The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Weedy humanure

Tomato seedlings

About a week after applying humanure around the base of our kiwi plants, I figured out a minor flaw --- the compost is chock full of tomato seeds.  When I cook tomatoes into soups and sauces, I leave the skins and seeds in, and apparently the human digestive tract doesn't bother the seeds at all.  Since tomatoes are a large proportion of our winter diet, the result is a forest of seedlings everywhere I laid down humanure in the garden.

I'll let all of the tomato seeds sprout, then if they seem to be growing too fast, I'll let Mark whack them down with the weedeater.  In future, it might be smart to apply humanure just a few weeks before the first frost --- long enough to get the seeds to sprout before winter naturally kills them off.



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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I've had the same problem with worm compost. Guess you still have to be careful what goes in, even if it's supposed to be "digested."
Comment by Faith T Thu Aug 14 15:20:49 2014

That is to funny. Back in my childhood daddy would bring home big ripe tomatoes. They called them miners tomatoes. A lot of people would not eat them, can you imagine that. There was nothing wrong with them, more for us. Mom roseanenn

Comment by roseanell Thu Aug 14 18:37:42 2014

Hi Anna and Mark,

No need to save or buy tomato seeds!!

Seeds come with matched fertilizer ready to plant !!

Grow like the dickens :).

A whole new chapter in seed saving :).

John

Comment by John Fri Aug 15 09:00:43 2014

Haven't had much experience with humanure yet, but like Faith T, I've had tomatoes sprout from my worm compost, too. Along with cucumbers, apples, pears, avocados...

It will be interesting to see what else comes up!

Comment by Jake Sat Aug 16 02:47:10 2014





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