Last Harvests of Season, Composting What’s Left
We are doing the last harvests of the season: yesterday, the rose geranium (and distillation), today the harvest of the Fuyu persimmons, which our son Jesse will include in First Light Farm Share boxes. He and his wife Lisa planted them some years ago and the trees are coming into production.
We collect the aftermath of the season: the spent product of the distillation, the grape seeds and skin, the goat bedding; and build compost piles: one last Friday, another this Friday. We add the six Biodynamic compost preparations: dandelion, chamomile, oak bark, stinging nettle, yarrow, and valerian (sign up for our mailing list and we will send you our free booklet, Between Heaven and Earth: the Biodynamic Compost Preparations: How We Do It) of blogs on these preparations!) This is our fertility for the ranch, a most important practice of the year. We keep track of the temperature of the pile, which we need to make sure stays in the range of 131º-150º (not hotter!) for at least three days. This kills plant pathogens but still maintains the vitality of the materials we are composting.
Rain is predicted. We will be more than ready!