Compost: A Precious but Free Resource for Gardeners
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For organic gardeners the most important type of recycling to be done is that of nutrients around the garden.
The best way to do this is to turn all green waste from the garden and, to a certain extent the kitchen, into compost. The black gold that cooks quietly away in its makeshift boxes in a quiet corner becomes ready-made food for both plants and soil. The manufacture of this precious resource should be taken seriously for there is never enough and, once mastered, the technique is never forgotten.
In fact, compost-making tends to develop into obsession as gardeners concoct their own recipes for the magic brew.
The raw materials are present in every garden, large or small, so it makes sense to get composting, especially when you take into account the expense of bagged compost from garden centres. Even weeds can be used - they have to go somewhere, so make them work for you.
We take vegetables, fruit and flowers from the garden and, to keep the soil healthy, we must add compost. It is one of the most powerful aids in the organic gardener's repertoire, helping to produce strong plants that are better able to withstand attacks from pests and diseases.
Gardens are almost always behind the clock on nutrition, which is dangerous if you are switching to organic cultivation because poor soil will produce weak, vulnerable plants.
The process is simple, yet somehow has become shrouded in mystery. If organic matter is left to decay in a heap it will rot down and become compost. This is what happens naturally on the forest floor where animal and plant wastes mix together on the soil surface and rot.
That is what you find if you go into a mature wood and scrape back the surface leaf litter. You could call it leaf mould, but really it is compost.
In the garden it is best managed in a container for ease of handling and speedier rotting. Bins are given away free by local authorities and the ideal size for a bin or box is one metre square. It doesn't matter whether it is placed in sun or shade because compost, like soil, will form its own skin. The topmost layer will be the slowest to rot down because it has less access to the organisms that cause the breakdown of the material.
You can cover it if you wish but I prefer it to remain open to the elements to let nature run her course. Two heaps are better than one so you can use one pile of made compost while adding fresh material (of which there is a constant supply in most gardens all year round) to an adjacent one.
There need never be any watering or turning of the heap as long as these basic rules are adhered to:
- Anything that was once alive may be added as long as it is chopped up small and not dumped in in solid blocks. This includes perennial weeds such as ground elder, docks, dandelions, nettles and creeping buttercup.
- Lawn mowings are good because they are nitrogen-rich and aid in the decomposition of the compost heap.
- Don't add prunings that are very woody. Carbon-rich material takes much longer to break down and will slow the cooking of the heap. It is the heat created by the multitude of organisms in the heap that causes the breakdown and destroys weed seeds as well as pernicious weeds. If your early attempts release viable weed seeds don't worry - you have weed seeds present in your garden soil anyway.
- Cooked food, meat and eggshells may encourage rats. Very smelly kitchen compost buckets that have been left for a few days in the warmth of the kitchen will do likewise. Keep adding small quantities to the heap regularly, including wood ash which will add valuable potassium, and small quantities of shredded paper (unless you are worried about dyes) until it is full.
After three months it will be ready, winter or summer, but if you want to leave it for longer it will not deteriorate.
The compost is ideal for adding to beds as well as containers and makes an excellent mulch.
This article originally appeared in the Telegraph on 28/07/2007. link