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Posts Tagged ‘compost’

How To Make Compost

July 16th, 2010

Gardening is fantastic. You will be able to give yourself and your family with your own home-grown vegetables that are out from your garden. Gardening not only saves you money, nevertheless your fruits and vegetables that you will grow can be without dangerous fertilizers by composting. The way you compost will make a big difference in your achievement.

What is composting? Compost is simply a combination of garden waste, kitchen scraps, along with other natural materials that can be totally broken down (decomposed) into a material that you will be able to utilize to help feed your garden. It will be a dark substance that will be a “food” meant for the soil for the reason that it will be very full of nutrients from all the natural substance it contains. The precise term for compost is humus. But, for our aim at this time we are going to simply label it compost.

Why must you learn how to compost? You will see that there are in fact two intentions to compost: One, it can be completely environmentally friendly. Composting reduces most amount of wastes that goes into the landfills. The more composting we employ in, the less we are contributing for the cost of trash removal. Composting to a great extent reduces the need for manufactured and possibly harmful fertilizers. Employing fewer fertilizer will mean that there is fewer ground water contamination from the overuse of fertilizer. Second, seeing as it will be packed of raw nutrients, it is certain that it is terrific used for the garden. Composting improves the nature of the soil. This will be able to generate better vegetation. A healthier plant is more resistant to plant diseases. Compost also will make it more simple for the dirt to embrace along with preserve water. It improves sandy moreover clay-like soil.

Learning how to compost will be essential. What can you employ to create compost? You will have to put together some area in order to perform this appropriately. Remember that you will, however, want to produce a space close to the garden so that the composting spot is easily easy to get to. However you will also choose to create it easy for you to get all the raw materials such like grass, leaves, food, and so on inside the compost bin.

What must you not utilize in your compost? You should not employ any meats in the compost mix. Additionally, you will have to steer clear of any animal fats. If you apply them, you are going to unintentionally invite little “neighbors” from your surrounding area wanting to eat out of your composting bin. Do not use newspaper or shredded paper. Employing them can be a problem since they are known to contain chemicals that is going to be a bit unsafe for your compost. Cat as well as dog feces will be a problem because they are known to contain tiny parasites moreover they as well retain a awful odor. Your compost pile is not a waste area. You can utilize manure from chickens, cattle, and horses in tiny amounts. Nevertheless they possess an smell as well.

How do you get compost? Make a container or else bin that will store all the materials that you want to include. You can search on the web for a style of your preference. But the major factor to execute in composting is turning your composting mixture over and over. This gets the mixture ideal and adds necessary air to the composting procedure.

Composting appropriately will create a thriving as well as better garden that you may benefit from at the same time as being environmentally plus cost conscious. A win-win for everybody.

Technorati Tags: compost, garden, home.landscape

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A Review of My Brand New Stainless Steel Compost Pail

May 3rd, 2009

I’ve had my EZ grip stainless steel compost pail for about a week now and I have to say, I could not be more pleased. I have always considered myself midly eco-friendly, and I’ve had a compost pile in the yard for quite some time now, but up until now, I’ve been stuck with trying to remember to take out the fruit peelings and coffee grounds as soon as I was done with them. For some time, we attempted to use a container on the counter top, but it invariably started to smell and we wound up with a fruit fly problem, so that ended almost as quickly as it started.

Now at long last though, I believe I have found the answer. This cute little compost pail fits right on my (always messy, of course) kitchen counter and can hold up to a week’s worth of kitchen scraps before it fills up. All the while, because of the filter, it doesn’t smell! To make things much better, because it is stainless steel, I don’t have to worry about it getting bumped off the counter and getting cracked, unlike that ugly old plastic bucket.

The handle on it is great also, as I can carry it like a teapot without having to worry about grabbing it by the wrong part and spilling everything all over the floor. The other handles are also great, easy to use and very comfortable. The lid fits on very tightly so I don’t have to worry about anything escaping or anyone getting into it. Someone with cats or toddlers should know what I am talking about. This thing really is very well made.

Because of its shiny stainless steel, it’s easy to keep clean. A quick swipe of glass cleaner, or in really bad cases a sponge and it is good as the day I bought it. The fingerprints I can live with, but if I wanted to, I could also take care of those easily as well.

If you have a compost pile I highly recommend this product to make getting your compost out to the pile nearly hassle free. If you don’t already compost your kitchen scraps and lawn extras, there is no time like the present to get started. It’s a great way to reduce the amount of food waste going into the landfill and fertilize your garden at the same time.

Technorati Tags: compost, compost pail, kitchen compost, Organic Gardening, stainless steel compost pail

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Easy Everyday Kitchen Compost Materials

April 28th, 2009

Winter is the time of year I start thinking about my flower and vegetable gardens. It may seem a little strange to some people, because nothing usually grows much in the winter time, but this does tend to be the best time of year to start your compost pile.

Now I don’t create “official” compost piles and I don’t have any kind of composting bin either. Instead, I mix a variety of natural materials together in one of my garden beds, and let those decompose on their own. My two favorite things to use are coffee grounds and fireplace ashes.

Coffee grounds make wonderful food for almost any kind of plant or flower. I sometimes spread them around the base of my indoor container plants, and sometimes I mix them into my soil when planting something new.

In the winter time though, I tend to have a lot of fireplace ashes. Since I’ve got a fire going regularly in my fireplace, it needs to be cleaned out every week or so. When it’s time to clean out the ashes from my fireplace, I simply scoop them into a bucket. Then I take that bucket to a garden bed that’s right outside my office door, and I dump them in the corner.

I have coffee every day too, but I don’t always remember to dump my used coffee grounds, so this is done randomly and occasionally. The same simple proceedure applies though: Just empty the coffee grounds into a bucket, and take them outside. I dump them into the same corner as the fireplace ashes. Then once in awhile I may stir, mix or spread the pile if it gets a little big.

If you drink tea instead of coffee, tea grounds work just as well. In fact, you can toss the entire tea bag into your compost pile, but it will take longer to decompose that way.

These everyday household items are all I tend to use for enriching my garden bed soil. In the spring when I start preparing the beds for planting, I simply mix the ashes and coffee grounds into the soil itself. I then scoop out some into buckets and spread it around to other beds around my yard, and mix it into the soil in each of those too.

Creating compost or enriching your soil in this casual manner does take a bit longer, but it works wonderfully over time. If you’d like to speed up the process you can of course create a full fledged dedicated compost pile in your backyard, or buy a commercial compost bin. Some of them turn your scraps into rich compost within just a month or two.

Other every day items that you can add to your pile include:

Newspaper scraps – They’ll decompose faster if you shred them first.

Fruit and Vegetable scraps – These also will decompose faster if you chop or shred them first. Be aware though: Adding these to your pile can be a bit “smelly”.

Technorati Tags: compost, gardening, soil enrichment

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