Garden Compost to Produce Blooming Gardens

Eco Friendly Compost Reduces Waste and Increases Garden Produce

Sep 4, 2008 Laurence O'Sullivan

Well balanced compost helps to produce a lush garden while home produced compost is good for the environment. A well designed compost bin produces eco-friendly mulch.

Compost and gardens go hand in hand and complement each other – gardens yield compost and compost produces blooming gardens. Compost is free, eco friendly and available from all gardens. It can be made with little or no effort. A compost bin is all that is required to produce beneficial compost all year round.

Making Garden Compost

It is easy to make good compost and the finished product should smell good and wholesome. If it does not it will not be of any benefit to the garden and will end up being a drawback instead of an asset. So it is best to get things right in the beginning. Good compost will usually take about 6-8 months to make so plan ahead.

Achieving Compost Success

To achieve success with compost making it is important to have a proper mix of nitrogen rich and carbon rich ingredients. To help achieve this mix remember nitrogen rich ingredients are usually green, fresh cuttings and carbon rich are more often brown, dry leaves and such.

When making the compost place layers of different ingredients into the bin. Put wet greens on top of dry browns, layer after layer, pack them down a bit but not too much as to prevent air from circulating. Cover the bin to keep it dry from excess rain and then just wait. Turn the ingredients every few weeks; the ideal situation is to have two bins whereby the compost can be transferred from one to the other giving the whole contents a good mix and shake up.

Compost Ingredients

Basically compost is rotted vegetation and this includes leaves, grass cuttings (but not too much), herbaceous cuttings, kitchen vegetable waste, straw and newspapers. Newspapers should be shredded. In fact the more the ingredients are broken down before being placed in the compost bin all the better as decomposition will be faster. Avoid putting weeds in to the compost as the seeds will only germinate and spread.

Well Balanced Compost

Always try to have a few bags of autumn leaves dry and on stand-by in case the compost heap becomes too wet. If this happens turn it over and dig in the dry leaves to help balance things. Too dry is better than too wet so when making compost add water but never over water. If there are a lot of kitchen peelings etc. included in the ingredients these will make the finished compost too acidic, so it is wise to add some lime to end up with an all-round compost.

Compost Bins

Compost bins can be purchased in garden centers and they can also be home-made so they can be as individual as the gardener. The bought ones are ideal for the smaller garden but it may be necessary to build a compost bin if there is a large amount of material constantly available. Select the site with care so as to have enough room to work the compost and to have easy access with a wheelbarrow or whatever.

Bins can be made from discarded pallets, wire mesh, cardboard boxes or a concrete construction. They can also be made from any large plastic containers. The essential requirement of a good compost bin is to have air circulating; compost needs aeration from underneath. Also, you must protect it from the rain.

Compost Uses

Homemade organic compost is a rich, wholesome food for garden plants. Good compost is never smelly or slimy – it is nutritious and above all free. Use it for soil enrichment, mulching, potting, in the greenhouse and about everywhere else a plant, a shrub, a bulb or a tree is planted. For the environmentally aware, making home produced compost is an ideal means to recycle waste material

The copyright of the article Garden Compost to Produce Blooming Gardens in Organic Gardens is owned by Laurence O'Sullivan. Permission to republish Garden Compost to Produce Blooming Gardens in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.