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Tips on Composting

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Benefits of Composting

Compost encourages earthworms and other beneficial organisms whose activities help plants grow strong and healthy. It provides nutrients and improves the soil. Wet clay soils drain better and sandy soils hold more moisture when they include compost. A compost pile keeps organic matter handy for garden use. Compost in the garden will:
  1. help sandy soil to retain moisture;
  2. supply organic nourishment to plants;
  3. stop the soil surface from setting hard;
  4. provide an organic way to use your kitchen scraps and lawn clippings;
  5. builds sound root structure;
  6. balances pH (acidity/alkalinity) of soil;
  7. reduces water demands of plants and trees;
  8. improves vitamin and mineral content in food grown in compost-rich soils

Composting is Nature’s way of recycling. Composting is the biological reduction of organic wastes to humus: a rich humus with a slightly sweet, earthy aroma. Effective composts should be built layer upon layer, alternating food wastes with an activator such as animal manure, blood and bone, or liquid seaweed. The nitrogen and protein content of the activator accelerates the breakdown of the organic matter and encourages the bacteria to heat up the heap.

Compost is not really a mulch. Compost is a perfect soil, ready for plant life to take the nutrients from it. Mulch is in a raw state, and it is not until the soil life turns it into compost within the soil that it is ready to give and share its goodies.

Keep your bin or pile in a semi-shaded area to keep it from drying out too much. The material in the bin will get hot as it decomposes, but after the hot stage you want earthworms to colonise the compost. A bin in the sun may always be too hot for earthworms. Bins with ridges down the side and revolving bins are helpful in aerating compost.

Alternatively, clear a patch of ground - remove grass and level if necessary. Scatter a few bricks within the cleared area (edge down) to allow air to circulate into the heap. Alternatively, put twigs or other unshredded carbon on the bottom of the pile to provide some aeration at the base. Compost should always be built on soil and never on concrete.

Building a Compost

For the first layer of material, use a variety of materials eg. food scraps, crushed eggshells, lawn clippings, leaves, soft prunings, seaweed, old cut flowers, tea leaves and coffe grounds, etc. Chop up everything as small as you can. Run the mower over leaves, put prunings through a mulcher or chop them manually. This greatly increases the rate of decomposition.

Next dust over a layer of fowl or cow manure, dolomite or blood and bone to a depth of about 1cm (1/2in). Sprinkle with water. Repeat this procedure until your pile is built. Keep the mixture moist - too wet and there will not be enough air, too dry and decomposition will slow down dramatically.

Don’t put weeds with seed heads and invasive plants that strike easily from stem tissue in the bin or heap. A really hot compost heap can kill these off, but you would need a very big heap and the outside of the heap would have to be turned to the inside in order to kill all the material.

Your compost pile may benefit from an activator . Activators get the pile working, and speed the process. Alfalfa meal, barnyard manure, bonemeal, cottonseed meal, blood meal, and good rich compost from a finished pile are all good activators. Each time you add a layer to your pile, sprinkle on some activator and water well.

Get air into the mixture by turning it over regularly - at least weekly. Mixing the compost allows oxygen into the center of the pile, where it encourages the growth of bacteria and fungi. Without enough air the mix becomes anaerobic and smells badly. It can also become so acidic that it can kill plants. A broomstick can be used effectively to fluff up material in a closed bin (even pushing the stick down into the compost to make "breathing holes" works well).

Decomposition relies on lots of microbes. The material you put in the compost bin will contain plenty, but to give the population a boost, add a spade or shovelful of compost from the last batch, or a spade or shovelful of soil. Packaged compost accelerators are of limited value.

Adding lime may reduce any smell and speed up decomposition but can cause a dramatic loss of nitrogen. Adding some gypsum will provide additional calcium and it also helps to reduce any smell.

Don't include fish, meat and fats in your composting materials (they attract rats and mice), and also avoid citrus skins and onions which earthworms hate. Earthworms are great for processing organic material into nutrient-rich worm casts.

Fruit infested with fruit fly should be put in a sealed plastic bag in the sun for a week before it is added to the heap.

It is a good idea to have two bins or heaps - one that you are adding to daily and one that is "cooking" - it takes several months for compost to be ready for use. A compost pile about one metre in height should be broken down into humus after 2 months in Summer, but longer in Winter. Add to garden soil in Spring and Autumn at the rate of 1kg per square metre, or a 5cm (2-1/2in) covering over the garden bed. Compost can also be used for container plants, raising seedlings and mulching around growing plants.

When your compost is ready, it can be mixed into the soil before planting or applied to the surface of the soil as a mulch. It's best to use it as soon as it is ready. The longer it sits, the fewer nutrients it will contain.

UNDERGROUND COMPOSTING

If you don't have a compost bin or heap, simply dig a hole in the garden, fill it with kitchen scraps, sprinkle over a cup of dolomite and cover again with soil. After a couple of weeks or so, earthworms will have the soil workable, giving you a high-quality humus.

What to Compost

  • old potting soil kitchen vegetable and fruit scraps including egg shells which are rich in calcium
  • bread, cereals, grains and pasta
  • lawn clippings (use thin layers so they don't mat down)
  • chopped leaves (large leaves take a long time to break down)
  • shredded branches
  • garden plants (use disease-free plants)
  • shredded paper including newspaper
  • weeds (before they go to seed)
  • straw or hay
  • sawdust
  • wood ash (sprinkle lightly between layers)
  • old cut flowers
  • tea leaves, bags and coffee grounds

What Not to Compost

  • Meat or fish scraps, bones or fatty refuse
  • excessive wood ashes (counteracts with manures)
  • don't add your dog or cat manure (their worming treatment can kill off composting worms)
  • Although orange skins and citrus skins of all kinds are richer in nitrogen if the skins are thick, minimise their inclusion in your compost as they are too acidic for worms. Worms aren't real fussy about onions, either.
  • plastics, metals
  • fats and oils, dairy products, cheese, food sauces
  • too much sawdust generally slows the decomposition of the pile - never add chemically-treated wood products.


YOUR COMPOST IS READY

Your compost is ‘finished’ when the inside temperature falls near the outside temperature and there is no ammonia odour remaining. It will be a dark, crumbly soil with no stems or leaves remaining and will have a rich ‘earthy’ smell (no unpleasant odours). The compost should be kept moist and covered to protect it from rain, which will leach nutrients.

COMPOST TEA

Put compost in a burlap bag and set in water. Agitate every once in a while. In a few hours to a few days (depending on amount of compost and water) you will have compost tea. You can make compost tea in containers from the size of a watering can to the size of a garbage can, or larger. For use, the tea should be a light amber color. If it is darker than that, simply dilute with water. Pour a pint each around shrubs, water your lawn with it, soak seeds in it before planting. The compost used to make the tea is still potent. Use it as you would use fresh compost.

HELPFUL HINTS

Too wet? Add a few shovelfuls of garden soil and dry material such as fallen leaves or straw. Mix again. Cover in very rainy weather. Check drainage is adequate. The pile should be damp like a wrung out sponge, neither still dripping nor dry.
Too dry? Out with the hose and garden fork. Sprinkle, sprinkle, mix, mix - it will soon be fixed.
Too slow? Wait for warmer weather or add more juicy vegetable peels and some animal manure. Also make sure the particles are not too large - you'll soon get the hang of it. In Winter, compost will break down more quicly if you keep the heap warm. Try covering it with an old piece of carpet, underfelt or a few layers of hessian.
Too smelly? Turn it more often, dry it out a bit. Your heap needs more air in it and less water. Sulphur odour (rotten-egg smell) occurs when the pile is too wet. Ammonia odour occurs when there is an excess of nitrogen or green material.

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