Sifting Com;post at DMZ

Today we built three new raised beds or mounds at the DMZ garden and sifted through a batch of worm-enriched compost to make a box full of fine soil for planting seeds in the raised beds. Tomorrow we need tp do more building, sifting and maybe some planting. Sifting is important to make the soil fine and easy for the seeds to take root. It would be nicer if we had a worm condo or soil in a worm depository to sift through. It would be finer and produce a fine soil full of castings. But we do not have a worm condo or worm depository now so we make the best of what we got. As readers of this posting know I am a strong promoter of worm boxes or condo. The real secret to the growing power model of growing is castings, compost digested and passed through by worms or worm poop. (I just realized that castings is not in the GP glossary and will add it tomorrow.) Castings are well known world over. In Guatemala I saw coffee growers use casting to place at the base of coffee trees as fertilizer. The “Worm guy” of Venezuela told me of his extensive use of castings in his organic farm. At Growing Power there are so many worm condos or boxes and sifting through all the soil was such a major project that one volunteer took an old cloth dryer, took out the heating coils, and converted it to shaker. Worm enriched castings go in, get shaken in the dryer and come out the other end as fine soil, castings or black gold

Tonight at dinner my son and I got into a conversation of how important it was to sift through our thoughts and experiences to see how they affect us in a positive or negative way. In Ignatian Spirituality this process is called discernment. St. Ignatius, the founder of the religious order of the Society of Jesus asked his followers each day to do an examen of consciousness, sorting out and sifting through experiences of the day. His own conversion from a soldier at court to a pilgrim follower of Jesus was sparked by such a discernment. Just like in the garden we need to take time out in life to sift through our experiences to find the richness of life.

Comments

(:commentboxchrono:)