By: MIKE SELVON

Each year in the spring people venture outdoors to begin planting their gardens and flower beds. The allure of warm, gentle days seems to call out the winter hermits in an act of reseeding the world with beauty and divine scents.

One thing that does not make sense is the amount of money spent on commercial fertilizers and compost. Composting yourself is free and makes some of the best fertilizer in the world. Sure, it does take some time but if you start work on it early you can have rich, dark soil by the time planting season comes around.

Composting is environmentally friendly and once you know what can be composted and what cannot, you will be on your way to being eco-friendly. In this article the basics of composting will be covered such as what it actually is technically and how you can begin your own compost heap in your own backyard.

What is composting?

Composting is the process of taking organic material and breaking it down through a variety of chemical and animal processes to achieve fertilizer and plant building material that is both cheap and highly effective. It is very environmentally friendly and is a great way to avoid paying those high costs of bags of fertilizer.

You can utilize those leftover food wastes, animal wastes, grass clippings, branches and other organic materials to create a loamy material that will help your plants grow to their maximum potential like no other commercial grade fertilizer possibly can. The best part is that it is free!

What can I use to help the material break down?

If you want your compost heap and material to break down faster you are going to need to keep it aerated, moist and broken into smaller pieces. You can also help break down the material by adding worms and other small insects into the pile that will help eat the organic material.

Their waste products are filled with great nutrients for the soil and before long you will have a compost heap that is ready to hit the garden to begin the cycle all over again. It is a circle of life that is a great example of Mother Nature at her finest and shows what recycling can do for the environment.

How does compost improve the soil?

Composting adds valuable nutrients back into the soil such as Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen. There are other essential elements that are added that will all work together to add the depleted minerals from the growth cycle back into the soil after a plant has used them. Consider it a natural cycle that is essential for plants, grasses, trees and flowers to grow and thrive.

How do I prepare the materials for composting?

Start preparing your compost pile by breaking up the materials into manageable pieces. The object is to help the materials break down or decompose faster. Larger pieces will hinder the process. A shredder works wonders for yard trimmings.

If you are using manure you will want to take a pitch fork and break up the clumps before adding them into the pile. Try to keep the pieces to sizes around the shape of a leaf if it is at all possible.

If you can keep them even smaller to help speed up the process that much faster and before long you will have a mound of fertilizer to use however you see fit.

Edna asked:


I have dug up my daffodils as I want to plant something else in the bed. Is it ok to put the stems bulbs in my composting bin? Or will I end up with daffodils sprouting up everywhere when I eventually use the compost? As you can tell I am a composting novice!

bratnumber5 asked:


AAAAHHHH spring is comming and I can’t wait,,,, i have decided to start a compost pile for the summer… how and where do I compost during the winter months? I still have 3 feet of snow on the ground. should i wait to start it,,, or should store the food I have for it, somewhere?

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.

By: Chris Dailey

Creating a mulch pile for your garden is one of the more important things you can do when preparing for your organic planting. Mulch, which will inevitably become humus or compost will act as a natural barrier against the elements for your garden, provide water retention in the soil, will protect you against invasions of weeds, and at the very least provide an outward beauty that only this dark brown material can provide. However, all of this is great unless you have no idea how to start your very own mulch pile. This takes a little bit of planning but in the end you will have a fine source of composting material that you can use on your garden when the time comes to plant. Here are a few tips on how you can create a very large and easy to maintain mulch pile for your organic garden.

The amount of waste that everyone accrues on a daily basis is getting worse each and every year. People that eat out a lot probably do not have the same problems that most families face. Feeding four or more people can create quite a bit of waste and much of this might be organically based. Organic waste is the first step in determining whether or not you can have a successful mulch pile. Of course, you need to consider how much area you have to store the mulch, the size of the garden area that you will have to grow your plants in, and of course how much time you will have to use the mulch and tend to your garden. All of these factors weigh in as you determine whether a large or a small old pile is best for you.

The first thing you should do is order off an area of your property where you can begin to place your organic waste. Mulching is actually a very easy thing to do and it can even be helpful especially if you have a large area of upkeep on your property. You can begin by collecting the every day yard waste that most people have. Do you have a lawn that you know on a regular basis? Are you adjacent to a forest or do you have trees on your property that have leaves? If so, you have an ample and free natural supply of organic waste that you can begin to add to your compost pile right away.

Other things that you can use which are related to and or originate from plants are things like sawdust, vegetable and fruit waste from your daily eating, as well as the newspaper that you read every week. By taking this material and shredding it into smaller pieces, you can begin to create a mulch pile in no time at all.

Most people that create a compost pile will pile everything in a large mound and make sure that it has access to sunlight. They will cover this pile with a tarp that is dark in order to absorb as much heat as possible. Heat is a very necessary component in order to get the microorganisms and process is going for the mulching process to begin. Although it is possible to not use a pile and to simply throw this material on top of your existing garden, it would be unsightly and would not be as beneficial to the garden because the composting process will create nutrients that the soil needs to properly feed the plants. If the composting process will take a few weeks or months to occur while sitting on top of the garden, this is time wasted and the nutrients cannot go into the soil because the composting process has not occurred.

One other possibility is to partially compost your material opposed to waiting for the entire process to occur. This will work for people that have not had the time to set up their mulch pile but the process of setting this up is very easy as well. Simply take all of the materials aforementioned, mix the pile regularly in order to aerate the pile so that the microorganisms have ample supply of air. Then, this will inspire the process to occur much more quickly. Also, the larger the pile, the faster the composting process will occur because heat and pressure will be an increased factor.

Before adding the compost to your garden area, you probably do not want to wait for the sticks to decompose. Hard substances such as branches and twigs that are still in the composting material will be your sign as to when to remove the compost and place it on your garden. If you wait too long, waiting for the larger sticks to decompose as well, you may miss all of the benefits of the composting process and also wait too long in order to enrich the soil and protect your crops during the growing season.

If you are seeing this as a lot of work that you do not want to do, but you have access to all of the material mentioned, you can actually apply all of the uncomposted mulch material to the top of the garden and allow it to decompose there. However, this is not as effective as using a mulch pile that is properly prepared months in advance and therefore it is recommended for the benefit of your crops that you apply only composted mulch material.

Also remember to add very thick layers of the material from the mulch pile onto your soil. A little bit will have major effects on preventing weeds from appearing or maintaining even temperatures throughout the soil itself. Think of it as an installation of sorts that can only protect your planting efforts if you use enough to do so. You should also turn your mulch from time to time in order to aerate it even after it has been applied to the surface of the garden. This is to make sure that the composting process continues and will ensure an even distribution of nutrients into the soil as water is applied from about and percolates down under.

One caveat is to not use too many wood products in your mulch as the decomposition time is much longer than on things such as tomatoes or pairs that will decompose in a matter of days. Also consider adding more mulch about halfway through the season in order to make sure that nutrients and protection is consistent throughout the growing time. This is a little bit of extra effort and will require probably another mulch pile, but it ensures that your crops will be as healthy as possible and will not be subject to elemental disasters that may occur. These include the wind blowing away too much mulch, heavy rain storms that wash some of it away. These are all factors that need to be considered and maintained while growing your organic garden plants.

So it is time to get mulching! Gather all of your organic waste and create a schedule for yourself in order to begin your mulch pile. Continually add lawn clippings and old newspapers along with your organic waste from your kitchen and over a period of a couple of months you will have a fine mulch pile that you can begin to use on your organic garden in no time at all.