Discover The Earth Friendly Benefits Of Composting
Composting is a way to create an awesome soil improver for your lawn or garden. But does it seem there are lots of confusing rules? Like don’t stick tomatoes in the pile but do put in veggies scraps. Or don’t empty your cat’s litter box but do use cow manure. Grass clippings are good just not too many.
Such a list of do’s and don’ts may give you pause. But that’s no reason not to compost. Let’s see what we can do to help get you started.
Composting Defined: A process that uses micro-organisms to convert decaying vegetation and manure into a humus-like material commonly referred to as compost.
This really is an excellent little yard waste recycling system. In fact let me share three reasons to compost.
Composting this kind of waste gives you a cheap way to improve the quality of soil in your garden immensely. Plus it is a practical way to dispose of household waste saving landfill space. Also by composting you reduce the need for commercial fertilizers which are chemically based and do nothing to improve the quality of the soil.
Nearly anything plant based like spent flowers, to grass clippings, to kitchen scraps such as banana peels and orange rinds can be composted. Anything like this contributes nitrogen to the pile. Some find it helpful to think green.
You also need some brown or woody things too. Which is why leaves, wood chips and sticks should be included to add some of the required carbon to the pile.
A mix of both carbon and nitrogen, or brown and green, is required to speed up the natural breakdown of the component parts into a crumbly soil amenity. And if you’re short on nitrogen you can always get some cheap lawn fertilizer on sale and use that. Paying attention to the amount of nitrogen in the bag. I’ve also used ammonia too.
Having spelled out what to use you want to avoid the following:
Any dairy items, meat, bones, grease, or fatty foods like cheese ought not be added to the pile. Such stuff slows down decomposition and attracts unwanted rodents. Stuff like that an also be the source of unpleasant odors.
Adding dog and cat droppings risks spreading disease. Ugh.
Weed seed heads and some plants that are diseased shouldn’t be composted either The seeds and disease organisms might not break down completely unless you’ve got a really hot compost going. Meaning you’d just be sowing problems when you spread the compost onto your garden.
Same thing applies for tomatoes and morning glories. Both produce vigorous volunteers that become a pain when they hitch hike from the compost to the garden or lawn.
Obviously the prime location for your pile is close enough to the garden but not too far to walk to make deposits. You want it to get some sun which helps heat the pile some.
Anyway this is a good start toward creating your own soil enrichment program. Anyone will a bit of time can set up a compost pile and in no time start to reap the benefits. If you’ll but remember to mix the brown and green you’ll soon have crumbly black gold to spread on your lawn, flower beds and garden.
As a lifelong lawn lover Dewey J Capasso has been on a lawn tractor or two. He can also advise you as to the best riding lawn mowers, kibitz on electric mowers and share his two cents with detailed reviews of zero turn lawn mowers. This and more on related topics of interest can be found at your site for lawn care, MowerMania.com.
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