SolveYourProblem Article Series: Gardening
Everyday Gardening Tips & Advice

What Are The Benefits of Composting?
     

Composting may be the best way to reuse your kitchen scraps and garden rubbish. It is fantastic for your garden and improves it by:

• It reduces the amount of garden rubbish that is going to be put in our landfills and the amount of methane that is generated.
• Your garden will need fewer garden chemicals because of the richness of the soil and the more productive the plants will be
• It improves the soil’s fertility and texture
• It makes the soil retain more moisture and more nutrients
• It cost less to do and is much easier to make

Make sure to contact your local council to find out the composting resources that are available in your area.

How does composting work?

It involves the breaking down of the organic material by a big number of fungi and bacteria. These bacteria need, moisture, oxygen, and the correct, mix of nutrients to work properly. The right combo of these things in compost heaps allows the breaking down of organic matter and that allows for it to make heat. The center of the heap can get up to 60 degrees Celsius in a good compost heap. The lower maintenance compost can produce good compost at lower temperatures over a longer period of time. There are two kinds of organic material you can put into a compost heap - browns and greens. The brown materials have a lot of carbon in it and include:

• Shredded paper
• Straw
• Vacuum cleaner dust
• Sawdust (but not from any treated wood)

Green materials have lots of nitrogen and include:

• Kitchen scrapes, including but not limited to coffee grounds, tea bags. However, don’t put meat or dairy products in unless your compost system is set-up for the animals that those will attract.
• Weeds, but not very invasive weeds such as onion grass, oxalis, and convovulus. These will not break up in lower temperature piles
• Grass clippings, but the clippings should have not been sprayed with a weed killer

So, can you compost? Some people use many different ways of composting, some include:

A compost bin - a plastic bin or make your own from wood or concrete blocks. However, for big gardens, make sure to have several bins lying around.

A compost heap - a pile of material that is covered by polythene or carpet.

Worm farming - by using worms to help the composting process. Make sure to buy a worm bin or make your own out of a stack of tires or in an old bathtub.

Trenching - for bigger gardens, bury the kitchen scraps (but no meat or dairy products) in the trenches in your garden, then cover it with a large amount of soil and plant on top of it.

Get the right mix

Get the mix with browns and greens. Too much green can lead to compaction, overheating, and loss of oxygen, while having too much brown can slow down the composting process. The perfect mix of greens and browns is one to two parts green to one part brown (or five centimeters of brown for every ten centimeters of green) in alternating layers.

Chop or Blend

If you would like to speed up the process of composting, make sure the material that is going into the compost is chopped up and it is kept very moist. It should be like a damp sponge. If it has too much water, it may result in a slimy, smelly mess. However, if it doesn’t have enough water, it will slow down the breaking down process.  If the greens aren’t very soggy, then make sure to water the browns as they are going into the compost heap. If you don’t have a compost bin with a lid, then cover your compost heap with sacking, carpet, polythene, or corrugated iron. These covers keep the heat in that is made by the breaking down process and prevent rainwater from getting in or moisture from evaporating away.

Turn, Turn, Turn

You need to try and turn your compost heap regularly, if at all possible. These turns ensure that there is enough of a supply of oxygen to aid the break down process. If you can’t turn your compost pile, you can try:

• Adding twigs and branches to your pile
• In addition, put a pipe with holes in it through the middle of the pile to let it air out.

Make sure to check yourself after you work with your compost pile. The pile contains many different living organisms. On rare occasions, the organisms have been associated with allergies and illness in humans (usually people that have respiratory illnesses or people with compromised immune systems). For these reasons, take these precautions when touching your compost heap:

• Avoid confined spaces for the handling of compost or soil
• Keep compost moist to stop the spores and dust problems
• Protect broken or open skin by wearing gloves or by covering them
• Wash your hands after handling the compost or soil.

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SolveYourProblem.com : 2007

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