As fall approaches, it’s time for nature’s bounty to renew the circle of life. As the leaves begin to fall and your garden ends its cycle of producing fresh food, it’s time to start a compost pile to better fertilize your garden next spring!
Compost, produced from decomposed grass clippings, leaves, twigs, and branches, becomes a dark, crumbly mixture of organic matter.
Learn how composting works. Even a novice to composting can make good quality compost. It could be compared to cooking as art or part science. the next 7 items will help you master the art of composting.
- Materials
After a time whatever that was once lively will easily decompose. But, not all organic items should be composted for the residence. To prepare compost, organic material, microorganisms, air, water, and a little amount of nitrogen are necessary.
These items are excellent for compost at home:
- grass clippings
- trimmings from hedges
- vegetable scraps
- leaves
- potting soil that has grown old
- twigs
- coffee filters with coffee grounds
- tea bags
- weeds that have not went to seed
- plant stalks
These items are not safe to compost at home:
- weeds that have went to seed
- dead animals
- pet feces
- bread and grains
- meat
- grease
- cooking oil
- oily foods
*diseased plants
- What To Do To Make It Work
There are small kinds of plant and animal life which break down the organic material. This life is called microorganisms. From a minute amount of garden soil or manure comes lots of microorganisms.
Nitrogen, air, and water will provide a favorable background for the microorganisms to come to the compost. Air circulation and water will keep the microorganisms healthy and working. The nitrogen feeds the tiny organisms. You may have to add a little amount of nitrogen to the pile.
Putting on too much nitrogen can kill microbes and too much water causes not enough air in the pile. You just can’t add too much air.
- favourable Microorganisms
Bacteria are the most efficient compost makers in your compost pile. They are the first to collapse plant tissue. Then comes the fungi and protozoans to assist with the process. The arthropodes, like centipedes, beetles, millipedes and worms, bring in the ending touches to complete the composting. - Smaller is Better
The materials will break down quicker if the microorganisms have more surface ground to consume. Chopping your garden materials with a chipper, shredder, or lawnmower will help them decompose quicker. - Size of The Pile
The task of mllns. of microorganisms produces heat in the compost pile but a minimum size 3-foot by 3-foot by 3-foot is necessary for a hot, rapid composting pile. Piles that are any greater may hamper the air supply necessary in the pile for the microorganisms. - Moisture and Aeration
If you can imagine a wet squeezed out sponge with its numerous air pockets, then this would be the ideal enviroment for the microorganisms in the pile to operate at their absolute. take care while your pile is composting, to the number of rain or a drought you may have. Water in a drought and perhaps turn the pile in loads of rainy days. The extremes of these two may disappointed the balance of the pile. The utilization of a pitchfork would come in handy at this moment. - Temperature and Time
Keep your pile between 110F and 160F and the favourable bacteria will love it. Not too nice nor too hot.
The temperature will rise through several days if you keep a good ratio of carbon and nitrogen, maintain plenty of surface ground within a large volume of material, and maintain appropriate moisture and aeration.
Tumbler compost bins and barrels make for an excellent means of increasing the temperature of the compost, while also keeping odor to a minimum.
-Importance of Compost-
+Compost has nutrients, but it is not a complete fertilizer.
+Compost brings nutrients in the soil until plants require to use them.
- It loosens and aerates clay soils
- Retains water in sandy soils.
-Using the Compost-
- A soil amendment, mix 2 to 5 inches of compost into gardens every year before planting.
- A potting mixture, add one part compost to two parts potting soil.
- Make your own potting mixture by the utilization of equal parts of compost and sand or perlite.
- A mulch, prodcast 2 to 4 inches of compost around annual flowers and veggies, and up to 5 inches around your trees and shrubs.
- A top dressing, mix finely sifted compost with sand and sprinkle evenly through lawns.
The final thing I would recommend once you have mastered the art of composting is to look highly seriously at making your highly own aerated compost tea. This elixir will provide you results that are complicated to believe.
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