Well here’s a little piece of fertilizer wisdom from Yolanda Vanveen. In a video on the Flower Garden Basics, she argues that many alternatives to fertilizer on the market are simply fashionable and not very effective. In a video just two minutes long, Yolanda of Expert Village tosses out fishmeal, bone meal, body fluids and all those delights we spread over the garden, calling them mere passing fads. After being caught out by coco peat some years ago (it was no good for her plants so she used it as mulch) Yolanda believes in compost. Period.

This video is not about figuring out when the compost pile has gone (when it’s gone it’s gone) but when your compost heap is ready to be used to fertilize the garden. In 1 min, 40 secs learn how to tell when the compost is good enough to spread. The bad news is that good compost takes 6 weeks to 6 months to “mature”, depending on the weather, the materials added and many other factors.

“It’s ready when there is no recognizable material left in the compost,” says the anonymous gardening enthusiast. “It should look like dirt but it’s not dirt; it’s 100% organic compost made from decomposed plant material. Not a lot of minerals in there but it’s great for your garden. Spread 5 gallons of the compost on each 4×8 foot bed once or twice a year and it will be really good for your soil.” Okay.

A 208 year old Invisible Gardener from Malibu, California (that’s how it’s billed, folks) takes us into an organic vegetable garden to look at a raised vegetable beds. It’s quite a skill making one. You need timber sides, two layers of 1/4 inch chicken wire placed on the bottom for the gophers and drip irrigation throughout. What’s more, ideally you need two of these giant beds so you can rotate crops, rest the soil, etc. The Invisible Gardener explains how the soil gets to rest and then earthworms (red ones from Africa) are introduced.

Then comes a layer of compost (not too rich) and finally mulch. Did you know that spreading coffee grounds around repels snails? That’s just one of the intriguing things you’ll learn in this quirky ten minute video.

And this is the first in a series so you’ll be able to follow the series as the season progresses, watching the raised beds develop and produce and the Invisible Gardener grow older. Nice concept.

This is a couple of minutes well-spent with an anonymous person from Expert Village who says: “Whether you garden or you don’t garden, you should make compost. It is a great thing to do and removes your compost from the waste stream.” Okay. She recommends a certain type of composter. It’s like a huge plastic bag and is in fact made of recycled plastic with holes punched in the sides. Get one cheap from your local dump or town office.

Then start making compost. Don’t worry about smells: if you build a compost pile the right way there won’t be a problem. It will have a very nice fragrance actually, kind of nutty. The way to do it is to have a wide variety of stuff (peelings, vegetable leaves, eggshells etc.) in layers and the pile must not be too wet, so mix it with dried leaves, weeds or whatever. I like this bit: you should churn in a shovelful of compost to get the whole thing going. It reminds me of making yogurt!