You Could Have A Better Garden By Creating Your Own Compost Pile

If you have never tried organic gardening, you possibly will not know what composting is. Compost is an organic material used in gardening to help fertilize and improve the quality of the soil. It offers plants the minerals and nutrients they require plus it is a mulch and a soil conditioner. Another advantage of compost is that it will help the soil retain more water for a longer time for the plants to grow.

There are several methods of composting, which you can use, and the least complicated appears to be the no-turn composting method. Normally a pile of compost is turned every week to speed up the decomposition, but with this method you do not need to do it. For making compost without turning, you simply need to add lots of coarse material. Something that works is including straw, which allows the pile to be aerated by creating air pockets. Applying this method, you can expect the same rate of development as the turn-over method. The compost will be at the bottom of the pile and you need to keep on putting in organic materials and coarse materials at the top.

You could use the leaves that fall off during fall months to make your compost. You can gather all of the leaves and place them in a pile under a shady area. It should be an area that also tends to be damp and moist. Be sure that the pile is loose to ensure that air can flow. The compost from the leaves will be ready in 4 to 6 months, when it can be distributed over the garden soil. There aren’t enough nutrients or microorganisms in this compost created from the leaves to be able to be used as a fertilizer, but it will be good as a conditioner for the soil.

Fruits and vegetable waste make really good composting material, since they contain a lot of carbon and nitrogen. Feel free to use other table scraps as well but you need to be sure that they will not bring in animals and pests. There are numerous other products that will work, like eggshells, pine needles, seaweed and kelp, grass or shrub clippings, along with coffee grounds. If that is not enough, you can also include tea leaves, corn stalks, sawdust, wood chips, cardboard and shredded paper in your garden compost. Make sure you cover your compost to ensure that pests won’t come and create problems. When you add new materials, make sure you add some lime or calcium at the top of your pile. The odors from your compost will be neutralized this way.

Composting is not very difficult in the least. Since compost could be made up of leftovers around the house, you can recycle and save some money. Composting could make your gardening a lot simpler.