Composts, of course, are currently all the rage — as they should be. Compost is beneficial to a host of soil micro-organisms that, in turn, create a living soil that benefits plant growth without added inorganic fertilizers. But unless you produce your own compost, how do you know what you are using?
Composting is a natural process that is now being commercially enhanced to economically reduce our waste stream and produce a useable product. In their purest form, yard and animal wastes are blended, turned and composted to a finely tuned pile of organic matter. Depending on what types of fertilizers, herbicides and other pesticides have been applied on your yard, the yard wastes being used in composting may well be adding those pesticides back into the landscape rather than eliminating them.
The term “Certified Organic” pertains to the process used in composting as well as the ingredients used, especially in commercial composts. In general, compost ingredients come from three essential supplies: treated human sewerage sludge, animal wastes (manures and body parts) and plant parts.
While all ingredients are compostable, and, prior to commercial composting, were considered waste products, they are treated differently by the certifying agencies. For instance, New England Organics, a company with offices in Portland, produces Earthlife Compost, a stable beneficial product made from municipal treated human waste. According to the info sheet, the compost produced in Unity, Maine improves vegetable, annual and perennial gardens and has enhanced more than 100 school athletic fields. Earhtlife compost improves water holding capacity and reduces the need for added fertilizers by slowly releasing nitrogen and other beneficial nutrients. Because this compost is made from treated sewerage, it is not certified organic. What we eat has been tampered with through engineering, and there is a fear that heavy metals continue to make their way through food production.
Think about this for a moment: Which is preferable, managing a waste product by creating a useable compost that enhances growth and reduces pesticide and fertilizer use, or allowing the base product to build up into enormous piles that no one wants in their “backyard?” This product is fully composted to a stable useable product that helps our environment.
The same, of course, can be said with composts made of either animal wastes, food wastes or yard wastes. All of these products, whether from fish processing plants, restaurants or farms, use core products that most of you would consider revolting, but produce environmentally friendly products, and all are eligible for organic certification if their manufacturers wish to apply for it.
Winterwood Farms in Lyman, Benson Farm in Gorham and other facilities throughout Maine, use animal manures as a base product to produce composts with all the benefits mentioned in association with Earthlife Compost. The initial waste product is produced much the same way as human sewerage, but for some reason the fact that animals produce it reduces the aversion to it.
From the time Squanto is said to have helped the Pilgrims by using fish as a composting organic fertilizer, Americans have been play-acting with organic fertilizing and composting. Now that good commercial composts are available in large quantities, there is no reason that going green should be a difficult choice.
Jeff O’Donal, a recent winner of the Al Black Commemorative Lifetime Achievement Award in Horticulture, is the owner of O’Donal’s Nursery, a full service garden center in Gorham.