Slowly but Surely

 

Wooden Compost Bin

8/23/2010

 
Now there's nothing I like better than getting cosy in a compost heap - it's warm, it's wet and it's constantly topped up with lots of yummy vegetation.  It's the nearest thing we gastropods get to fast food!  Aside from me, there are lots of other good reasons to get a good heap going on your plot.

A sturdy compost bin is the vital secret of any flourishing vegetable garden and it's good to know garden composting is taking pride of place amongst grow-your-own types. Nearly everybody nowadays recognizes that it is vital to recycle. We can't keep using rubbish tips, soon we will be living on top of nothing but junk. More importantly land fill is to blame for considerable emissions of methane, this green house gas is way more dangerous than carbon dioxide. By far the most satisfying method of recycling is unquestionably composting garden and household waste. Filling a compost bin delivers its very own particular satisfaction. Converting leftovers from the kitchen and old card and cardboard into crumbling, sweet-smelling compost is a awesome kind of alchemy. The compost you create can be utilised to improve your garden soil, which in turn can replenish the kitchen with garden vegetables. How awesome to be taking a part in the life cycle of decay and renewal. You never even have to leave home (pretty good for minimizing your carbon footprint!) and moreover you get wonderful compost for free.

Garden soils, in particular those soils intensively cultivated for harvesting home grown vegetables where we demand high performance from crops, will need the addition of compost for a couple of functions: First of all to enhance the composition of the soil and next to provide vital nutrients to the topsoil. In cases where a soil is too heavy, made up of larger sized particles, and predisposed to poor drainage, this soil is usually labelled as clay soil. Roots struggle to get nutrients and may rot completely in chilly, wet winter seasons. When soil is light and does not retain water, for instance sandy soils, valuable nutrients and minerals are washed away swiftly and crops are not able to draw out water and goodness from the soil. The addition of organic, hummus rich matter, which includes garden compost not merely restores nutrients to worn-out top soil but adds structure. This makes poor soil more moisture and nutrient retentive, and frees up clay soils to make them much more free draining allowing the roots of plants to make full use of the goodness bound in the soil. A thick mulch of home-made compost during fallow periods will also guard bare soil from erosion and suppress weeds.

If a gardener did nothing more besides dispose of all your leftovers and garden waste material in a secluded corner of the plot it would in all probability rot down to compost in the long run, nevertheless for faster results at least one compost bin is necessary. A classic wooden compost bin is the most attractive looking, and the best are sold together with add-on modules. The advantage of this approach is that you can start one bin, turn it over into the following, so that you can provide beneficial mixing and aeration, then leave it to rot whilst beginning to fill the now empty compost bin with new organic waste. Lots of keen vegetable growers perfer to do this using a three-bin procedure and this enables them to basically produce compost as they need it, in harmony with the gardening seasons. Compost tumblers, which rotate and aerate compost without the gardener even so much as having to reach for their fork, or the new innovative Aerobin 400 garden composter featuring a central aerating ‘lung’, can make compost within several weeks after they have been filled. These bins are entirely enclosed, with additional insulation to produce high temperatures regardless of the time of year, and also have the benefit of being rodent resistant.

Whichever model of compost bin you decide upon the guidelines on what waste matter to include are generally identical, it's good to get a balance of ‘brown’ and ‘green’ waste. Green waste is nitrogen rich and is essential to kickstart the composting process. Green waste substances are usually a good source of nutrients in the compost. Brown waste is rich in carbon and supplies bulk and texture. Generally speaking when first starting try to achieve a fifty/fifty mix, adding green and brown waste alternately. You might find you have to add much more brown waste if the compost appears damp and slimy, many growers would argue that the balance should tip towards brown waste in any case. If the contents of the bin are too dry however, decomposition will cease and so it's good to splash water onto the heap. (Better still ask a gentleman to urinate over it !) Green waste includes fruit and veg peelings, grass cuttings, green leafy waste, annual weeds, comfrey, nettles. The last two being very good garden compost activators, but don't forget just leaves please, no seed heads or roots otherwise your vegetable garden will be crowded with undesirable weeds. Brown waste includes shredded or scrunched paper, ripped-up cardboard, dry autumn leaves, woodash, the contents of your vacuum cleaner, twigs and hedge trimmings which have been put through a chipper. If you’ve opted for a traditional wooden compost bin situate it on open soil so that beneficial micro-organisms can gain access to the heap, and remember to turn and aerate the compost every now and again.

 

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