Organic composting uses recycled household waste and reduces landfill and climate change. Making compost from garden and household waste is one of the best things any gardener can do. Its easy and costs very little in time or effort, once in practic composting is easy.
Making compost will help you reduce pollution and cut down that landfill! Your plants will grow healthier and look happier for it and it will save you money on fertilisers too.
Compost is what garden guides often describe composting as natures way of recycling.
Composting toilets are also natures way of recycling as the human waste is collected in a lot of times in a rotating drum, or in a type of bucket or pit. A composting toilet systems converts human waste into an organic compost and soil, with natural breakdown of organic matter into its essential minerals. Micro and macro organisms do this over time, working through various stages of oxidation and sometimes localized pockets of anaerobic breakdown. Harnessing the natural processes due to time and heat all pathogens and any harmful bacteria is destroyed. The installation and instructions must be followed for the desired results.
Soil maintenance is at the heart of organic growing: dont feed the plants, feed the soil — the plants will look after themselves. The extremely complex subject of soil maintenance can happily be summed up in one word: composting.
Compost is not just decayed organic matter. Composting is applied microbiology at its most complex, involving the interactions of thousands upon thousands of different species of micro organisms in a highly complex ecosystem.
If it can rot it will compost, but some items are best avoided. Some things, like grass mowings and soft young weeds, rot quickly. They work as activators or hotter rotters, getting the composting started, but on their own will decay to a smelly mess. Recycle your plant-based, kitchen and garden waste by making it into compost
Older and tougher plant material is slower to rot but gives body to the finished compost - and usually makes up the bulk of a compost heap. Woody items decay very slowly; they are best chopped or shredded first, where appropriate.
A container or brown bin is not an absolute necessity as you can make perfectly good compost in a free standing heap as long as it is large enough, you will see later why this may be a drawback. Assuming then that we need to make a container we are faced with many choices.
Why not make or buy a compost bin? Theyre usually cheap to buy, and are available in wood or recycled plastic (that might otherwise be in your local landfill site). If youre keen you could combine it with a wormery or use a shredder which increases the amount of compostable waste. Do not compost foods such as dairy produce, meat, bread etc as these attract flies and vermin.
When your compost pile is much smaller and looks like rich soil, its ready. What was a pile of plant material will gradually, from the bottom up, turn into a pile of dark stuff that looks like brown dirt. Eventually, none of the items you put in there will be recognizable. If youre using it out in the garden, a few small recognizable bits wont hurt - theyll finish composting in the garden. If youre using it for houseplants or to start seeds, its better to wait until its well finished so you dont have microbes attacking the fine rootlets of new plants.
Dig it in to have a healthy, fertile garden and your fruit and vegetables can be organic. Don’t assume the waste is harmless and bin it. Putting it in landfill costs money and it will produce methane (a global warming gas); also it may pollute the groundwater.
Compost waste often comprises about 20-30% of your total household waste and the impact on recycling is significant.
Looking for more Gardening Articles Mark Marris
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