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Compost is the result of a wonderful alchemy that transforms garden and kitchen waste into black gold ... and I don't mean oil!
When piled together for a span of time, everyday garden ingredients including fallen leaves, garden trimmings, weeds, grass clippings and kitchen scraps decompose into a powdery black, organic material rich in healthy soil bacteria.
This free garden resource, often referred to as the other 'black gold', is an idea for amending soil, top dressing lawns and beds, mulching beds, improving the texture and moisture-retentive properties of soil, and even using straight as a planning medium.
In sandy soil, compost acts as a sponge to hold nutrients and water and in any type of soil, compost provides nutrients and beneficial micro-organisms.
Compost also brings the pH closer to neutral. Don't worry about overdosing the soil with organic amendments - you never can have too much.
Compost happens naturally. Walk through an old forest and notice the spongy, rich soil under the trees, which is the result of centuries of decomposing leaves breaking into humus. However, you can speed up the natural process.
To work most efficiently, the micro-organisms that cause composting need a balanced diet of carbon and nitrogen as well as air and moisture.
Composting is easy. Anyone can create their own compost mix regardless of the size of their garden.
No fancy equipment or special expertise is required. At the end of the season, you will reap the rewards of finished compost, knowing that you made it all by yourself.
The ideal compost heap should be about 90cm wide x 90cm long x 90cm deep. It will quickly shrink by as much as 50 per cent. That's a good indication that the material is breaking down well.
A compost pile should be contained so as to attain a minimum height of 90cm.
A simple three-sided wire mesh fence on posts, or specially created wire bin would work well.
Dig a shallow hole and build on top of that. Alternate 4-to-6 inch thick layer of brown material (dry leaves, straw and wood chippings) that are high in carbon and green matter such as grass clippings, manure and kitchen scraps which are high in nitrogen.
Sprinkle a little water and garden soil between each layer to help things along.
About once a week, turn the pile with a pitchfork. Turning adds oxygen which helps the compost to cook faster. Keep the pile watered.
The compost is properly moist when it feels like a wrung out sponge, neither soggy nor very dry. Using this technique, it takes about six weeks to produce finished compost.
The micro-organisms working in your compost need about three times as much carbon as nitrogen. Heavy doses of carbon also speed up the process.
You will never have enough compost. The more you make, the more uses you will find for it.
Compost ingredients:
Browns (carbon) - needs two to three times as much browns as greens.
Dry leaves, brown plant wastes, shredded newspapers and cardboards, wood chips and sawdust, corn stalks, used potting soil.
Greens (nitrogen) - manure, grass clippings, garden waste, kitchen waste, blood meal.
