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Organic Gardener's
Composting
by Steve Solomon
Foreword
Back in the '70's, I made the momentousmove from the East Coast to the West and quickly discovered that much of my gardenknowledge needed an update. Seattle's climate was unlike anything I had experiencedin Massachusetts or Ohio or Colorado, and many of my favorite vegetables simply didn'tgrow well. A friend steered me to a new seed company, a tiny business called TerritorialSeed, unique in that, rather than trying to tout its wares all over the country,it would only sell to people living west of the Cascade Mountains. Every vegetableand cover crop listed had been carefully tested and selected by Steve Solomon forits performance in the maritime Northwest.
The 1980's saw the revival of regionalgardening, a concept once widely accepted, but since lost to the sweeping homogeneityof the '50s and '60s. Steve Solomon and his Territorial Seed Company directly influencedthe return of regional garden making by creating an awareness of climatic differencesand by providing quantities of helpful information specific to this area. Not onlycould customers order regionally appropriate, flavorful and long-lasting vegetablesfrom the Territorial catalog's pages, we could also find recipes for cooking unfamiliarones, as well as recipes for building organic fertilizers of all sorts. Territorial'scatalog offered information about organic or environmentally benign pest and diseasecontrols, seasonal cover crops, composts and mulches, and charts guiding us to optimalplanting patterns. Every bit of it was the fruit of Steve Solomon's work and observation.I cannot begin to calculate the disappointments and losses Steve helped me to avoid,nor the hours of effort he saved for me and countless other regional gardeners. Wecame to rely on his word, for we found we could; If Steve said this or that wouldgrow in certain conditions, by gum, it would. Better yet, if he didn't know something,or was uncertain about it, he said so, and asked for our input. Before long, a networkof environmentally concerned gardeners had formed around Territorial's customer base,including several Tilth communities, groups of gardeners concerned with promotingearth stewardship and organic husbandry in both rural and urban settings.
In these days of generalized eco-awareness,it is easy to forget that a few short years ago, home gardeners were among the worstenvironmental offenders, cheerfully poisoning anything that annoyed them with whateverdreadful chemical that came to hand, unconscious of the long-term effects on faunaand flora, water and soil. Now, thank goodness, many gardeners know that their mandateis to heal the bit of earth in their charge. Composting our home and garden wastesis one of the simplest and most beneficial things we can do, both to cut down thequantity of wastes we produce, and to restore health to the soil we garden upon Ican think of no better guide to the principles and techniques of composting thanSteve Solomon. Whether you live in an urban condo or farm many acres, you will findin these pages practical, complete and accessible information that serves your needs,served up with the warmth and gentle humor that characterizes everything Steve does.
Ann Lovejoy, Bainbridge Island, Washington,1993
To My Readers
A few special books live on in my mind.These were always enjoyable reading. The author's words seemed to speak directlyto me like a good friend's conversation pouring from their eyes, heart and soul.When I write I try to make the same thing happen for you. I imagine that there isan audience hearing my words, seated in invisible chairs behind my word processor.You are part of that group. I visualize you as solidly as I can. I create by talkingto you.
It helps me to imagine that you arefriendly, accepting, and understand my ideas readily. Then I relax, enjoy writingto you and proceed with an open heart. Most important, when the creative processhas been fun, the writing still sparkles when I polish it up the next day.
I wrote my first garden book for anaudience of one: what seemed a very typical neighbor, someone who only thought heknew a great deal about raising vegetables. Constitutionally, he would only respectand learn from a capital "A" authority who would direct him step-by-stepas a cookbook recipe does. So that is what I pretended to be. The result was a concise,basic regional guide to year-round vegetable production. Giving numerous talks ongardening and teaching master gardener classes improved my subsequent books. Withthis broadening, I expanded my imaginary audience and filled the invisible chairswith all varieties of gardeners who had differing needs and goals.
This particular book gives me an audienceproblem. Simultaneously I have two quite different groups of composters in mind.What one set wants the other might find boring or even irritating. The smaller groupincludes serious food gardeners like me. Vegetable gardeners have traditionally beenacutely interested in composting, soil building, and maintaining soil organic matter.We are willing to consider anything that might help us grow a better garden and weenjoy agricultural science at a lay person's level.
The other larger audience, does notgrow food at all, or if they do it is only a few tomato plants in a flower bed. Afew are apartment dwellers who, at best, keep a few house plants. Yet even rentersmay want to live with greater environmental responsibility by avoiding unnecessarycontributions of kitchen garbage to the sewage treatment system. Similarly, modernhome owners want to stop sending yard wastes to landfills. These days householdersmay be offered incentives (or threatened with penalties) by their municipalitiesto separate organic, compostable garbage from paper, from glass, from metal or fromplastic. Individuals who pay for trash pickup by volume are finding that they cansave considerable amounts of money by recycling their own organic wastes at home.
The first audience is interested inlearning about the role of compost in soil fertility, better soil management methodsand growing healthier, more nutritious food. Much like a serious home bread baker,audience one seeks exacting composting recipes that might result in higher quality.Audience two primarily wants to know the easiest and most convenient way to reduceand recycle organic debris.
Holding two conflicting goals at onceis the fundamental definition of a problem. Not being willing to abandon either (orboth) goals is what keeps a problem alive. Different and somewhat opposing needsof these two audiences make this book somewhat of a problem. To compensate I havepositioned complex composting methods and the connections between soil fertilityand plant health toward the back of the book. The first two-thirds may be more thansufficient for the larger, more casual members of my imaginary audience. But I couldnot entirely divide the world of composting into two completely separate levels.
Instead, I tried to write a book sointeresting that readers who do not food garden will still want to read it to theend and will realize that there are profound benefits from at- home food production.These run the gamut from physical and emotional health to enhanced economic liberty.Even if it doesn't seem to specifically apply to your recycling needs, it is my hopethat you will become more interested in growing some of your own food. I believewe would have a stronger, healthier and saner country if more liberty-loving Americanswould grow food gardens.
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