Compost Piles on Fire!

October 2, 2014

...the biology. BioCycle has a whole article on fire prevention in municipal composting facilities that covers this common problem. So what situation(s) can lead to a fire? Here’s what can happen with a low moisture, large pile with little air exchange, combined with water getting into the pile in a place where there is enough air to support biological activity and chemical oxidation, but not enough to cool the pile. An old, dry compost pile, or a p...

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The Wonder of Worms

Mrs. Homegrown

May 21, 2015

Back to the Garden, Gardening, Vermiculture

5 Comments

...ig Fat Worm Bin A post on harvesting and managing our bin: Maintaining a Worm Bin Erik and I talk about worms in this episode of our podcast: 015 Worm Composting and Skunks And last but not least, The Fine Art of Worm Grunting...

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The Soil Beneath Our Feet

Mrs. Homegrown

April 23, 2015

Back to the Garden

4 Comments

...t 5 areas of personal action on behalf of the soil: Our consumer decisions Composting Mulching No-till gardening Committing to not using chemical fertilizers and pesticides This being Root Simple, I know our readers are savvy–in fact, I suspect our readers know more about this stuff than we do. But I natter on nonetheless, preaching to the choir. I hope the information I’ll be posting helps to provide you all with a little inspiration, or a fresh...

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Day to day, our decisions count

Mrs. Homegrown

April 30, 2015

Back to the Garden

6 Comments

...r meals. Some people are really good at this. I am not. Let us know if you have a good technique. The final stop gap to food wastage is composting–but that is a subject unto itself....

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A Low-Tech Experiment in Growing Oyster Mushrooms

Mr. Homegrown

February 3, 2022

Gardening, Mushrooms

14 Comments

...awdust and wood chips. Some of it I give to neighbors who have cabins with composting toilets. A lot of it I have to throw out. A few months ago a light bulb went off. I mostly produce oak sawdust which just happens to be one of the ideal substrates for growing mushrooms. While I love looking at mushrooms and attending lectures about mushrooms via the Los Angeles Mycological Society, I don’t know anything about growing them and my two previous att...

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