Composting

Showing posts with label Mulch. Show all posts

Composting Made Easy Means All Benefit And Minimum Work

For avid gardeners, having an ample supply of rich compost is a dream. The use of compost will result in nicer plants, but producing the material can be time consuming and hard work. The more you can reduce that effort, investing the saved time in other gardening tasks, the better.

One way to start the process is by building composting bins that at least semi-automate the productopn of compost. A bin should be five feet wide, five feet deep, and four feet high. Start by sinking 4 by 4 posts in the ground for the corners, and then nail 2 by 4s and 1 by 4s, alternating on the sides, leaving 2" gaps between the boards for air circulation. The 2 by 4s are rigid enough to keep the sides from bowing out, and in between each 2 by 4 you can use 1 by 4s to save a little money. The bins are three-sided, with the front open so they can be filled and emptied easily.

Fill one of the bins with grass clippings, dried leaves, and shrub clippings, trying not to put more than 6" of each material on a layer and alternating layers of green and brown material. Keep a few bags of dry leaves around to help with the alternating.

When you root cuttings use coarse sand in the flats and put the old sand on the compost pile. It's a good idea to take plants that do not survive and dump the entire container in the compost bin, which adds more brown material to the mix.

After the bin is full, one option is to turn the material in the bin every few weeks. Another option, however, is to pack as much material in the bin as possible, then start filling the second bin, piling the material as high as possible, even to the point where it spills out in front of the bin and covering the fresh material with mulch or potting soil.

Setting a small sprinkler on top of the pile and turning it on at a very low level will let a small spray of water run on the material. By keeping the material damp, the moisture will cause the pile to heat up, which is what makes the composting action take place.

Once the first bin is full, the second bin is used. As the material in the first bin starts to break down, it settles, which means you can keep shoveling the material piled in front of the bin, up on top of the pile. Continue to do this until all the material is either in the bin or piled on top of the heap. Then leave it alone, except for the occasional watering, which speeds up the process.

Not all of the material will rot completely, a result of not turning the pile. But the material in the center will break down more than the material on the edges, most of it breaking down quite well. Keeping a pile of potting soil on hand at all times or buying two or three yards of shredded mulch to get started, will mean always having a supply of good compost.

Left in a pile, shredded bark will eventually break down and become great compost, and some potting soil is about 80% rotted bark. Some buy fine textured and dark hardwood bark mulch, and put it in a pile to rot, keeping the pile low and flat so it does not shed the rain water away. The idea is to keep the mulch to stay as wet as possible to allow the mulch to break down quickly.

Keep a pile of rotted bark mulch near the compost bins and empty the bin containing the oldest material by piling it on top of the rotted bark mulch. The pile of rotted mulch should be wide and flat on top so the compost material is only 5 to 10 inches thick when it is spread.

The mulch pile might be 12" wide, but only be 24 to 30 inches high. Once the compost is on top of the pile, go around the edge of the pile with a shovel, and take some of the material from the edges of the pile, tossing it up on top of the pile, covering the compost with at least 6" of rotted bark. In this way the compost material will fully decompose.

Once the system is started, don't use all of the material in the pile. Keep at least 2 to 3 cubic yards on hand so there will be something to mix with the compost. If necessary, buy more material and add to e pile in the late summer or fall.

Some supply companies sell a compost material that is already broken down, but try to keep at least 3 yards of old material on hand, adding another 3 yards of fresh material. In the spring you can empty one of the compost bins and add the compost to the top of the pile.

The pile of usable compost will be layers of material, some of which can be chipped off and spread on the ground. You can then mix it together with a tiller and shovel it onto a potting bench.

Having a pile of rotted compost near the compost bins will allow you to throw some rotted compost in the bin, maintaining the layered effect necessary for composting to work well.

Author Resource:- HydroWarehouse is a Discount Hydroponics Supply Store . We offer world class customer service with warehouse prices. Our Secure online catalog contains over 1000 hydroponics , hydroponics system , hydroponics equipment and gardening products.

Article From New Ezine Articles

Getting the Most Out of Your Compost

Sphere: Related Content

After a couple of months taking care of your compost pile, turning over the pile every now and then, warding off insects and pests, and keeping the pile damp, it is only natural (and you should do so) to get the most out of your compost. And this means using the compost wisely and effectively.

You will know the right time to harvest the compost when you no longer recognize the original materials that you used to make the pile. The finished compost should look more soil-like or humus-like. It is dark, loose and smells earthy. When you harvest the compost from your pile, it would be best to spread it out and exposed it to the air. This will further dry the compost and will make is a easier to use.

If you find some bigger chunks still not fully decomposed, throw it back to the next compost pile you’re going to make. One way to get the not fully decomposed material, you can use a screen or wire mesh large enough to let the compost through but small enough to screen the remaining big chunks.

As you probably know by know, compost has a lot of benefits that is why it is often encouraged among gardeners. For starter, compost helps improve the overall soil structure. This means the density and porosity of the soil is improved allowing plants’ roots to grab a hold on the soil better. The soil also becomes more resistant from erosion and runoff. Likewise, adding compost to the soil allows better water retention.

Aside from the soil structure, the macro and micronutrients compost contains provide plants with the needed minerals and nutrients to grow healthy. The soils holds in the nutrients better when compost is added to the soil. Not to mention, compost improves and stabilizes the soil’s acidity levels as well. These are but a few reasons why compost should be used by gardeners.

Let’s go back to your newly harvested compost. After removing those that did not fully decomposed and after curing the finished compost, the next steps would be using what you have been brewing these past few months.

Among the most common usage of compost is as soil amendment. What you do is add the compost to your soil and allow it to draw out the nutrients and other essential minerals for your plants to absorb. You can also spread the compost over the soil before the planting season. You can apply to selected plant surfaces if you have not enough to go around with.

You can also use your compost as mulch. Mulch is a protective layer spread over the soil to help counter the effects of the climate. You might need an ample supply of compost if you use it mulch though. To use it as mulch, you need two to six inches of compost covering the soil surfaces of plants, trees, shrubs, and exposed slopes. As mulch, the compost will help lessen weed growth, prevent erosion, attract earthworms, and help retain water.

Another usage of compost is as potting mix. Mix the compos with sand and soil and voila! You’ll have a great quality potting mix which you can use for your plants. A mix of 1 part sand, 2 parts compost, and 1 to 2 parts soil seems to be the general agreement for using compost as potting mix.

Getting the most out of your compost is only natural. You worked hard creating your compost and you should learn to reap the full benefits.

Making Compost: Getting Your Hands Dirty

Sphere: Related Content

If you’re a gardener then you should not mind getting y our hands dirty. In this line of work, you need to handle plants, soil, rocks, fertilizer, soil conditioners, etc. and not all times a pair of gardening gloves is handy. At times using glove can prevent you handling some delicate stuff. In this case, you have to get down on your knees and get your hands dirty. And nothing is dirtier that making compost.

Composting is a the process were biodegradable materials, usually manure and household wastes, are turned into soil-like output by combining them with a little air, water and nitrogen. Is that too technical for you? Well compost is a dark, crumbly, soil-like substance which functions as soil conditioner, mulch, and fertilizers. It feed your garden soil the microorganism that most plants need to grow healthy and strong.

When making your own compost pile, it would be ideal to find a place near your garden and yet it has enough concealment to not affect the overall look of your garden. Does that make sense? Just like one of the famous movies say “hiding in plain sight”. If such is the case, a cleverly painted compost bin would help make the area neater. A corral or a fenced area would do fine.

After setting up your composting area, you start composting by arranging a 3:1 ratio of brown and green organic materials. Green ingredients contain lots of nitrogen while the brown elements contain lots of carbon. Together, they form the basic foundations of a compost file. The green organic components of gardening include grass clipping while the brown components are the dry leaves and other wood products.

If you’re worried about the possible bad smell that would come out of your compost pile, then don’t. When the ratio of greens and browns is correct, you don’t have to worry of any bad smell from your compost pile. Compost should have this earthy smell and not smelling like rot. If you smell the later then there could have been some things that might have been included in the pile or the ratio of the greens and browns components is not correct.

One way to make certain that your compost pile has jus the right combination of greens and browns components, is to get a pile of green material and put it in you compost bin. Follow it up with two piles of brown materials. Keep this gong until you have a nice pile of leaves and grass that measures about three feet. At this high, you probably have a base measuring 3 feet also. One good thing of having this large a compost pile is that the greens and browns can easily and quickly break down.

If you want, you could add in a bucket of already finished compost to the newly formed pile. This will help start the process and begin the microbial activities in your compost pile.

Make sure that you add enough moisture to the pile as well. Keeping the compost pile damp will help quicken the breakdown of the organic materials. Add water to the pile and feel a sample. It should be damp, somewhat like a sponge. See, I told you your hands will have to get dirty.

There is a need to turn over your compost pile at least once a week to keep it loose allowing air into the pile and quickens the process of decomposition. After two months, you should have decent quality compost by now. The original materials you used should no longer be recognizable.

As you can see, making compost is quite easy and requires not too much of your time.