By: Owen Chubb

So let us start with Composting and all you need to know.

 

Why should I compost?

 



Organic matter improves soil structure and gives life. It opens up heavy soils, aids drainage and provides good growing conditions. Light or sandy soils benefit from its moisture retentive properties.

It provides nutrients for plants. The nutrients in your compost depend on what has been put in your bin, but will always contain a wide range of trace elements and plant foods.

It is a completely natural product. In nature, all living things eventually decay; composting simply speeds up the process.

It is free and environmentally friendly. Up to 30% of household waste is organic and can be converted into compost for use in the garden. Composting is good for plants, good for the environment and good for us.



 

Where should I locate my Composter?

 



 Preferably in a warm or sheltered position, but this is not essential.

 place on bare soil. This will aid drainage and allow worms and bacteria to enter and aid   breakdown of the raw material.



 

What can I put in it?

 



Garden Waste: All types of garden waste including annual weeds, grass cuttings, fallen fruit and old vegetable plants, bedding plants, chopped prunings, hedge clippings, horse and poultry manure and urine, straw, feathers, dried fallen leaves, sawdust and wood shavings, shredded wood and twigs, seaweed, spent compost.

Household Waste: Teabags/leaves, egg shells, coffee grounds, fruit and vegetable waste, human and animal hair, feathers, shredded and soaked cardboard, paper, wood ash.

Avoid: Cooked food and meat (attracts rodents).



 

How to Make the Best Compost?

 

The composting process requires raw material, water and air. Good compost comprises a balance of as many ingredients as possible. Too much grass will create a slimy mess; too much woody material will create a dry heap, which decomposes very slowly. Chopping and cutting ingredients into small pieces before adding to the composter will facilitate faster decomposition.

 

The most important balance to achieve is the proportion of woody, high carbon material (e.g. dried leaves, straw, paper, twigs, hedge clippings) to sappy, high nitrogen material (e.g. plants, weeds, vegetables & fruit, grass, manure). The woody material keeps the compost open and aerated, preventing the soggy mass that results from composting too much nitrogen-rich material (such as grass cuttings). However, it provides little or no nutrients for the bacteria in the heap, which creates the heat required for good composition. Soft material contains the nitrogen needed by bacteria, plus water. During colder months a piece of polystyrene or old carpet placed in the bin on top of the compost will prevent heat loss.

 

An essential ingredient for composting is air. The best way to introduce air into the composter is to fork up the contents and turn it over. It is a good idea to do this on a regular (monthly) basis.

 

When will the compost be ready to use?

 

Shredded material that has been kept moist and turned several times can be ready for use in the garden in just a few months but six months is more typical. The length of time really depends on the mixture of ingredients, air temperature, size of coarser material and how quickly the composter unit was filled. Compost at the bottom will always be ready first, so always remove from the bottom first.

 

If a finer texture is preferred, sieve out the coarse material; this can be used as mulch around the garden or in the base of planters/garden pots to provide drainage and nutrients, or simply replace in the bin for further breakdown. Do not use garden compost for delicate seedlings because it is not sterile.

 

Happy Gardening.

MG asked:


I’m wondering if there’s any advantage to composting if you have a garbage disposal?
Yes, I do mean what is environmentally better. For example, if I throw my orange peels in the garbage or garbage disposal, they’ll still decompose. I think I’m missing the point. Thanks for any help.

By: Robert

I have now taken you through the in’s and out’s of building your first compost. Or have I. There is a lot you can know when it comes to compost. My goal is not to make you an authority on the subject, but to give you the knowledge to grow and use your compost in the most effective way possible. Let us start with temperature. Some people feel the need to keep their compost in a hot (sunshine) location. They say the heat speeds up the digestion by the microbes in the compost pile. This is not necessarily true. Although good composts will be slightly warm to the touch it is not from the sunshine it will receive but from the collective body heat from the billions of microbes digesting your compost. Not to say you cannot put it in the sun but you will have to make sure you have a sufficient size of a pile to keep all those microbes busy. If you go this route a pile in the size range of one cubic meter will be needed (roughly 3feet X 3feet X3feet). You don’t want these guys to run out of material to eat and die off so this is why I suggest keeping the pile in a cool place. Most people don’t generate that much yard and kitchen waste to keep a pile this big going strong so just use a nice small one that is well taken care of and you will be just fine. How to tell if your compost is done is not an exact science. It really does not matter for a garden if you can still decipher what some of the small bits are. Any remaining material that is not decomposed will be finished off when you add your compost to the garden, but when it comes to starting seeds you want to make sure your compost is “well done”. There are huge benefits to adding compost to your garden. The best part is no matter what soil type you have it can be helped by adding compost. For sandier soils it aids in water retention by adding organic material to the mix. Or for Clay soils it makes the soil more porous so the water can drain a little quicker so you don’t wind up with a layer of concrete on top of your garden. One other point I want to bring up is that all of your composting does not have to be done in a bin. When you get a lot of material all at once (cutting a large lawn or autumn leaves), you can till them into your garden to allow it to break down there. Or you can bury your kitchen waste in a trench in the garden at least 8″ deep so your kitchen waste can decompose right where the plants will be planted next season. If you were to go with either of these routes make sure to do this in the late fall or at least two months before you plant to make sure the material is broken down enough. I would have to say the best part of composting is the various ways to which you can use it. There are the obvious ways of taking your compost and mixing it in with your soil in your garden to improve your plant growth in the next season, or when used as a topper that will be slowly incorporated into the soil. Then there are a couple of other ways to use it that are my favourites. You can actually use your compost as mulch. Unlike using it as a topper as I mentioned above mulch is meant to cover the entire area of soil around the plants instead of just a dressing around the plant. This will add nutrients to all the soil in the area instead of just at the plant. My favourite way to use my mulch is to make a tea out of it. All you have to do is make a 50/50 mix of compost and water and let it sit for a week. After that drain the water in to another container and use it for a boost of nutrients to sick plants. The leftover compost mush at the bottom can be thrown into the garden as mulch. Tea can also be used on young seedlings but I recommend you dilute it well first to avoid damaging the seeds. The last thing for me to talk about is the types of compost systems out there. You can by one or build one it all depends on how much compost you want to make and how much you want to spend. Or you could go without any bins and just make your compost on the ground. I just caution you if you choose to build your own bin to make sure you do not use treated lumber. The chemicals can leach into your compost and later contaminate your garden. In whatever system you use there will be advantages and disadvantages. Although these differences between many of these bins are usually just ease of use and aesthetic the compost you will get from most of them will be fairly comparable.

By: Chris Dailey

Compost is basically organic matter that has broken down any sufficient manner that the mineral and nutrients with in the compost can be readily absorbed by the plants that you are attempting to grow in your organic garden. Organic gardeners from all over the world have used similar practices in order to stimulate the growth of their plants by naturally enriching the soil. Here are a few tips on how to create and use the best organic gardening compost for your garden.

Composting is a very complicated process in and of itself, but for everyone that tries to do it the first time, it will be a very easy process. What is difficult is the process that we cannot see underneath the tarp or in the bin. Tiny bacteria and an assortment of mites and, if we are using worms, red worms will work together to create compost for you.

Doing this can be summarized in a few words. Taking your remaining organic waste and placing it in a container or under a tarp will start the process. You have a few other items to mix in, such a grass clipping from your weekly mowing or it can be newspaper and a touch of saw dust from a project that you may be doing on the weekend like fixing your home. If you work at a place such as a saw mill that creates an abundance of material each and every day, you can use that as part of you bedding in a sparing way. Or if you are a restaurant owner, or know someone in the business, even a coffee shop, you will have enough free organic material to make this work in no time.

Overall, you just add a pile of waste together and the magic begins. There is much more to the process, but to make it simple at first is a good way to draw you into or sell you on the idea that it will not take much of your time and that it will help you and the environment. Each person, by doing their share, and not using materials that can cause environmental harm, are helping fix our world. Now, here is a bit more on the composting process.

As a rule of thumb, what ever soil you may be trying to grow your organic garden in, it can never get enough compost because soil can only be improved by the addition of organic matter. Compost is basically organic matter that has broken down any sufficient manner that the mineral and nutrients with in the compost can be readily absorbed by the plants that you are attempting to grow in your organic garden. Here are a few tips on how to create and use the best organic gardening compost for your garden.

Organic gardening compost can be purchased locally or you can create your own kind of compost by using the left over food that you have on a daily basis. By purchasing a composter bin or simply creating an area where your scraps can be thrown, this material will decompose over time and can be used as fertilizer for your organic garden.

Typically, an ideal blend for any kind of organic compost would be equal amounts of soft and green material such as maneuver and leaves that are readily available at most households. Additionally, hard and brown material such as dead leaves or chopped up twigs can be used to help balance your organic gardening compost mixture. A simple things such as taking the clippings from your lawn and the pruning sprung your tree can add to your compost pile quite quickly.

The ideal size of a compost pile could be anywhere from three to 4 feet high unless of course you are using and organic compost bin. The key is to make sure there is significant air for aeration of the compost. Using a large stick or a pitchfork to continually aerate were pile will help the organic composting process along quite nicely. Other people have used PVC pipes to help aerate larger compost piles with great success.

A nice bonus to creating your own compost pile is that the high temperatures that will occur will help sterilize many of the diseases brought by spores or other pests that may be lurking in the compost itself.

To accelerate the decomposition process of your compost pile, you can add some of it to the garden soil. Basically, the more scraps from your home, the more trimmings from your surroundings that you add, and the more aeration that the pile receives, all of this will help accelerate the decomposition process. Other possible additions could be peat moss, seedless weeds, and even fruit and vegetable peels from your household. All of this will help create a magnificent organic gardening compost pile in no time at all.

The Grand Inquisitor asked:


Are you familiar with the Lasagna Garden technique? Layering raised beds with carbon-rich (dried leaves/straw) and nitrogen-rich (grass clippings, kitchen waste) materials then composting it in the beds. Within 6 weeks you are supposed to be able to plant directly into the resulting compost. I put up about 500 sq feet of these beds last week.

My question (finally): Have you tried it and what is your opinion of its feasibility?