Composting is more than an alternative way of getting rid of rubbish and kitchen waste and scraps from your home. It is an essential way to gather together nutrients that will eventually feed you and your family.
To give you a little visual stimulation, here’s a great video showing you exactly why and how you should compost.
If you have a vegetable garden then you should be composting and turning your waste into tasty – and healthy – food.
In the process, you will save money as you don’t need to buy these ‘nutrients’ for a second time.
Composting Helps the Environment
Also, you will be making a significant contribution to cutting down on CO2 emissions as landfill waste breaks down without air, creating harmful methane gas.
Composting Boosts your Veggie Production and Quality
Your composting efforts should reflect the size of your vegetable plots or containers. The more veggies you want to grow, the more compost you’ll need to condition and enrich the soil. A generous amount of compost added to your soil a couple of times a year will work wonders for your vegetable production.
With a little effort, you can become self-sustainable and never need to buy fertilizer again. Also, it will increase your vegetable yield and produce healthier specimens, which means that your whole family will get a significant health boost as well.
Step by Step Guide to Composting
- Start off by keeping a small container in the kitchen to collect scraps of food (peelings, leftovers, etc). At the end of the day, empty the container into your composting bin (they’re available at garden stores and come in various sizes to suit your needs).
- Try to add a variety of materials – never a large amount of anything. Thin layers work best.
- Find a suitable site for your bin, preferably on soil so that worms and other bugs can colonise easily. Make sure you can easily get ingredients in and out.
- Collect tea bags, toilet roll tubes, eggshells, peelings, fruit and cereal boxes. Shred before adding to the bin
- Wait for nine and twelve months. It’s ready when it looks like dark, crumbly, moist soil.
Making Good Compost
It’s difficult to go totally wrong with composting, but you want to get the mix right if you are going to produce the finest quality compost. My local group of ‘Rotters’ here in North Yorkshire are fantastic at making champagne-quality compost!
Materials break down into two types: greens and browns:
Greens: grass cuttings, tea bags, fruit, salad leaves, veg peelings, nettles, flowers, coffee grounds, filter papers, old bedding plants, rhubarb leaves, annual weeds (not perennials).
Browns: smashed egg shells, cereal boxes, scrunched up paper and card, straw, sawdust, woody clippings, vacuum bag contents, shredded documents, hedge clippings, wood ash, paper towels, natural fibre clothes (old ones, naturally!), wool, feathers.
As you can see, there’s very little that can’t be composted.
Things to Avoid
Avoid the following:
- meat
- dairy products
- cooked veggies
- dog poo (sorry!)
- diseased plants
- plastic
- glass
- metals
- perennial weeds (thistles, dandelions)
- seed heads
These materials can lead to unwanted pests and will make your compost bin stink.
The ‘green’ materials will rot very quickly and produce essential moisture and nitrogen. The ‘browns’ rot more slowly but provide carbon and fibre and create air pockets which are important in keeping the compost healthy.
Keep an Eye on Things
Keep checking your compost at regular intervals and if it is too wet (and smelly) add more ‘browns’. If it is too dry and doesn’t seem to be rotting down sufficiently, add more ‘greens’. Simple!
You can water the compost bin if you feel it is too dry and this can help to speed things along.
After a year, you should have nutritious compost that can be added to your soil.
Compost Uses
Compost can be used in a myriad of ways, but here are just a few examples:
- Add to flowerbeds (either dig in a 10cm layer before planting or simply spread around the base of plants)
- Add a 5cm layer to borders (the worms will drag it down)
- Use as mulch around shrubs and on flowerbeds to prevent weeds, retain moisture and add nutrients
- Add to potted plants (replace the top few centimetres with your nutritious compost)
- Mix with leaf mould or soil to create a wonderful potting mixture
- Add around trees (not touching the base) to feed the roots, prevent drought and protect against disease
- Add to soil when growing vegetables and herbs
- Feed your lawn (mix with sharp sand and remove any large lumps) by spreading a 2.5cm layer on the top (don’t do this on new or turfed lawns – they can get scorched).
More Composting Ideas
If you have trees (like I do) and need to get rid of the leaves in Autumn, here’s a great way to recycle them into leaf mould:
- Gather the leaves up and add to a black bin liner (add water to moisten them)
- Poke a few holes in the sides of the bin liners to allow air to enter
- Leave in a quiet area of the garden for one to two years
- When ready, use as mulch, use as a soil conditioner in beds, create a seed sowing mix/potting compost (add sharp sand and garden compost in equal measures)
Final Composting Thoughts
Finally, remember that it is important to regularly mix your compost in the bin. Give it a good stir around and lift it as well. This adds air and enables all the worms and micro-organisms to do their work properly. If you don’t do this, your compost bin will start smelling and attract unwanted vermin.
Check regularly, get the right balance of ‘greens’ and ‘browns’ and make sure there is just the right amount of moisture.
If done properly, you’ll find that your bin can be lifted without all the compost falling out (a bit like a jelly mould) and you can carry it to wherever you need it. Alternatively, you can simply remove it from the small door at the bottom of the bin.
The bottom layers of compost will be the best, so add the top layers back into the bin to be further composted and use the bottom layers to enrich your soil.
Here’s an informative book that you might like to purchase through our link called ‘The World’s Best Compost’.
Alan
