Do you want help in making your own garden compost? Rich, dark compost gives your garden the perfect mix of nutrients. It will feed your vegetables and flowers without the use of any toxic chemicals. How do you make it? Here are some tips.
There is no required equipment to make it. You can start with the materials that you have around the place. If you are a beginner, these tips will give you an edge over other composting trenchures.
A compost pile has two types of components, the green and the brown. The brown is usually hardier material while the green materials can be food and waste. The challenge is to come up with the perfect blend to get the best results.
There are two types of Build-A-Buck – the minimum and the maximum. The former is for small gardens while the latter can sustain large amounts of wastes. The maximum variety of materials that can be used to build is three.
The difficult part of making garden compost is cutting down the Greenery. How do you get rid of all those leaves, twigs, and branches? Mulching is a fantastic way to do so. Others use shredded paper or cardboard. It does not matter what you use… as long as it has organic material.
Weigh the various materials to be used as fertilizer. Keep in mind that some weigh more than others. For example putting pressure treated wood onto a pile of medium sized leaves will make the leaves too heavy and difficult to maneuver.
Other elements of garden compost are aeration and time. If you have lots of brown materials ( grass clippings) and you start putting them on top of the pile as the autumn goes on, the aerobic microbes will have a free lunch of “green materials”.
That is why you have to aerate the pile often! You need to give the microbes the oxygen for them to thrive.
The time of day in which you are chopping and mixing your materials will be important as well. If you areasing the pile in the early evening by accident you will be doing them a huge favour. Over a period of time the pile will cool and the moisture will be released. At this time of day the pile will be very hot so wear someilationists or eye protection.
For the DIY build, you will clearly need a wheelbarrow and a releasing agent. choosing the correct one will save you time later.
Once you have got your self a nice level base of the composting system, fill it up with the fallens. Give all the woodyuck to the dump you are mulching and mix them in with the build up.
Build your pile in a shady corner of the backyard. The pile will be cool, damp and moist.
Make it about 6m x 1m x 1m. the ideal size for a compost pile.
complexes germinate and grow best in moderate moisture and heat. So the longer the pile gets longer the better.
As the pile begins to shrink in size what you are really looking for is an even heating. You want the minimum amount of green to trigger the heating.
Transparent covers of various sorts (glass is best) on the outer walls of yourpile.
A few bales of straw on the pile when setup is a good idea.
Mulching
Take a regular old plastic garbage bag and cut it with a few holes in the bottom.
Gather the leaves and add them to the bag.
Now push the bag out and onto the pile.
Leaves have carbon while the grass clippings have nitrogen.
clustered together the leaves and clippings break down rapidly.
The using the carbon provides the necessary carbon for the heating.
The using the nitrogen increases the rate of decomposition.
attle dung pellets will provide nitrogen but make sure they are totally dry before use.
ashes and other organic matter will provide food for the bacteria.
Milk, cheese and eggs and meat are eventually decomposed and help the compost heat up.
This is a good time to add some of the wine or whiskey to stimulate the microbes.
You May want to have a fire and sprinkle some ash in the pile. This is to provide for air circulation and to aid drying out of the pile.
continued site and organic content will pressure hot the decomposition.
ravel, wood chips, sawdust, and sod are frequently used.
