Tips On How To Manage Your Compost Heap
There are a number of different types of compost bins on the market that you can use to help manage and contain your compost. But, a special bin is not a requirement that is needed to accomplish successful composting, but more of a convenience. It is easy enough to build your own bin for your pile and simply cover it over with a sheet of polythene or chunk of cardboard.
Some people, however, prefer to have their compost heap more contained and neat in appearance and to have it easier to manage as well. If that is the case, then compost bins can be a good solution.
These special bins are easy enough to find online or at local stores that sell organic gardening tools and supplies. Some local municipalities also have compost bins available at a reduced cost to encourage people to recycle their organic waste.
Making a compost is as simple as adding your organic items that are compostable on a regular basis. Any waste product that was at one time a living thing will compost, or decompose, but some items are not recommended to be thrown into your pile. Meats, dairy foods and cooked foods will end up attracting pests and vermin so these should not be used in your home composting efforts.
Dead and decaying leaves, lawn clippings, manure, and kitchen waste such as rinds, peelings, coffee grounds and even eggshells can be added to it. Older, thicker and tougher plant materials are slower to decompose but they benefit the compost by providing more substance, or body, to the finished product. These heavier materials usually comprise most of a compost pile.
Wood items take a long time to decompose. Whenever possible it is best to shred, chip or chop wood materials to help accelerate the rotting process. However, as long as they are mixed in with other materials that decompose faster they will still provide some benefit to the process overall.
In general it is best to have fairly equal amounts of what is called brown material and green material in it. Brown materials are the manures, dead leaves, small twigs and cardboard and newspapers. Green materials include hedge and grass clippings, coffee grounds, fruit rinds and uncooked vegetables.
You only need to have about one foot of organic material to get your compost heap started. In most instances, just mowing the yard and weeding your flowerbeds and vegetable garden will give you enough to begin. If needed, then you can also add organic kitchen waste and newspaper, and even a little straw if you are coming up short of the one foot level.
Once things get piled up, nature will take over and the decomposition process will start. It is good to turn the heap about every two weeks and within four to six months you will have a nice compost of waste materials that will give a boost to your soil.
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Compost Pit Replaced by Compost Bin
The end product coming out of the bin is an excellent plant food. Compost Bin manufactures the compost which is another form of organic fertilizer which is useful for the soil and plants. The products of the soil are the plants which come in different sizes and peculiar shapes according to their species. Our dietary needs are primary supplied by the food that we eat everyday which is produced by products of the soil.
The fruits or crops that the plants yield may grow underneath the soil like the root crops, or grown above the ground with edible leaves and flowers. All these edible living things are products dependent on the soil where they are rooted. Please take note that plants can grow and can either bear fruits or cannot but still offer edible produce.
The minerals and nutrients of the soil are also absorbed by these plants. They are also eating, thus making the soil unhealthy in the process. It is therefore important to add fertilizers to supplement and aid the soil for the sake of the growing elements on it to sustain and survive. Compost Bin can provide the soil with the desired substances and other elements needed by plants to survive.
Compost Bin produces the organic plant food that is very vital to soil and plants alike. It must be noted that the toxic substances absorbed by the plants that we eat are harmful to human and other animals. In other words, we are also eating the toxic elements that are derived from the plants being transmitted to them from the soil. The compost is very healthy plant food for they do not contain any toxin that the soil and plants can absorb. This is the process of symbiotic relationship.
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Picture your garden benefiting from these organic fertilizers called Compost Bin. These help nurture your plants by keeping the soil healthy. Proper nutrients enter the plants and in this way, you see a beautiful flora growing in your surrounding area. To know more about this fertilizer, simply visit this site at http://www.ourcrazydeals.com.
The Neat and Clean Way to Make Compost
The most basic form of a compost pile is exactly that, a pile of vegetation, garbage and scrap items such as leaves and grass, which then may be surrounded by a fence or a cage. This system works very well, but requires a fairly long period of time and a certain amount of maintenance to ensure a good final product.
Finished compost should appear like fine loam with a sweet earthy aroma and should not be a wet glob of muck. An in order to achieve this quality. the pile needs to be turned over quite often in order to mix and aerate it and let oxygen enter in to create aerobes, which are the microbes which hasten the breaking down of your pile into good compost.
The disadvantages of a pile are obvious. They are rather unsightly, they will attract vermin and small animals such as raccoons, dogs and rats, they may have an unpleasant odor, and they will also probably irritate your neighbors if you live in a fairly well populated area. As a matter of interest, many towns and cities now ban open compost piles because of the above reasons. One great advantage of a pile is that it is fairly easy to turn with a pitchfork it in order aerate the raw compost, plus larger amounts of compost can be processed at any one particular time.
Compost bins are much more suitable to the home gardener. They should be vermin and child proof, be odor free (that is if you provide the correct proportions of carbon and nitrogen in loading the bin) and visually more pleasing. A bin can be problematic when you aerate the compost because it is usually difficult to turn the compost over efficiently without special tools. Another drawback is the emptying of the bin if it does not have an access door at the bottom. Consider if the bin is designed as a ball which has to be rolled in order along to mix the contents,and it sits directly on rough, sloped or uneven ground,that system mixing operation could be extremely difficult. Aerating need to be done regularly, so the easier, the better.
A compost tumbler is probably the best system. Tumbling the contents provides aeration without the use of tools and also speed up the decomposition time. Do not believe the claims of "compost in just a couple of weeks'. This sounds good but Mother Nature works at her own pace and we can speed her up just so much. The great advantage of a tumbler is the ease of turning and aerating the compost, which should provide a finished product in about 10 weeks.
Features to look for:
Sturdy dark colored containers which will not reflect the suns heat, especially important in cooler climes.
Solidly built stands or legs, a full composter can weigh over 150 pounds or more.
Can you easily relocate the unit if necessary, in order to be closer to the garden area worked currently being worked on.
There should be a method of collecting the compost tea which collects at the bottom and if utilized, is a fantastic product to pour on your planting beds or directly on the plants as a fertilizer
Other items to consider:
If you need a large amount of compost, will one composter be enough? New material can always be added to your composter, but the process is quicker if one load is processed at a time.
Stash a kitchen composter pail in a handy location to toss your daily scraps into.
About the Author
Dick Murray is a retired urbanite who has kept his love ofgardening alive with the creation of informational web sites such as backyard compost tumbler More and more households are beginning to grow their own fruits and vegetables due to their increased concern regarding the quality, price and safety of our food supplies.
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