Our April meeting was at Paul’s home and along with the usual swapping of produce, chatting and catching up, we got down and dirty doing some bio-dynamic composting.
There are lots of sites out there that go into detail about it so we won’t, but here is what we got up to and why we did what we did. In short, bio-dynamic composting is the art of creating a compost heap with all the correct nutrients (macro, micro and mineral) to allow it to decompose without turning or further external inputs. The creation of this kind of heap requires you to have all the materials available in one go. It is not the kind of thing you can build gradually and it takes around 6 months to compost enough to then use.
Thank you so much Sahrn from Greener Me for taking all the photos.
Step 1 – Suitable aeration: Like with all things natural, it is necessary to ensure that the area chosen for the bio-dynamic compost heap has plenty of airflow. This ensures that any organisms which are breaking down the heap can breath and the gases they produce can escape. To ensure this, we created a row of sticks in the shape of an inverted V. This creates a tunnel for air to flow through under the heap.
Building the tee-pee stick tunnel for aeration
Step 2 – Lots of brown matter: Once the air flow tunnel is in place, we layered lots and lots of brown, dead matter to create the base layer. Things like straw, half rotted compost, mulch, tree bark, etc are perfect.
Lots of brown material was added including sticks, bits of bark, straw, etc to create the base
The kids loved helping with this and started to get nice an dirty!
Step 3 – Manure sludge: To kick off our microbe colonisation with a bang, we then added at least a wheel barrow full of cow manure sludge to the brown layer. The sludge was essentially made by filling a wheel barrow with cow manure, breaking it up and then filling it with water. It was left for a day to ensure that it was nice and runny. On goes the bucket Paul!
Adding manure sludge to the brown layer
Step 4 – Lots of green matter and a touch of lime: Once the sludge has been added, we then piled on a good layer of green matter. There was comfrey, lots of kikuyu runners, bits of vegetation, etc. As long as it had recently been photosynthesising, it was added! On top of the green layer, a sprinkling of lime was added to aid in balancing the overall pH of the composting process.
Adding our first layer of green matter to the heap
Step 5 – Water it all in well: Nothing is more important than ensuring that the heap is well watered at every stage. If not, the entire process can stall as the microbes and organisms in the pile won’t be able to colonise the dry matter.
Remember to water every layer well
Step 6 – repeat steps 2-5 until you run of out material: Essentially, keep adding alternating layers of brown, sludge and green matter. Remembering to water it as you go. Keep doing this until you run out of stuff to add (or you get tired and need a break). We didn’t take note of how many layers we did … but the pile was over a meter high and at least 2m x 2m at the base when we were finished with it.
More brown layers
Another green layer
Another brown layer
Yet a further green layer
Step 7 – Adding the bio-dynamic components: Paul had purchased a bio-dynamic kit and we inserted all the essential oils, powders and other components as directed on the packaging.
Mixing up the bio-dynamic components in water before pouring it over the heap
The rest of the day was spent exploring. The kids fell in love with the neighbours sheep and goats along with Malle and David’s dog. Worms were examined and touched by little fingers and then we all sat down for a well deserved lunch.
We also agreed on what to do over the next few weeks! Bonus.