9/12/26 - THE ULTIMATE GARDEN HOUR! Mythbusting Composting!

0:00Rosy, rosy on house every Arizona home on his best friend. Come on around back Arizona. Saturday morning, 8 o'clock, the outdoor living hour of rosy on the house. Your Arizona Saturday morning tradition since 1988. If you're following along in your rosy on the house homeowner handbook or you get a weekly email newsletter, you know this second Saturday of the month. It's the ultimate garden hour and we're going to be talking about myth busting compost. I'm on there baby. I can compost a lot better than I can garden. My neighbors come over to my compost pile but none of them come and pick fruit for my garden. I don't know what it is. So we've got a great broadcast lined up as well.

1:03In the nine o'clock hour, we've got Raymond from Swift Garage Doors in. We're talking about your garage door. It's the biggest architectural feature on the face of your house. A 90% of the homes in Arizona. So you can play around with it and actually change the look, feel of your whole house. And then we're going to talk about the new innovations both insecurity and energy efficiency that the new doors have made and the new operators. Well, I love the new operator. So we'll be talking about that with Ray. It doesn't shake rattle the whole house awake when somebody operates it. And it leaves all the room above the door when the door is open. It leaves all that room up there. No tracks, no nothing. So I hang storage racks from the ceiling and I mean it gains you a ton of space. I love them. And then in the 10 o'clock hour, we've got a special interview with Roller Shield and our weekly to-do will be on balcony gardening. And a lot of you drive around any metropolitan area in Arizona.

2:08And it's very obvious the number of high-rise condo apartments is increasing. So the grandfather just overhanging the balcony railing is a good look. I think I like it. And limit what you can do is a home ownership, but it doesn't mean you can't have a little little card notes high. Across some of your own. You'd probably be trying to hide your goat up there. And they would jump off. Oh no. Oh no. You know, one of the other things we're going to be doing in the 10 o'clock hour is of course celebrating the 250th anniversary, the signing of Declaration of Independence. But we're going to tie that in to the celebration of the anniversary of 9-11 just a little bit. So I can't deny that I shed more than one or two tears of patriotism given all the events. Did you see the drone display of the twin towers? Where they had like one drone for each person that passed away.

3:10And the entire two structures were standing there in profile. I mean, that was pretty awesome. That was pretty awesome. So we'll be covering that as a part of the clock hour and celebrating some Rosie on the House heroes. There are some some unique heroes that measured up this particular week. So it'll be fun. So if you missed it, I believe it was Thursday Jim Cross posted, you know, officially in 136 years of record keeping this June, July, August was the hottest in America on record. So we've made it through that. We've passed it. Can you believe we're only 10 days away from autumn beginning? Come on, baby. Come on, baby. And I remember this summer of 23 and 24 both being hotter in Arizona than this summer was. You think? I mean, they were. They were hateful. But that's what it is. I don't remember one over the other. Every summer, it just, you know, had down.

4:12It just just just grin and bear. Let's get it done. That's so true. And there's anticipating a wetter winter that, oh, I've been here about this grand oel Nino now for nine months. Well, I'm all baby. Yeah, we're supposed to have a wetter monsoon. And I know some areas did. There's definitely areas of Tucson that got hammered consistently. But we only got one time we had measurable rain. Now it was a full inch. Yeah, which is very unusual for us to get that much rain overnight at one time. But, you know, when it didn't quite meet the expectations or the hype, it was built up. We get seven inches of rain in Arizona or on the Phoenix metro area. I'm expecting, you know, most of it coming in the monsoons. I'm expecting three, four, five inches in the monsoon, half your annual. But we only got one. But it was one engine.

5:12It was all in one setting. Well, I'll tell you what this monsoon taught me. I was playing my phones loaded up with like five or six different weather apps. But I found one now I like the best called rain drop. You can track up to eight different GPS locations and be given instant rain activity. I knew it was raining at four inches at the rate of four inches every three hours at your house when you were when you were getting that rain. Well, we didn't get four inches. No, I know, but that's the rate. It was coming down. And it also tells you it tells you the number of rain drops falling in a particular geographic area. It's more than the sand of this of the beaches of the ocean of the whole world. And it's incredible. Those kind of things is driving insane. But I track Williams house down in Sylvester. And I mean, Sylvester, Cochise County, La Paz County. I mean, they have been hammered.

6:13They've had a couple bridges on the San Pedro River washed out. Wow. I mean, I mean, I mean, I practically got washed away on a hike on the San Pedro River earlier this summer. So there are areas of Arizona that have gotten it. And we took a trip to the White Mountains. And they have gotten moisture. Romeo, it is as green and lush and beautiful as you've ever seen it. But there's no standing water. They've just they got just enough to green everything up. But without the snow pack, they've got nothing in the way of the. The Nelson reservoir is down seven or eight feet. And many of the cattle tanks are bone dry. But it's beautiful. I mean, as as pretty as it's ever been, looks great. So we're hoping and praying this great big giant, ginormous, Algronde, El Nino. They keep talking about for the last year shows up with 47 feet of snowpack in the Rocky Mountains this winter.

7:16That's where it's got to show up. And I don't know what they're looking like right now. But when we drove through there in June, man, there was no range in Colorado that just didn't look so thirsty. Yeah. I mean, it and I know I've mentioned it before. I just I did not realize how many rivers start in Colorado. The Arkansas River, the Platte River systems, you know, the North and South Platte. Yeah. Of course, the Colorado River, the San Juan River, the Amos River, you know, a lot of those are tributaries back to the Colorado River, the Rio Grande River. And I mean, you go through a mountain pass and you're in the next flood zone for that. And I mean, it's just so, so dry. And the pine trees just wilted. And it's 47 feet of snowpack would be good. But it's going to take a couple of years, I think, to that to bring it back. We do need it. You get to our favorite areas in eastern Arizona right on the New Mexico border.

8:18There's thousands of acres, thousands of acres of Juniper Dioff that are now happening in and about around the old Wallow far. So I mean, there are still areas you go back to, but the Wallow far now is completely taken over by Aspen. I mean, the fall colors up there right now, right? It's going to be pretty. It's going to be pretty. But boy, you don't have any of the, any of the pines, none of them. So, but you've got the green grass. It looks like a golf course up there really does. Up around Greer and Springerville, Eager. Nice. It's gorgeous. So we're going to be coming back and we're going to be talking compost. You know, a publication I like is Almanac.com. They track a lot of things as it relates to gardening. And, you know, we've got 14 days to the harvest moon. And they always say like, is the best time to do this, best time to do that, best time to plant. You just, you ever follow the moon phases on Almanac for planting? A little bit. We do find that when there's a full moon that that seeds tend to sprout faster.

9:23Okay. And so, and if you think about it, you know, just like there's a, you, you got the rise and fall of, of the tides, you know, there's a little bit of less atmospheric pressure. There's a pole, there's some form of pole out of the soil. And so it can draw those plants out a little bit sooner, maybe than, than other times. And so I like to look at the science, not just the, the heart or the, you know, the, I guess, the, the other side of it. But it's, it's, it's a great time. I love, you know, planting by moonlight anyway. I mean, that's a beautiful time. And just out in your garden of the few years I've been reading it and following along. Never once do they say best time to compost. That's just like in all the, in any time thing. Yeah, that's, it's kind of like planting a tree. When's the best time to plant a tree? It's 20 years ago. And today, best time to compost is three months ago. And today. And, and so we're going to bust some of the myths that are out there about composting today and, and really help you, you know, convert what is, you know, waste and turn it into something useful.

10:26And I think it's, for me composting one of the greatest things I love about composting is actually just the concept of it. It's a life principle. You know, when you got junk in your life, you, you just got to find a way to compost it and turn it into something more useful for yourself. And so if your neighbor's got, you know, it, one man's trash, trash is another man's treasure. You know, Romeo was saying earlier, it's like he, he knows that his compost pile is more pulled from by his neighbors than his fruit trees. And he's great at building a compost pile. And some of us have black thumbs by our, just a very gift of who we are. You know, we came with the gift of killing plants and killing things. And that is a gift that is the first basis for any garden. A beautiful garden starts with great soil. Great soil starts with great decay. A transition of living things into a soil base that can grow more living things. And so it, it is a transition. It's a cycle of life. It's something that in all of our matters of life, any negative can be turned into a positive as long as you give it the right direction.

11:28Doesn't turn into a stinky mess. And that's the first myth that a compost pile stinks. Romeo, does your compost pile stink? I don't know if he's still on, on air, but I don't think it stinks. How much it doesn't stink. You know, he's shaking his head. No, does not stink. Okay, very good. So what's the key to making it not stink? Because it is decaying. And when things decay, they tend to rot. And especially when the sun hits it and it forms up, it's eating a little. You can get a little spicy. Yeah, well, there's two types of decay that are happening. There's different types of bacteria. And you've got beneficial. We like to call them beneficial and non-beneficial bacteria. Now, when it turns to benefit, we're talking about us as humans. You know, so beneficial bacteria to humans are going to be oxygen based. They're going to be something that that thrives at an oxygen based environment. And what they typically do is they'll turn your compost pile into something that has a sweet soil smell. Now, a stinky pile is usually indicative of not enough oxygen.

12:30And too much water or too much green mass. And so one of the keys to creating a beautiful compost pile that smells sweet and doesn't become that stinky mess is to make sure that you're layering it correctly. So we call it, it's a green plus brown equals black gold. So a green plus brown equals black gold. So if all I'm putting is green waste, slimy waste, wet waste, you know, my kitchen scraps, without any layers of brown, which would be more of the dry stuff, like your leaves or cardboard or paper, shredded paper, we love to use shredded papers or brown, so kind of the carbon based stuff. If I'm not layering my compost, then I'm not getting the right mixture. And so then we get not as much air. We don't have all the carbon in there that then helps break things down. And then we start cultivating more of the non-beneficial bacteria, the oxygen-stard bacteria that stinks really bad. And instead when we get the really good stuff in there, we get the right layers,

13:30then we get a lot more oxygen in the system. We got a lot more constructive breakdown. And we've got a pile that can be beautifully smelling from a soil perspective. From a soil perspective. It's not going to be one of your, you know, aroma sense that you might find in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, they're not modeling that. Although I really love the smell of a good compost pile. I mean, I'll, I'll take a handful of someone's compost pile. I'll do it with their dirt all the time. I mean, I'm a, I'm a dirt smeller. I get, I don't know. So I'll grab a good handful of dirt and I'll smell it. So I can get a feel for what's going on inside of that dirt. I mean, dogs are really good at it, you know, and we as humans were learning how to be, you know, good at it, smelling things and be able to identify what's going on inside of something. But, yeah, your compost pile is a great one. You're, you're, you're sniffers your best test to start your process on busting those crazy myths that your pile has to stink. It does not have to stink. It can smell great. And as calls are coming in, I, you don't know me.

14:30I haven't even given out the number or let people know we are available. If you'd like to join the conversation, one, triple eight, seven, six, seven, four, three, four, eight. That's one, triple eight. Rosie, for you text questions can be sent to six, twenty, six, twenty. And if you want to send a media file, you can email that to info at rosyonthahouse.com. So it doesn't have to stink. Doesn't have to stink, which is good. Speaking of stinky stuff, did you see the state cancel a contract with Agtech out of Yuma? Oh, I haven't seen that. So they were dumping an estimated 140 metric tons per acre of biosolids. Oh, my goodness. Just out in Yuma in Yuma. So that's not a good composting process right there. Bio solids can be really good compost. And 97% was trucked over from California. Oh, man, California. Dumped there. Oh, my goodness.

15:31And then taking our water. So they wanted the big complaints after 23 years, they finally got it shut down. It was just the odor, the odor. So it wasn't properly dried out or whatever. Well, there's some good scientists out there that know how compost works. And they're probably hearing you talk and they're going to get there's they're thinking that sounds like some valuable stuff over there. Because when something does stink, that means it's got a lot of the bear, the rod nutrients, that could be converted into something very useful when mixed with the right stuff. So it's got the wrong mix, doesn't have the right mix for sure. And a lot of times it ends up a 30 to one ratio. So if I got the stinky stuff, if I want to convert my pile that stinks, you know, it's got that nasty smell, it's about a 30 to one ratio. So I need about 30 parts of the brown matter, the carbon matter, it to mix with that green stinky stuff to then get it back to smelling good again. And that's a ratio you can pretty much count on. So if I got one shovel full of stinky, I need now almost 30 shovel fulls of good, like just shredded paper that I can mix with it.

16:37And within a day, the stink will be gone and it'll actually start composting into something more useful. It would always interest me about compost is, you know, let's start say you start with a, you fill up a cube, three by three by three. You know, when it's done composting, you got a five gallon bucket. Yeah, something that's pretty close to that. And that's important to note as well. It's that it takes a lot of space to compost. That's another myth that we can dive into. It doesn't have to take a lot of space. You know, it a well-managed compost pile can be done in a small container. We've even got clients that are doing stuff under their sink. We did some tests years ago and we have undersync composting systems. And no, it's not just a bin that then you'd go and take out to your compost bin and throw it into there. It's the full composting system right underneath your sink. And just about the size of a five gallon bucket. And over the course of a one week, then you end up at the end of the week. You've got actually some pretty good compost stuff that you can use.

17:37And it's continually reusable. And anyway, you're about to ask something. Well, when you're starting a garden, how many inches of compost should you have? Well, that top one inch is really like if I'm about to start a garden, I want that top inch to be really good, nice composted material. And every time before I plant, I'm always adding another inch. It's like every season I'm adding another inch. And it's just like you noted, you start off with a lot of soil mass. You've got a nice raised bed. And then as you grow and you cultivate and you harvest over time, you end up harvesting out soil mass that's grown into plant material. And then your soil kind of depletes. And so you always have to keep adding. So it's important to have composting as a part of your gardening process no matter who you are or where you grow. And a good compost will create good growth in that growth you can use to compost. Exactly. It's a self-fulfilling system, positive loop. You had mentioned composting is kind of a mindset. You can be applied to a lot of things in life.

18:37That's exactly right. And I guess there's a good time to share with you and your listeners. I mean, the listeners here, Rosie on the House, have been great supporters of our Queen Creek Botanical Gardens for years. I mean, you guys are with us from the beginning. I mean, we first started talking about creating the Queen Creek Botanical Gardens. I believe we talked about it first right here on Rosie on the House. And as we started building that and growing that. And the community that has come together, it's been amazing on what we've been able to create out there. So many hundreds of volunteers that have helped make the Queen Creek Botanical Gardens a living paradise and edible space. And unfortunately right now, as circumstances have unfolded, our joint venture relationship has made some shifts. And I'm going to let our attorneys handle the details on that. But the Queen Creek Botanical Gardens will be without a home very shortly. And rather than focus on that, kind of what we're leaving behind, it's just we've got to compost this challenge.

19:37And it's the job of my attorneys and those parties to kind of sort that all out. My job is to really take care of our people and to protect our mission and figure out what comes next. And so with that in mind, you know, I want to make sure everybody understands something that's very important about the Queen Creek Botanical Gardens. It's never been about a piece of dirt. It's been about the people in the community. And it's been about what happens on that dirt. It's about the delight that a little kid has when he picks a carrot for the very first time. It's about the kids and the youth coming out and the joy-filled moments when they're discovering that they could have their beautiful garden. And they can eat it too. You know, to inspire families and people that there's beautiful ways to grow your own food and to create that independence for yourself. You know, and that mission really is what we're about. And whether we need to find a new space or not, and we definitely need to find a new space, that new space could be even better with the help of our community.

20:39And that's what it's about. And that's kind of the thing that composting teaches us. It's like, you know, the chapter, as we would like to write it, is ending a little different than we would like. But we're excited about the new chapter we get to write together with the community to build a more sustainable space and a long-term venue for the Queen Creek Botanical Gardens. And the inspiration that it continues to build and create for the community. So that's a little bit piece of the message we might talk about it weave it in more throughout the show today. But we're really calling for people's help to donate wherever they can. They can jump on QC Gardens dot org and be a part of the next level of the Queen Creek Botanical Gardens. And to support our founding organization called Cultivate Goodness. So it's a 501 C3. And we'd love your support. And your alignment with people that may own land that are looking for a great legacy project. And they've been waiting for something to help bring agriculture and humanity together again to bring the heart, you know, agriculture back to the heart of us.

21:43And our hearts back to the world of agriculture. I think that's part of what we do at the Queen Creek Botanical Gardens. What we do at agrescaping is bring the heart of our life back to the land. And to bring that into our own backyards of a can. And today is you still have the farmers market going on today. Absolutely. So the Pecan Lake farmers market down at the Queen Creek Botanical Gardens alive and well. And you're welcome to come down and join and support all these great vendors and people that are makers and creators. Making and creating from locally sourced produce. So that's another key component. And we're bringing that back to life. You know, bring locally sourced. Make it a real thing again. And I'm sure they could stop and buy you be able to get more information on how to support and help and. Find the new home. Yes, absolutely. I think together we can build a new Queen Creek Botanical Gardens space. And the time is now to help out if you want to step up. And if you have helped in the past, you've been a part of it. Then please jump in again.

22:43We're definitely not stopping our mission. We have a lot of schools that we support here in the Valley, farm schools, the jewel school out in Queen Creek. Another beautiful, wonderful space that we're continuing to support and create with. And, but a new home is what we're looking for. And some of you might have 25 bucks you can donate to help the cause. Some of you might have 25,000. And some of you might just know that landowner that's been looking, you know, has five or 10 or 20 acres. That's just looking for, again, a legacy type project that they can really help bring their community together. Like we've done there. And we'd love to find a space that's not competitive and. And focused around scarcity. We'd love to find a space that's more collaborative and really focuses more on the abundance we can help others create for themselves. All right, wonderful. We're looking forward to. The new journey. The new journey. The next chapter. It's, it's what we're composting now. Obviously we're going to make the transition as professional as we can. And we are definitely going to get back to work and continue to beautify and replenish the earth with all your wonderful people out there and volunteers.

23:47And inspire you guys to be able to continue to grow your gardens in a healthy way. And a lot of that is to do with your compost, your soil. Exactly. So the as we're talking myth busting. So the first one, well, there was five points and we've covered that it shouldn't stink. It shouldn't stink. And the second point is that it doesn't take a lot of space. And so like we talked talked about, we can get into one of my favorite composting styles is actually vermicomposting. And that's using worms to do your composting for you. And so vermicomposting. And this is one of the things we have. We have a little tower composting system. So it's a basically essentially it's a series of a couple of buckets. We've got three buckets. That's underneath the sink. And they're like five gallon buckets. And we decided to get food grade kind of square buckets. We just got donated from the local fries. You know, they have these big buckets in the baking section that they use that are food grade. They're white and they stack really nicely inside of each other. And we use those and we kind of stack them inside each other. But we put at the very bottom one is just solid.

24:48The second one in, we drill a bunch of holes in the bottom. Little, little eight inch holes will drill all along the bottom of that second bucket that slides in. And then along the sides, kind of air holes. And then what we do is that we'll put what we call a starter compost that has some worms in it. So if you go to Arizona worm farm, great place to get some worms and a little bit of soil. Put that in the bottom and then you can throw your kitchen scraps right on top of that. And then you just put some shredded paper on top of that. So every time again, it's greens and browns. But what we've now created is a living system for composting where we can have the worms. We'll eat the biomass from the bottom. They are hidden and protected with a little more moisture with, with the little bit of the shredded paper on top of that. Or some cardboard. You can do shredded cardboard or whatever. You just put a little man on top of that. And then all you do is you just add more on top of that layer. So the next day you add another layer, a little bit more of the brown, you know, greens and then browns, greens and browns. And what will happen is the worms will eat most of that up.

25:49And then as it gets a little bit higher, then you'll add another bucket layer. So just add another bucket layer with the holes drilled in it. And then you put the food in that one. And the worms will then migrate up to the next one. And then what you can do is that you'll have two products coming out of that. The very bottom bucket is going to have something we call worm wine. And that worm wine is... Don't drink it. Don't drink it. Don't drink it. It's a wonderful vintage for your garden. It's a wonderful compost tea. And that can be mixed at about one to two ounces per gallon. You can literally put it in a little sprayer bucket. So one ounce per gallon to two ounces per gallon. And you can put it in a pump sprayer. And you could use it as a full year feed throughout your garden. Beautiful way to use that. And that's that worm wine at the bottom. And you could spray it all over your garden. And it's just wonderful nutrient rich stuff. The second thing you've got as the worms have migrated to the next one up, what they're going to leave behind is all the worm castings and fully composted material. And this is full of nutrients and enzymes and beneficial bacteria.

26:50All the things that worms do with what they do. I mean, they're built to make amazing soil. And then you could use that and you can crumble that into your garden. You can spread it out in a lot of different things. You can mix it into some other soil mixes. I mean, it is amazing nutrient rich stuff that you can have. And then you continue to keep using the same little system that you can have just underneath your counter. That system, as I'm describing it, is great for a family of two pretty much. Once you get to about a family of three and four and you got some more kids, the volume you're going to outpace it, outpace your production of green wastes with a vermicompost. You might need to go a little bit bigger. But when you start, you can start pretty small. Five gallon bucket sizes about all you need. And you can put it right under your sink. And you had mentioned a couple times you're adding paper. And the newspaper circulation isn't what it used to. That was always a great source of paper for your composting. But you'd mention Arizona worm farm when we had Zach on the broadcast.

27:50He said, you know what? Everyone has more paper than you used to when you got your newspaper delivery. So all those cardboard boxes from deliveries. Yes. That's your source of paper and said it. Everything. And I'm like, what about the inks and the tapes? And he's like, doesn't matter. They'll compost right through. They'll compost right through. And a lot of it, especially if you're getting a bunch of stuff from Amazon, I mean, they have some of them that are the packaged like a cardboard paper kind of stuff. And that stuff can go through a paper shredder, a normal paper shredder. And you can shred that up. And that's got soy based inks. A lot of the black inks, they're soy based. And most inks are no longer toxic. If they've eliminated most of the toxic inks, if it's got that sheen on it, I would recommend maybe don't go with the, you know, that plastic kind of sheen color material. But if you have colored paper and stuff like that, the totally fine. But yeah, you can totally shred that. And that's your compost layer. And everybody's got, yeah, ton of that stuff. And have you ever opened a delivery package? And there's another box inside of it, but they wanted to have their brand logo on the package.

28:52So it's a box, a box. And then the packaging for whatever the product is itself, you know, there's three packages in one for one silly little thing. That's more than a single newspaper that we used to get at our doorstep, right? You're exactly right. So we've all got paper type products that can be shredded down. And I've seen a rise in shredded like compost or cardboard shredders, you know, that you can get a cardboard shredder home, not just a, a paper shredder, you know. And the ones that can take at least 10 pieces can also take a piece of cardboard. So just know that paper shredder that you've had for years, that you're not sure what to do with anymore. If it can hold up to 10 pieces, you can probably fit one of those pieces of cardboard in it. All right. So that was not stinky. It doesn't have to be stinky. You don't need a lot of space. Don't need a lot of space. Where are we going next? We don't need a lot of time. Now a lot of people are like, oh, it takes six to 10 months in order for my compost to turn into anything useful. Now that's not accurate. You can actually get, we've, we had a competition while back a lot of our students of agrescaping. We had them compete, see who could compost the fastest by using our methods.

29:54The, the winner was 16 days, 16 days, and he did it consistently. Wow. And he did it out in Tallest and Arizona. So it's like, oh, even you can do it. If you can do it in Tallest and you can do it anyway. And so he shredded it down and that one of the keys to that is making sure that your compost again has the layering that we're talking about. You got green, brown, green, brown. And when you can get the ratios even more finite, you can really understand the carbon value and the nitrogen value of each of your elements. You can actually create a recipe that breaks down really fast. Now the recipes you got, you can get from agrescaping.com, get on our newsletter, we'll talk more about the recipes. I won't get into the specifics here because there's a broad range. You can kind of build your recipe based on your ingredients you have available. We can teach you how to do that later. But the basis of it is it's not just get the recipe right, but it's also making sure your moisture is good. Keep it wet. So a wet pile, a wet compost pile will break down much faster. And that's an important key to the entire puzzle. But 16 days, this was a four foot by four foot by four foot cube of compost.

30:56It all broke down in just 16 days. And what does not mean soaked? No, like a sponge, a wet sponge, not puddling, not pooling, like a wet sponge. It has that moisture and that moisture content to it. And so we definitely recommend if you've got an outdoor system that you're composting, to add it to your watering system, your intermittent watering system, whatever you got for your landscape, add a bubbler or add a little sprayer to your compost pile and let it just automatically water it for you. Just the same time that your bushes are going, have that go. Don't put it on the tree one because it's going to water for like overnight or 12 hours like we teach you. But we wanted to just put a couple gallons on there on a regular basis to keep that moist. All right, we've got two more topics on myth-busting composting. We'll cover them right after this. Final segment, let's get right to it. We've got two more myths to bust here as we're talking composting. All right, we were just talking off here about one of the myths that's out there that your compost pile will attract rats and bugs and all that stuff.

31:57Now, a poorly managed compost pile will do exactly that. And one of the first rats that will show up, if you're going to have a rat, won't be the roof rat, it's going to be the, what's that one rat that kind of collects everything? Pack rat? Pack rat, that's the word right there. So that pack rat, if the pile is not moist consistently. So if it's not turned, if it's not moist, it's going to have these dry pockets and they love to just burrow it. They love to just burrow in that little pocket and they're going to create a little home for themselves. And they're going to start collecting all the trash from your neighbor's yards and stuff like that. And they start collecting it because they literally pack rats are exactly that. They're going to pack everything they can inside of this little space. And it's going to be inside your compost pile. And you're going to forget about it for three months and you haven't turned your pile. You haven't really watered it or anything like that. And you're like, oh, I better go back over there and do it. And you're going to put that fork in there. You're going to put your shovel and you're going to turn it. And all of a sudden, these rats go running everywhere. And you're going to go, ah, you're going to scream. Now, if you don't get rats, you get cockroaches and crickets. Now, they're doing the same thing the rats doing. They're finding little spaces between moisture and dry.

32:58They're finding that one little spot in between those spaces where it's been stagnant for a long period of time. It's got some decaying matter but it's dry enough and cool enough that they can kind of hang out. They're insulated. So that's one of the things. Make sure that your pile is set up in such a way that you can easily turn it. There's not a lot of gaps around it. So there's a couple of different ways to solve that problem. Obviously, number one, make sure you got a moist, evenly moist compost pile. Number two is how your compost pile is contained. So if you've got a lot of people, they'll raise them up on the put them in tumblers. And they're like, well, I'm going to keep the rats and stuff out of there. I'm going to put it in a tumbler. Now, we like to call that your compost dehydrator here in Arizona. And that's what usually they turn into. They'll just dehydrate all of your compostable material. And it won't break down. And so you're going to look in there and you're going to open the door and you're still going to see eggshells. You're still going to see everything you saw in there. It's just dry now. Now, that's because you can't keep it moist. And so if you're going to have one of those above ground tumblers, you need to make sure it's a sealed tumbler.

34:00You have regular watering on it. You use it every day and it becomes part of your routine and you tumble it. But you've got to have at least two tumblers. One tumbler for filling and the other tumbler for curing. So that you're always adding to, you add until it's full. And then you'll be able to let that cure for a bit until it's ready to then pull out. And then the other one you'll have to do a little bit later. And then you switch back and forth. The other style is obviously having something on the ground, but it's still contained and has some good watering system on it. And we were talking about the Arizona worm form and that's what's up on the screen right now. Well, they're covering on TV. Awesome. And there's some of the best composters. Yes, they are some of the best composters in Arizona. They're in bulk and they use worms to do it. And again, that's one of my favorite ways to do it. And with worms, they know, and we all know, is you got to add a little moisture for the worms to be happy. And they'll keep working that pile. And you got to keep it still though turning that pile and you got to turn it a little bit. Now, if you got the under your sink system, it turns by doing just adding another pot on top and taking the bottom ones out.

35:04And so those migrate up to the next one up. And that's why the holes are there, not just for air. And those can migrate up to the next fresh stuff that you're putting inside that bin. All right, there you go. We got one more left. One more myth that is really that compost replaces fertilizer in your garden. So you can compost and you can get a lot of nutrients. You can build a lot of good soil with it. But it's not going to supply all the food that your plants need on a regular basis, depending on what your ingredients are. I mean, if you're just doing your regular composting, you're going to have some balanced nutrients that are going to be void from your system. And so you still want to be adding and bringing in some good plant food on a regular basis. And we do that on average about four times a year. So we're going to compost between each cycle, but we're still going to do our regular feedings. And if you're following our calendars and stuff online, then you know that Labor Day is your last indicator of the year. It's kind of like your last trigger point for feeding all your fruit trees. And it's a very important time to feed your fruit trees. Now adding compost around your fruit trees is one thing, but adding a good balanced fertilizer right now on top of that compost.

36:08So good nutrient rich, all their NPKs and all that ever, you know, gets your full recipe, good balanced nutrient rich fertilizer is really important to be putting on your plants right now, especially your citrus trees. That'll help them finish out and get you some really good fruit this coming season. And with the long hot summer we've had. Yes, there's a lot of trees. There's a lot of trees. There's going to make a big difference in your finished product when it's ready to harvest. Yes. For your citrus trees, this is the finishing time. For your pomegranate trees, this is finishing time. And so that's really important to make sure that you get some good feed on those trees. Now for your deciduous trees, all the ones that are losing their leaves for your stone fruits and your other, you know, apple trees and stuff like that. Those are also really important to feed right now because what it's going to do, it's going to help boost the root growth before it goes into dormancy. That root growth is next year's fruit. So if you can feed it now, you're actually helping it supporting all the nutrients that your tree needs in order to really hunker down for the quote cold. And be ready for the next season and produce a lot more flour and an up more fruit for you in in the spring.

37:13And so now's a great time to feed composting does not supply all the nutrients that your garden needs. You're still going to need to bring some supplemental stuff in. And some of you might know your composting well enough is some of our team does that you can create a compost recipe that does fulfill all its needs, but you're going to need a little bit more information. You're going to need to add a couple more things to your ingredients in your compost to make it be a full, full service thing. Now could I stir my granular fertilizer in my compost before I applied on the garden? Yeah, I like to do it. So it doesn't mess with the breakdown chemistry of my compost pile. I'll put that on right out. I'll put the compost down and then like I'll mix it right as I'm putting it on my trees. And that's the best time to do it. All right. There it is. The five miss of composting us did. Real quick. How does somebody help with a queen creek botanical gardens find a new home? QC gardens dot org. Just click on that nice link on there. It says donate or support our cause and be able to help us out. We'd love to hear from you and help us grow the next queen creek botanical garden.

38:13And farmers markets open to 11 today. 11 today. 11 today.