The Dirt Doctor – Compost
The Dirt Doctor – Compost
Compost is Nature’s own living fertilizer that can be made at home or purchased ready-to-use. A compost pile can be started any time of the year and can be in sun or shade. Anything and everything once alive can and should go into the compost pile: leaves, hay, tree trimmings, food scraps, bark, sawdust, rice hulls, weeds, nut hulls and animal manure. Grass can but should be left on the turf by mulching them in. Mix the ingredients together in a container of wood, hay bales, hog wire, concrete blocks or a better plan is to simply pile the material on the ground.
The best mixture is 80% vegetative matter and 20% animal waste, although any mix will compost. Since oxygen is a critical component, the ingredients should be a mix of coarse and fine-textured material to promote air circulation through the pile. Turn the pile once a month if possible, more often speeds up the process but releases nitrogen to the air. Another critical component is water. A compost pile should be roughly the moisture of a squeezed-out sponge to help the living microorganisms thrive and work their magic.
Compost is ready to use as a soil amendment when the ingredients are no longer identifiable. The color will be dark brown, the texture soft and crumbly and it will smell like the forest floor. Rough, unfinished compost can be used as a topdressing mulch around all plantings.
Compost: Approximate analysis is 1-1-1. This is the best all-around organic fertilizer. After all, it’s nature’s. Apply at a minimum of 50-100 pounds per 1,000 square feet or 800-4,500 pounds per acre. Use in all potting soil mixes and to prepare all new beds. Compost is far superior to any other form of organic matter for use in building the soil.
Composting: Compost is organic matter that’s rotted and broken down into an unidentifiable form. Every living thing on earth is going to die and everything that dies, rots. Completely rotted material is compost. Compost contains many nutrients and therefore is a fertilizer. It also contains organic matter, enzymes, vitamins and living organisms
Q: Can I add the crabgrass that I pull from my lawn to the compost pile? I am concerned that the plants/seeds may grow/germinate. J.V., Denton.
A: Absolutely. Weeds of all kinds are great ingredients for the compost. They are loaded with trace minerals and the composting process neutralizes (kills) the seeds so spreading is not a problem.
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Duration : 0:1:49
The ECOmposter spinning composter
Video demonstration of the 77 Gallon ECOmopster compost tumbler.
For more info please see: http://www.eco-outfitter.com/m-40-ecomposter.aspx
Duration : 0:2:45
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How to Compost
Dave investigates, with Howard Anderson, the equipment you can use to create the best possible compost for the support and nourishment of your indoor and outdoor plantings.
Duration : 0:2:43
Go Green with Compost Tumblers
http://gardenarborandtrellis.com Compost tumblers help you go green by recycling your refuse into great garden soil.
If you are growing an organic garden and enjoy composting, having your own compost tumbler can provide many great benefits. Compost tumblers can make the process of composting much easier. Compost tumblers are ideal for residential use and for composting kitchen scraps on a daily basis to keep them out of the kitchen, the trash and the garbage disposal.
If you have previously used a compost pile or bin that you constructed yourself, you will find that a compost tumbler is much nicer looking. This can be a benefit for yourself as well as for your neighbors. In addition, compost tumblers are resistant to pests. This can be a big problem with traditional compost piles and bins. With the compost tumbler you will not have to worry about any wild animals or even dogs from the neighborhood getting into your compost.
It is also easy to keep your compost aerated with the compost tumbler, which is important. You will not have to worry about turning over the compost using a pitchfork or some other type of turning tool. All you have to do is turn over the tumbler and your compost will become properly mixed.
In addition, the compost tumbler remains closed. This is imperative to creating proper compost, particularly during warm weather. When it is hot, the closed design of the compost tumbler will ensure that the compost remains damp and does not become dried out. Furthermore, during wet weather the compost will not become soggy. Also, there will not be any smells escaping from the compost tumbler, which can sometimes be a problem with large compost piles.
Having a compost tumbler can also make it more fun for the entire family to begin composting. Even the kids will get a kick out of going out and giving the tumbler a turn. Rather than seeming like hard work, the entire family will feel as though they are accomplishing something worthwhile without having to endure a lot of smelly, hard work.
Finally, compost tumblers make it faster and easier to compost. There is no dealing with huge piles of compost that must be regularly turned. With a compost tumbler, you can enjoy all of the benefits of composting without all of the hard work. Whether you live on acreage or you live in a suburban neighborhood, you can enjoy the advantages of composting with a compost tumbler.
Duration : 0:0:59
How To Start A Worm Farm
When you’re building a worm farm, you are just about murdering two birds with 1 stone. The compost or rubbish will be used to turn something around that can be employed in your garden later on while supplying you with worms to eat the rubbish. You will be capable of making valuable compost from your rubbish or undesired materials in your own home. You might think that to build a worm farm, the worm farms are complex to build or make while this is just incorrect. The worm farms are going to straightforward to make and easy to use. To start making worm farms, you will need an area of the home or yard that’s kept dark enough the worms are going to thrive.
The worms don’t like to live in areas rich in daylight or different kinds of light so it might work well to put them in a garage or shed where there’s nominal light. The very next step is to make certain the container you are using is enormous enough. The best size option for you will depend upon the dimensions of the worm farms that you need to make. Many people will opt to use boxes that are nearly the same size as a shoe box.
The container must be made of plastic and if it is clear plastic, you’ll then wish to use paper to wrap round the container or foil to keep light from seeping into the container and annoying the worms. After you have your container, you will need to put some wet paper into the base of the container. This paper should be shredded and shouldn’t contain colours or the advertisements from the newspaper. The paper does not have to be sopping wet but simply rather just damp. The very next step is to make sure you are adding enough garden soil.
The soil will have to be damp as well as the worms will need the moisture although not so wet that they may drown. When you have done this and mixed it up well, you’ll need to add your scraps. The scraps that you will be using are likely to need to be non acidic like scraps from oranges and other citrus fruit. If you will be using tea bags and coffee grounds, you’ll be wanting to have some hard shell egg surroundings to balance the pH level out. The worms prosper good in conditions where the soil pH is around 6 to 8. When you have achieved this, you will be wanting to then add the worms to your worm farms.
The worm farms will work well with worms that are thought to be red worms. You won’t wish to use earthworms or night crawlers when setting up your worm farms as these worms won’t work to get the correct job done. After you have done this, place the worm farms in the dark areas of the home or the garage and feed them once each couple of days. Bear in mind that worms don’t each much so you aren’t placing too much food into the soil and causing your pH to become too high or too low.
See us at Worm Composting.
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Trash Can Compost Bin
I have to say, I’m one of these people who love compost. Well, I should say I love the results of compost. If you want a beautiful garden, you ought to be taking advantage of the things around your gardener yard. Now let me show you how to create a compost bin. If you’ve never done this before, it’s really a lot easier than you think. What I’m starting out with here is about a 40-to-50-gallon standard trash bin. And it’s important that you get one that has a lid where the lids lock, and I’ll explain that in just a moment.
Now, what I’ve done is, I’ve gone around it, and I’ve drilled these holes all the way around. I’ve used a 3/4-inch bit. And here in the top, I’ve used a 1/2-inch bit. This allows air to circulate through the bin itself. And you can see, I have it sitting on a pair of concrete blocks, again, for air to get inside the compost, which is an important component to making it.
Now, what you want to do is, you want to use green and brown and alternate them. And what I mean by that is green could be any sort of clippings from the garden. It could be scraps from the kitchen. Now, you don’t want to put any sort of meat product or cooked vegetables in here, but things like the peelings of apples or carrots — the tops of carrots, that sort of thing. That qualifies as green. You want to chop it up in tiny pieces and throw it in here with some brown. And the brown could be the leaves that you rake up or straw or anything or pine needles that you have. And so, by layering those, you’re adding carbon and a source of nitrogen — carbon the brown, nitrogen the green. Okay?
So, you start layering it, and then you can turn your compost quite easily. Just by putting the lid on it, locking it down, and rolling it around. Now, you want to make sure that you don’t get too much compost in here, and it makes it too difficult for you to move around.
Or you can take a drill with an auger and turn the compost. You want to do that about every two weeks. In about 8 to 12 weeks, depending on what you put in here, you’re gonna have some black gold that’s gonna make your plants grow like you can’t believe.
Duration : 0:2:30
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Automatic Compost/Soil Sifter
Homemade compost sifter built using a cheap jigsaw. Small, transportable, and for a quick fix it does a nice job. Watch out for version 2 that’ll at least be a little tidier 
Duration : 0:0:54
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Is it okay to make a composter in an old large plastic bucket?
Would it harm the worms? Make the compost bad? Be perfectly fine?
S.O.K. but you have to ask yourself if the bucket is really big enough, cos compost really is a full year’s cycle til it turns into usable garden material and a bucket soon runs out of storage space if stuff is going to be coming in regularly (grass clippings, twigs, weeds, vegetation, kitchen vegetable waste plus sprinklings of earth)
I would go for a defunct larger plastic dustbin if there’s one handy. They’re not expensive, either, if you have to buy one.
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Compost bins made of pallets – How to
Making a three bin compost system with free materials. Making your own compost -It’s easy. Composting happens!
Duration : 0:6:49
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Best Garden Composters
Click Here http://www.bestgardencomposters.com to See Our Customer Reviews of the Best Garden Composters and Compost Bins
Duration : 0:2:3
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