Make Compost With Your Trash

The landscaper and/or gardener who ignores compost is not making the most of their opportunities. Dedicated gardeners class such a fellow as a miner who robs the soil of its nutrients and returns nothing to keep the soil in its natural balance. Chemical fertilizers can enrich the soil, but they do nothing to keep the soil loose, porous, help it retain bacterial life, and cannot produce the delightful, woodsy smell which naturally rich soil gives off. Compost can help you in your soil problems.

Many gardeners maintain a bank of compost at all times. Every shred of discarded plant material is placed in the bank, and they in time remove the rich compost and work it into the soil where it will do the most good. The method of making compost varies with the gardener. Sooner or later, many come to the conclusion that the easiest method is the best for them… and that has been my opinion.

My compost bin is an old barbecue pit, which has a concrete bottom. Each fall I rake all leaves and pile them into the pit. Sometime during the following summer I raid the pit and get six or eight bushels of fine compost which is used in flower pots and flower beds. I try to make this composting a process of nature and take little interest in the pit between the time it is filled and when it is emptied.

In filling the pit I place a layer of leaves about ten inches deep. Some of the compost is saved to act as a starter, and a thin layer of this is sprinkled over the leaves. A couple of handfuls of ground limestone is also added. Manure may be used when starting a new pile of compost. This layer of leaves is then sprinkled with the garden hose, and the filling process resumed.

When all the leaves and accumulated plant material have been packed into the pit, it is well watered down, and I proceed to forget the whole thing. Occasionally, the mass in the
pit is wet down, and only rarely do I give a half-hearted stir with a fork.

When the time comes to clear out the pit, the material has broken down, twigs have decomposed, and there is a quantity of fine loose compost. But this is not the only method of composing.

Make Compost in Flower Beds

Since I am reluctant to add material to the pit after it has been filled, I follow the mulch method of making compost. Everything that grows in the wrong place is removed and piled in the flower beds. This mulch saves moisture, checks weed growth, and turns into compost right where it is needed. There is no waiting here. Since the flower beds are watered during dry periods, the bacterial action never slows down, and the mulch almost disintegrates under one’s eyes.

Coarser material may also be used. Straw, hay, twigs, hedge clippings, may all be used. The coarse material will disintegrate more slowly, but is not at all objectionable. My compost pit yields a nice amount of compost each year, but the quantity that is produced right in the flower beds would be difficult to estimate. This is the least trouble and I can see the benefits increasing as the months go by.

Whatever method of composting you use, never let anything escape the action of soil bacteria, and its final return to the plant beds. You will be well rewarded for your efforts.

by E Vanderwirth

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