As many of my other fellow Earth Lodgers, I woke up early on Saturday to go work at the William Bird Community Center’s urban farmlet. We were met by a soft-spoken bearded man named Mathew, the garden manager, who proved to be incredibly knowledgeable. We were divided into two groups right off the bat: one, weeding an invasive grass; the other, moving a compost bin and various other tasks. As we were ripping out old landscaping planks I noticed that Matthew had recently built long swales to parallel the bark chip path. Upon asking about them, he showed me how the entire hill had been eroded away. He showed me how the bottom of the hill had a thick layer of topsoil, while the rest looked more like exposed mud. By building a trench of deep-rooted plants, he hoped the surface runoff would be slowed and infiltration would be increased.
Next, we spent an hour or so emptying compost bins to prepare them to be moved. It was incredible how transformative composting is. The stuff at the top was fresh plants, sticks, dirt, etc. The stuff at the bottom was a fine layer of broken down plant matter and soil that looked ready to spread! We moved a lot of it to a new spinning bin made of black plastic. He explained that heat is essential to composting: the bins we’d emptied had been sitting out for some 6 months and most of it wasn’t ready, but the same bins in the summer could create a full bin of compost in less than 6 months. The black, enclosed plastic container gets a lot hotter than the exposed wire bins. The bin spins to mix the contents, as added and mixing manure or other nitrogen-rich materials help bacteria form and break the other material down faster. It was incredible how much of an ecosystem the compost bins are in themselves. With each grab of the pitchfork we’d uncover a good 6 or 7 squirming earth worms, hard at work helping mix and aerate the compost.
John commented on how the compost is nutrient rich, which is of course good for the plants, but as we’ve learned in class, not necessarily good for the nearby James River and Chesapeake Bay (but good for algae blooms!). Mathew looked a little taken aback by this comment, perhaps feeling a little guilty. But some ten minutes later he retorted that composting is actually much better for the river than other means of fertilizer. Synthetic nitrogen or phosphorus help plants grow just as composting does, but because you’re not adding any new organic matter, the soil becomes devoid of anything that can hold water. When it rains, the water passes right through these synthetically fed soils (which contributes to the soil becoming a nitrogen sink). Compost-fed soils, however, act as sponges – The rich soil’s water retention is much higher (while simultaneously having better drainage, providing both more water and oxygen for plant roots!).
It was really inspiring to see how knowledgeable Mathew is, and how practically and productively he’s able to apply it. Virtually everything we stumbled across he could explain, while for me, just thinking about getting a garden plot on campus for the summer feels incredibly intimidating. I’m very excited by the work William Bird does (introducing organic produce to low-income neighborhoods? Heck yeah!), and was really amazed how much easier it is to understand concepts once I’m actually seeing them in person. I’m eager to start going with other UR kids every Friday.