The reasons are as follows: Peat extraction from the earth causes a tremendous amount of co2 to be released into the atmosphere. “Around half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide is emitted each year as a result of peat extraction from UK sites for horticultural use.” (source) And that’s just in the UK! “The destruction of peat bogs in Indonesia, partly to grow supposedly “green” bio-fuels, releases more carbon dioxide every year than all of India or Russia, and three times as much as Germany.” (source)

Another major reason is that peat-bogs are an ecosystem that is slowly being destroyed due to our harvesting. Many birds and wildlife live in these areas that after harvested turn into wastelands. This is causing a growing number of endangered species and turning these thriving locations into wastelands.

Peat moss is a non-renewable resource, and we know how we feel about those :)

Some alternatives: Leaf mould, when it’s old and falling apart, is a perfect alternatve, although do not use evergreen needles. Tree bark that has been shredded down. Look at your local urban gardener/farmer store for some peat-free alternatives, there are plenty of products out there.

Remember, peat is used to help aerate and retain moisture without need or worry of pesticides. It’s used to pot plants, as a mulch for garden beds, and to help seedlings grow. You can blend compost with many things to recreate these solutions

Now this is a trick that I picked up from a published gardener while I was on a backpacking trip with Sierra Club Outings. I mentioned I did this compost blog and we started really getting into our favorite practices. This is hers that I now have fully encapsulated into my own.

You may have heard that there is a known lack of calcium within our soils causing our plants to suffer from a sort of calcium deficiency. In fact some fertilizers with a more than healthy dosage of potassium or nitrogen can be the causers of this issue.

So what do you do? Why you create the Egg-Shell Calcium Enrichment Treatment! ESCET! Or ‘escet’ if you prefer.

Now instead of throwing away or doing the normal composting with your egg shells, let’s try out a new technique. Have a small jar or ceramic container to place your egg shells (preferably washed, but not mandatory) then use an unobtrusive beating tool to smash down the egg shells into tiny bits on the bottom. My beating tool is a bottle opener.

ESCET

This way they will be compacted allowing for more room, as well as 1 step closer to becoming paste. When you are about half full with your container or at a level where you feel it sufficient we will commence with our finishing grind of the egg shells. This is best done in a style similar to grinding corn meal from corn kernels. But being that I’ve never done such a thing I will probably just put it in a big ceramic bowl, take the back-end of some tool I have and go to town. Like this:

I will then dilute the paste into my watering vase and further the lives and lusciousness of my beautiful plants! Another option is to use it as a mulch right on top of your garden beds. And yet another is mix it in around the roots allowing for better water to flow through your soil.

My ESCET Container sits proudly on top of my oven

For urban composters such as myself this technique is perfect because I can still compost, creating something worthwhile and usable, while not having to worry about space requirements, smell, or putting something outside when I’m lazy, and it’s cold.

Another worthwhile benefit to note is that worms don’t enjoy feeding on half-broken egg shells in their bin. They much prefer things broken down before inhaling them. SO, use this technique for all of your egg shells and then add some to your worms with some water later in the month, they’ll thank you for it.

The most accessible and commonly used is the clay pot or terra-cotta pot. I’m sure we’ve all had experience with these but let’s go over some of the need to know.

• Cost: Cost effective
• Looks: Great natural beauty
• Weight: Heavy! Of course this is only an issue for the large pots, and doubly so if you are looking to change its location in the foreseeable future
• Moisture Containing: Clay is very porous and therefore sucks up water from the soil. More watering will be necessary!
• Cold Weather: Because of clay’s water absorbency, cold weather can potentially freeze that water inside of the pot and crack it. In cold climates you will need to bring these pots indoors.
• Age: With good care these pots can last the ages.

Classic plastic. The original cheap and light alternative to the clay pots. I will spare the details for the new and improved versions but there are a few things you should know. The original plastic containers don’t have much in the form of visual appeal. Some other major issues with them are that they are very thin and thus can’t insulate very well, and after a few summers of sun damage they chip and fall apart. The benefits are their light weight, cheapness, and water repellency (where you don’t water your plant as much).

The newer plastics are either made of polyurethane (PU) or polyethylene (PE). Both a much more durable damage resistant faux terra-cotta pot. Let’s have a closer look:

• Cost: Greatly depending on the design, but you can find deals. PE is most likely cheaper and more common.
• Looks: Just like terra-cotta when done well! Can look as natural or new-age as you can imagine.
• Weight: Light!
• Moisture Containing: Repels moisture so you have to water less! Make sure there are water drainage holes on the bottom, if not it’s safe to drill your own.
• Cold Weather: Durable in all weather conditions! Great for winter outdoor use.
• Age: With good care these pots can last the ages.
• PE/PU Differences: You’ll notice PU is thicker and is thus a better insulator of your plants. Its touch is likened to a hardened styrofoam

Who ever said you needed finish compost to do your gardening with? Surely not us here at Balconycompost.com! In fact we’d go as far as to say that concept is blasphemy. That’s right! Blasphemy. The most brilliant part about compost is that if it’s not done yet it will just keep on composting! Oh the wonders of nature.

So what are we getting at? If you’re still in your first few months of composting and perhaps don’t have any technically finished compost, aka humus, you can still do your gardening/re-potting/whatever. Of course it only makes sense (especially in potted plants) to use your most composted compost for it’s nutrients will be most readily available for your plants to dig their roots into.

Since we’re specializing in balconies and urban areas we are more concerned with how we utilize our compost in potted plants. To explain this in the best manner would be to utilize a drawing, we apologize for having to do what we are about to do:

Of course this isn’t drawn to scale by any stretch of the imagination. But to clarify: of all the dirt used at a maximum would I use 1/3rd compost especially if it isn’t fully composted. The less composted it is the less I would use of it, but if you dig through one of my pots I’m sure you’ll find a chunk of banana peel next to some crumbled egg shells and avocado skin.

The reason why I put a layer of compost on the top is because compost is lovingly moisture absorbant. It will help lock in the moisture for the rest of the soil so less watering is needed and the sunlight will help breakdown whatever still needs to decompose.

Any other non-fully decomposed materials in the middle of the pot will break down over time slowly releasing nutrients to your plant for a plethora of multi-beneficial-ness.

One of the main purposes of this website is to give it’s readers creative ideas on how to use their wonderful new compost soil to make beautiful balcony gardens. Create your own soil, create your own vegetables and herbs, create your own water? Utilizing rainwater catching practices is a great way to reuse nature’s water source. To have your own self-sustaining urban garden it would make sense to intelligently utilize this practice, wouldn’t it? Well here in Colorado things seem to get a little tricky. Let’s investigate shall we? From denverwater.org: Colorado’s water situation (in pdf) and Greywater and Rainwater Harvesting

Harvesting rainwater While this issue is very complex, the bottom line is that it is illegal under Colorado water rights. Although no specific statute has yet been written specifically directed at harvesting rainwater, the act of intercepting and diverting the water could be in violation Colorado water rights. As strange as it may seem, if a person were to capture and divert rainwater it could negatively impact the senior rights of another. What a person should do to “harvest” rainwater is to get a decree from the water courts for that purpose, establishing that the practice would not be injurious to another’s water rights. If another water right holder in the basis felt that the harvesting was impacting their water supply, they could take it to court. Any rainwater harvesting system would also have to follow local zoning, building and plumbing codes. On a large scale, some cities in California have had landscape architects design systems to capture runoff water from city streets, parking lots, rooftops and other landscapes, and divert it into storage facilities for reuse. This large-scale practice would obviously be a water right issue in Colorado.

Illegal to harvest rainwater? That doesn’t seem right does it? Can a state really take away things that fall from the sky? What are these senior rights that some people have? Also from that source:

In the establishment of water rights, the water judge decrees the location at which the water will be withdrawn, the amount to be withdrawn, the use to which it will be use, and assigns a priority date. Claims with earlier priority dates have senior rights; claims with more recent priority dates have junior rights.

The people that are (proven to be) first in time, are first in priority to that water source from then on. This will be the case until new legislation changes things. It isn’t difficult to think of this change happening now that more and more people are realizing the benefits of becoming self-sustaining and using everything available to you. But it seems what we’d have to do now to get our rain harvesting on is to file suit with the water courts! The Colorado Judicial Court on Water Courts Colorado Water FAQs (pointed to FAQs on rainwater) Best Link: Colorado Rainwater Harvest Fact Sheet (08/2007) So what I learned from the fact sheet is that:

Colorado law requires 100% of any precipitation captured out of priority for later beneficial use to be replaced to the stream system in like time place and amounts

And that apart of this concept is that there is legal statute that developed a credit system for the water that would have needed to be replaced. And this credit system seems to be owing credits only for the amount of water that would have made it back to a stream source and not what was spent before it got there through “evapotransportation” (ET). I’m not exactly sure how you measure this yet, or if you have to go through the Water Courts to set yourself up on this system. But in Northernwestern Douglas County a study showed that in a wet year only 15% of precipitation returned to a stream or groundwater and on average only 3% returns. So the ET is high, and so is the opportunity to use rainwater at a low cost in Colorado.