the ash swirls and sticks onto the snow covering my pile.

My pile, freshly adorned with more snow and a blessing of ash.

My pile, freshly adorned with more snow and a blessing of ash, containing nutrients from plant materials to be recycled back into the earth from whence it came. Truly, ashes to ashes…

This stubble of gray will gather sunlight and melt into my pile, the ash and flecks of wood coal sinking slowly downward to add its carbon and nutrients to the mix, the warm wet water vapor rising to meet it from below.

I’m sparing in the addition of wood ash, a very caustic material, to my pile. “Small amounts are fine,” advises Mike McGrath in his “Book of Compost.” “The ashes of high-quality hardwoods do contain high levels of calcium and potassium, which are essential plant nutrients. But we are talking small amounts. No more than a cup of ashes mixed into a 4 x 4 x 4-foot bin.” McGrath would rather see wood ash sprinkled across the lawn or garden (instead of lime) to raise the pH level of the soil, which tends toward the acidic in areas of plentiful rainfall. This I do, pacing across the yard as I jiggle wood ash and bits of charcoal from the paper bag.

McGrath expounds on the qualities and uses of wood ash on the website gardensalive.com: “Julia Gaskin, a Land Application Specialist for the University of Georgia Extension Service, explains that ash from good quality hardwoods contains a very nice amount of potassium; at least 3% by weight. Also known as potash, this is the “K” in the fabled N-P-K scale of plant nutrients—the Dow Jones of Horticulture! Potash improves root health and strengthens the very cellular structure of plants, helping them resist all kinds of stresses.”

Here’s more about potash, from Dan Sullivan, soil scientist with the Oregon State University Extension Service, quoted in an article by Carol Savonen on the Extension’s website. “In the 18th century, the benefits of ash-derived potash, or potassium carbonate, became widely recognized. North American trees were felled, burned and the ash was exported to Great Britain as ‘potash fever’ hit. In 1790, the newly-independent United States of America’s first patented process was a method for making fertilizer from wood ash (U.S. patent number 1: “An improved method of making pot and pearl ash).”

It’s fascinating to realize that processing wood ash was once so cutting-edge technology that it will forever be No. 1 on the list of American ingenuity. I am also intrigued by accounts of how the messy remains of my fireplace can turn my pile into a rich deposit of “black gold.”

Here’s what NPR has to say about it in a Science Friday story by Ira Flatow:

“Researchers say that adding charcoal to soil may provide more benefits for long-term soil quality than compost or manure…

“Poor quality soil. It’s a problem for farmers around the world. Dirt stripped of nutrients by years of over-farming and chemical fertilizers. Well, this week there’s new evidence that an old farming practice traced back at least 1,500 years to tribes in the Amazon basin can give new life to nutrient-poor dirt. It’s called “black gold agriculture.” The idea is really simple. You add charcoal from burned organic matter to the soil and the dirt holds on to nutrients and produces lots more crops.”

Flatow interviews Dr. Mingxin Guo is an assistant professor in the Agriculture and Natural Resources Department at Delaware State University in Dover.

FLATOW: “Let’s talk about poor quality soil, a big problem around the world. Why is that?

Dr. GUO: Yes. So deterioration and chemical degradation is a severe and worldwide problem. It is expressed as soil compaction, poor tubes, surface crafting(ph), slow water seepage, low water draining, low nutrients and a low nutrient retaining, and also decreasing crop productivity. This problem is mainly caused by long-term chemical fertilizer application and mechanical tillage. The level of organic matter determines the quality of our soil. All the soils have high organic matter content, say, six to 15 percent. But soil plowing makes the organic matter decompose quickly, while chemical fertilization doesn’t incur any external organic matter adhesion. So year after year, farmland soils become low in organic matter and the quality turns poor. So currently, most of farmland soils have organic matter content lower than three percent.

FLATOW: Ah. So what does adding charcoal to the soil, why does it make it a better fertilizer?

Dr. GUO: Charcoal is a fine-grained, porous black carbon, and it is generated from plant materials. And it is non-toxic to plants. So there are many tiny pores in charcoal. So once applied to soil, the pores will allow air to diffuse into the soil. Plant roots need the air to breathe. And in the meanwhile, the tiny pores will hold water and nutrients and later supply it to plants. More important, unlike other organic fertilizers, charcoal is very stable and it will not decompose to carbon dioxide. So once applied, it will stay in soil for hundreds to thousands of years. So to summarize, the high stability and porosity make charcoal a better fertilizer than other organic materials.”

FLATOW: … And so, I know this is an ancient technique that was discovered in pre-Columbian tribes from the central Amazon. They were doing this 1,500 years ago.

Dr. GUO: Yes. We actually, we learned this lesson from the pre-Amazon people. An archeological event disclosed the fertile, charcoal carbon-rich and highly productive soil in the central Amazon basin. And later, scientific studies revealed that this fertile soil was fertilized by the Amazon people 1,500 years ago with char produced by smothering plant debris and annual bulbs(ph).

FLATOW: Ah. So the char, the fertilizer they made, the char they made 1,500 years ago, was still working?

Dr. GUO: Yes. The soil is still highly productive, even after 1,000 years of crop cultivation without any other fertilization.”

My pile is a long way from an ancient field in the Amazon jungle, but I subscribe to the theory. As I tend my garden beds and lawn and come across a chunky bit of charcoal, I think of a slash and burn farmer from a millennium before, and thank him.

Ash and bits of charcoal gather sunlight on my pile and add their own properties to the mix.

Ash and bits of charcoal gather sunlight on my pile and add their own properties to the mix.

Late in the day I step out onto the back porch to let the dog out for a pee. The sun is low through the trees and casts its light across the top of my pile. There, I see a wisp of steam backlit by a sunbeam. My pile has already punched its way through its new mantle of snow.

Life always finds a way, even on the coldest day of winter.

My Pile: Nature vs. Nurture

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The first hard freeze of winter has set in. I consider my pile from behind the frosted glass panes of the kitchen door, squinting through the low morning sun for a sign of steam vapor rising from its top. What combustible forces, if any, still go on within? How far into my pile has the cold seeped in? What protection does the heap’s insulating cloak of leaves and seagrass straw provide? Have I given my pile the resources it needs to keep from shutting down completely?

A good long winter’s slumber is just fine for groundhogs; aside from the birds that flock to the backyard feeder, all else in my yard has closed up shop for the winter, as it should. But part of the sport of nurturing a compost pile is in keeping its inner fires stoked to ward off the stasis of winter dormancy for as long as possible. A compost pile in hiberation is boring. It just sits there.

A pile of dried leaves and additions of rotting greens teems with the unseen creatures and natural processes that make humus happen.

Or so it seems. Some years ago, as I was beginning to take backyard composter more seriously, I went to the local garden store to shop for my pile. I’d read a little about “activators” that kick-start a pile’s decomposition, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t missing some essential ingredient, an edge.

On the shelf I saw a squat bag of a powdery product called Bio-Excelerator, that promised “to offer the complete solution to generating rich, fertile humus – Nature’s best soil conditioner.” The package looked and hefted like a bag of flour; the backside label boasted that inside were “the most effective microorganisms coupled with the proper energy sources and pH balancers to assure you composting success…”

I checked the side of the bag for a list of ingredients and instead found copy that claimed inside were “…billions of microbes especially cultured for composting. In addition to containing moderate and high-heat active microbes, special varieties are included that can speed the decomposition of difficult-to-compost organic matter. All are combined with special proprietary energy sources containing kelp and dried blood to ensure a rapid decomposition … also contains special natural organic calcium compounds to neutralize the organic acids produced during composting.”

Like a bottle of daily vitamins, it seemed to me, only more mysterious, in a secret sauce sort of way. So I plunked down $11.99 plus tax. I shook the white powder onto my pile like so much pixie dust. It figured it couldn’t hurt, and just might help.

That was before I’d begun my winter reading of composting and gardening books and blogs, and learned that my pile could do just as well left to its own devices.

Each random handful of dirt in my yard contains millions of bacteria; countless spores of mold and fungi settle each day on my pile. All play their roles in reducing the rawness and wholeness of my pile into more elemental, digested parts.

In “Let It Rot — the Gardener’s Guide to Composting,” Stu Campbell writes, “Composting will be a whole lot simpler for you if you acknowledge the fact that the right bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes already exist within your compost pile. The potential for excellent decomposition is right there. Let Mother Nature worry about adjusting the various populations within the micro-community. That’s her job, and she does it well.”

Co-authors Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin explore the case for adding activators in “The Complete Compost Gardening Guide” (Storey Publishing 2008): “Even the slowest of heaps includes colonies of adapted microbes, but why not have more? This is the idea behind microbial compost activators, which are typically dry powders that contain compost-ready fungi and bacteria.

“It can be argued that using microbial activators is like selling ice to the good people of Iceland. Why would they need more ice? And if they did need ice, why not use some of their own? You probably already possess the best microbial activator you can use, which is homemade compost. Your own compost (especially almost-finished compost) contains an overflowing buffet of microorganisms that have proliferated in the unique setting of your own yard. They have a proven ability to work your one-of-a-kind compostable waste stream. They haven’t been imprisoned in a package, so they are ready for action. Need we say more?”

Actually, Mike McGrath, in his “Book of Compost” (Sterling, 2006) does have more to say: “…Turns out [compost activators] DO have value, but not when used according to the directions on most of the packages….”

“Saved your purchased ‘starter/activators’ till the very end. New research has found that many composts could use a little kick AFTER they’re finished. That’s right — after! Lots of beneficial creatures are killed by the heat of the composting process itself, and many others simply reach the end of their natural life span around that time. So, after a batch of compost is finished, mix the recommended amount of activator directly into the finished batch. Let it sit for 24 hours so the organisms can colonize the entire batch of compost, and then use it. That way, you’ll be sure to be adding the maximum amount of beneficial life to your soils.”

Food for thought. But for now I’ll stick to my new year’s resolution to leave my pile to its own devices, my good-natured meddling aside.

 

 

My Pile: A Soak and a Poke

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My pile now sits, Buddha-like, in the backyard.

Over the past two months, I’ve made a dozen or so roundups of leaves, topping each new load on my pile with layers of grass clippings, seaweed, kitchen scraps, rabbit litter, coffee grounds and whatever other ready-to-rot organic filler I come across.

After all those additions, each followed by a fresh exhalation of air, my pile has assumed its winter repose. Its bulk seems permanent, immutable save for the tendrils of steamy vapor that waft up from its mounded summit on cold mornings.

I know underneath its mantle of damp brown leaves and flecks of seaweed, my pile is stewing. Left to its own devices, it will slowly cook, a crockpot of compost, through the winter.

But as they say, a watched pot never boils, and I can’t resist tinkering with my pile’s inner workings to stoke the process of turning its raw ingredients into a finished product of a new living soil called humus.

Over the winter, I’ll continue with my regular deposits of kitchen scraps and such. I carve out a hole in the pile with a pitchfork, upend a container of slop into the mix, then backfill the hole with a plug of leaves raked up from a corner of the yard.

These contributions are helpful, mostly for housekeeping, but only scratch the surface of my pile. And fully turning my pile with a pitchfork will have to wait until the spring, after my pile has had the still time of winter to cook down into a heap that’s more manageable in size.

What my pile needs now right now are big gulps of water and air. Without these essential elements and agents, the chemical process that is decomposition will slowly grind to a halt.

“The amount of water in your compost pile is fairly critical, but you have plenty of leeway in which to work,” writes Stu Campbell in “Let It Rot! — the Gardener’s Guide to Composting” (Storey, 1998). “If the moisture content is much greater than 60 percent, you run the risk of having an anaerobic pile; if it is much less than 40 percent, organic matter will not decompose rapidly enough because the bacteria are deprived of the moisture they need to carry on their metabolism. Of course, you can’t monitor the percentages, so in general try to make sure the materials in your pile have the moisture content of a well-wrung sponge.”

“This is COOKING, not BAKING, and you have a lot of wiggle room,” Mike McGrath fairly shouts in his “Book of Compost” (Sterling Publishing, 2006). “Not bone dry, not soaking wet; in the middle is just right. And if the Goldilocks method doesn’t work for you, purchase a moisture meter — you can get these inexpensive electrical probe devices online and at most garden centers. They’re great to have around if you have a lot of houseplants…”

The rains this fall have been plentiful, and regular. I try to time my yard cleanups in advance of a coming storm; even a modest shower tamps down the leaves atop the pile so they don’t skitter back across the yard when the front blows through. “Rainwater is the best kind to put on compost. It picks up lots of oxygen, minerals and microorganisms as it falls through the air, giving your compost an added boost,” Stu Campbell counsels.

But even the heaviest rain soaks down into my pile only a matter of inches, absorbed by the nearest layer of seaweed and chopped leaf mulch and repelled by the first strata of whole leaves with their waxy coatings.

Through the fall I’ve taken care to add as much moist material to the beginnings of my pile as possible; grass clippings, damp leaves and musty seaweed, and I’ve dampened the lot from time to time with a spritz from the hose. But I know from the vapors rising out of the top that the steam engine that is my pile is boiling off the water it has stored up inside.

My pile is thirsty.

This morning, a Sunday, is dry and warm for December – about 40 degrees. Just warm enough for me to turn on the garden hose and unfurl its stiff coils across the lawn over to my pile.

My pile burns through the water in its midst, even on a cold December day. Time to water it before the winter freeze sets in.

My pile burns through the water in its midst, even on a cold December day. Time to water it before the winter freeze sets in.

I stick the nozzle of the hose into my pile, jabbing it in as deep as it will intrude.  It’s always a deep mystery where the water goes and what unseen path it follows through the matrix that is my pile. Every minute or so I stub the end of the running hose into another spot underneath the leaves.

I calculate flow rates in my head. If my hose pours out a gallon every 30 seconds, that means eight pounds of liquid will weigh down the pile. But what path is the water taking? What will absorb it?

Usually by the time I can come up with some sort of answer, a trickle of water is wetting my feet at the pile’s edge. My pile needs water, but seems impervious to it. You can lead a hose to a compost heap, but you can’t make my pile take a drink.

I extract the hose and plunge the tip into another section, then another. It’s like dabbing a turkey with a baster, no matter how deep I stick the hose into the voids of my pile, the coursing water seems to find its way out back onto the ground surrounding it. My pile is not the sponge I think it is.

What my pile needs now is air.