By: MIKE SELVON

Compost is a collection of different organic matter, such as yard clippings, small twigs, leaves and organic kitchen waste that have gone through the process of decomposition. Numerous people do composting so that they can make good use of the available organic material that is around their property and even in their home. This gives composters a chance to make use of the nutrient rich muck that is produced and which is very beneficial to garden soil.

In fact, to avid gardeners, compost is highly regarded and considered the “black gold” of garden fertilizers. Material that has gone through the composting process ends up producing a wonderfully rich material that is filled with minerals and nutrients that are well suited to encouraging lush and healthy growth of new plants.

The end result of composting is a very rich organic substance that is able to mix with and improve virtually all types of soil. Clay soil is easier to work with when compost is added to it and a wider variety of plants can be supported. When dealing with sandy soil, the addition of compost helps the soil retain moisture much better.

The composting process involves four different components that are required to create a mixture that will deliver the sought-after benefits. These four key components are organic matter, correct moisture, sufficient oxygen and bacteria.

The organic materials suitable for composters include various plant materials, food scraps, and some varieties of animal manure. Good compost should include a mix of brown organic material and green organic material. The brown organic matter includes such as dead leaves, twigs, and manure. The green material will be comprised of things such as grass clippings, hedge trimmings, coffee grounds, fruit rinds and vegetable waste.

The brown materials provide carbon for the mixture, while the green materials bring in supplies of needed nitrogen. As much as possible, it is best to try to maintain a one to one ratio of brown material to green material to produce the best final compost. If you have a compost pile that contains more brown material than green, then you can add in a handful of 10-10-10 fertilizer. This will add nitrogen and will speed up the decomposition process.

Sometimes it is helpful to shred, chop or mow the available materials into smaller pieces. This will serve to speed up the composting process because the smaller the pieces of material are the greater the surface area.

The proper moisture levels are important to a successful composting process. It is said that the compost pile should have about the same amount of moisture as a sponge that has been wrung out by hand. If the compost pile is too dry, then the decomposition slows down. You can simply add some water to the pile during dry weather periods or any time when a lot of brown material has been added to help keep the process moving along.

Should the compost become too wet, simply dig in and turn the pile to mix the materials and spread the moisture. You can also add some brown organic materials that are very dry to help balance things out.

Sufficient oxygen is also a key element that is necessary for decomposition. Oxygen supports the breakdown of the organic materials by the bacteria. Supplying oxygen to the compost pile is as simple as turning the compost so the materials at the outer edges of the pile are moved to the center. This also helps to control odors that can develop. The pile should be turned about every two weeks for best results.

It is the bacteria, and other types of microorganisms, that do the real work involved in the composting process. With the other needed elements in place, the bacteria can go to work breaking down the organic components into the compost that will benefit the organic garden.

When the composting cycle has turned the organic waste matter into a muck that is rich in nutrients, you will be able to easily add it to your garden soil. While preparing your soil for a spring planting, simply cover the ground with about 3-4 inches of the compost and then till the soil to mix it in well. In no time you will start to see a healthy and vibrant garden.

By: Vicki Duong

As an avid gardener who takes advantage of the many benefits that composting has to offer, I can tell you that right from the start I had no idea what I was doing and what I had gotten myself into! I had a rough start to begin with and I’ll admit, it’s not like I was born with composting knowledge. I mean, I read up on a few articles and blogs that you’re not supposed to use any meat, bones, dairy products and animal fats in any of your compost bins or piles. Yeah, that’s common sense, but I wasn’t aware that there were other tender, loving, caring efforts that you still needed to implement into your compost heap.

For instance, you have to make sure that your compost heap is consistently aerated. Okay, so I didn’t quite grasp that at the first time I tried all this. Learn from my mistake here, folks, it’s actually a lot easier than it sounds. There are plenty of compost tumblers out there on the market that make aerating your compost really quite easy and fun. A lot of models actually include a rotating bin or a handle that allows you to wind up your bin, which circulates heat and oxygen within the compost matter. Without proper air circulation, the organic matter in your compost won’t be able to break down quickly and properly, and chances are will make things smell a bit rotten. Believe me, you don’t want to know what that smells like! Websites like Composters.com will definitely offer you a selection of compost tumblers and compost bins.

Bad odor is usually something that not everyone is too fond of and it’s even worse if it’s coming from your compost bin. But with some proper TLC, you can either avoid the problem or fix it altogether. One way to do this is to figure out what there’s too much or too little of. If it smells kind of like cat urine or ammonia-like, you may have way too much yard wastes in your compost. If it smells like wet dog, or maybe wet organic matter, then you need to start adding some dried leaves and maybe some hay and turn your compost; this will absorb all that excess moisture while adding heat to your pile.

With proper maintenance and tender, loving care, you’ll eventually be able to achieve the ideal compost pile for all your gardening needs. It’s a bit of a challenge in the beginning, but soon enough you’ll be able to figure out for yourself just what you need and how much of it is necessary for your compost pile.

By: Douglas Hill

The concept of composting has been around for quite a long time in the forests. Leaves fall to the forest floor, decompose, and their nutrients will be absorbed back into the trees through the roots. Farmers and Gardeners have been taking advantage of the nutrient rich by product from this decomposition for thousands of years and you can too.

Composting is a great way to add nutrients to your garden or potting soil. Not only is it good for your garden and plants, it also is a good way for you to help reduce your overall garbage going to the dump. There are no hard and fast rules in what you should do your composting in. In fact you could do it in a pile in the yard, although it will probably not be well accepted by the rest of your family. While you can go out and buy a commercially sold unit that will do well for all your composting needs, I prefer to save a few bucks and build one myself.

The real hero’s in the world of composting are the fungi, bacteria, worms and other insects that will take your yard and kitchen waste and turn it into the black gold you want for your pots and garden. Now it is in your best interest to keep these guys in good conditions so they can digest the food you give them. Their basic requirements are just like you and I, they are food, water, and air. If you want to help these insects and microbes along, keep your compost in a nice cool corner of your yard.

To better understand these basic needs for your compost let’s start with the food. Essentially there are two types of food. There are the brown foods that include straw, autumn leaves, wood chips/sawdust, and dead plant material. These materials mainly consist of long chains of sugar molecules that the microbes digest and use as a source of energy. There are also the greens such as green grass and weeds, kitchen fruit and vegetables, coffee grounds, and tea bags. These materials have a lot more nitrogen in them than the browns. This nitrogen in your compost pile acts as a source of protein to all those microbes for them to feed off of as well.

The next part is the air. It is very important to get good airflow into your pile. The microbes you want to decompose your pile cannot do this without air. If there is no air supply then other microbes will move in. They will also do the job but they work a lot slower and tend to make the compost smell like rotten garbage. So unless you want your backyard to smell like the city dump you will have it “fluff” your pile. “Fluffing” your pile is easily done with a spade or a garden fork. You will have to completely break it apart and then pile it back together leaving it in a “Fluffy” condition.

Some “food” like grass clippings or wet leaves will sit heavy on the pile and not allow good air flow through that portion of the pile. You should mix this sort of ingredient into the pile to avoid a spot that won’t decompose very easily. Straw is a great ingredient to add to your compost because unlike grass they will not mat down into slimy layers and add to the airflow.

Water is the last important ingredient in your compost. This is where it gets a little tricky. You need to get the water just right to aid and not hinder the work of the microbes. Too wet and the pile gets too heavy and the airflow gets cut off to the middle of the pile. Too dry and the microbes will not be able to break down the waste as easily. Ideally you want to get every particle wet but not saturated. In wet climates you may need a lid or a tarp to avoid saturation.

Having a good mix of the greens and browns is a good thing for a few reasons. Not only does it supply all your little microbes with a good diet, but it also helps in airflow since the browns are dry and “light” and the greens are wet and “heavy”.

By: Nicholas Tan

Nearly every gardener has some type of gardening equipment.  In fact, it’s nearly impossible to have a garden without used gardening equipment.  What kind of gardening equipment you use will obviously depend on the size and extent of your garden, what you are able to handle, if you want to spend a lot of time in your garden or get done quickly, and finally, how much money you are willing to spend.

While many gardeners do not have expensive or high-tech gardening tools, all of them have some type of gardening equipment for cultivating.  Tools for cultivating can include both hand held tools and power tools.  What kind you buy depends on how serious of a gardener you are.  Hand tools include your everyday items like shovels, spading forks, rakes, trowels, and diggers.  These can all be used to get a garden ready for planting and are relatively easy and do not require much strength to use.  Other tools include a wheel cultivator, pickax, and mattock.

While power tools are a little more expensive than hand tools, they really cut down on the hard labor.  The most essential piece of gardening equipment is undoubtedly the tiller.  The tiller will break up the ground and get it ready for planting, chop up any debris, and help mix in fertilizer and compost.  If you don’t want to spend the money on a tiller you can hire someone or rent a tiller for one time use.  Other power tools that are very popular include chippers, garden shredders, and chain-saws.

If you have shrubs, hedges, or small trees in your yard, pruning tools are a vital piece of gardening equipment.  Pruning shears are good for branches about ¾” in diameter, while lopping shears can handle branches from a half inch up to about 2 inches.  Pole pruners are on a pole and can reach branches about 15 feet above ground.  Hedge shears and pruning saws are both larger, more heavy duty pruning tools for the serious gardener.

Since your plants must be watered in order to survive, and lets face it, it doesn’t rain whenever we want it to, gardening equipment for watering is a must have.  The one thing you can’t get along without is a water hose, everything after that is optional.  Many gardeners use sprinklers or s drip irrigation hose.  There are even timers you can purchase for sprinklers or drip hoses, if you are willing to drop the extra cash. 

Gardening without gardening equipment would be a nightmare.  Sure there are some people who enjoy getting a little dirty while they plant their flowers, but even those types of people have the most basic of gardening tools, like a rake or a hoe.  Gardening equipment is a part of gardening, as important as the dirt and the seeds.

By: James Paul

One of my favorite things to do as a weekend gardener is composting. Composting and the weekend gardener go hand in hand. It is one of the best ways for a weekend gardener to feed his/her garden organically. Basically, composting allows you to turn organic waste into rich nutrients for your garden and, while composting is a very simple process, there are some basic steps that you should follow in order to build a good composting pile. I hope that these tips will help the weekend gardener to develop a love for the weekend garden as I do.

The weekend gardener doesn’t really even need a special bin or box to contain a compost pile. All you really need is the compost material (although some kind of container is recommended just for the sake of tidiness and for keeping rodents, flies and creepy crawler types away).

The weekend gardener such as myself can find material for composting in forms of dead grass, leaves, shrubs, and lawn trimmings as well as left over fruits and vegetables from the table.

Most weekend gardeners including myself keep home composts contained in old trash bins with lids or even boxes made from spare wood or wire frames. The most important thing is that the pile of compost be exposed to air.

Another key to successful composting is layering. Composts should have alternating layers of green and brown organic materials. The green organic material should consist of fruits, vegetables and grass clippings, for example, whereas the brown organic material should come from dry leaves, twigs or small pieces of wood. If the weekend gardener has too much green organic material the compost will become too high in nitrogen whereas too much brown organic material in the compost will make it too rich with carbon. Too much nitrogen may cause slime and too much carbon may cause the composting process to move too slowly.

Maintenance for the weekend gardeners compost pile or bin is also important. Don’t let the pile dry out. It should be regularly checked to see that its moisture is maintained and it should be watered if there is not enough moisture. It must also be regularly mixed and fluffed to make sure that the entire compost pile is exposed to adequate amounts of air. Mixing the compost pile approximately every two weeks should be sufficient. It is also best, but not absolutely necessary, if your compost pile is directly in the sun and if your compost is not inside a container of some type, the best place for it is directly on the soil.

While knowing how and what should go into your compost pile is important, knowing what should not go into your compost pile is equally important. Chicken, dairy, fish, and meat products should never go into a compost and neither should human waste or pet waste, fats and oils, diseased plants, or even plants that have been sprayed with herbicide.

Composting for the weekend gardener is a simple process and easily learned. You will also reap many benefits from composting. Not only will you be enriching your soil when you mix it with the compost pile, but you will be disposing of unwanted materials in an earth-friendly way, thereby helping to minimize the amount of garbage dumped into landfills and aiding mother earth in the process. Good luck and happy weekends from my garden to yours!