Composting the Easy Way

Article by: Michael McGroarty

You are welcome to use this article on your website or in your newsletter as long as you reprint it as is, including the contact information , Plants and Trees Native to Bridgeton Township Pa. at the end. Website URLs must be active links. You are welcome to use this article with an affiliate link, http://www.freeplants.com/resellers.htm Having an ample supply of good rich compost , Security in Todays World is the gardeners dream. It has many uses, and all of those uses will result in nicer plants. , Gardening: It may just be the best thing you can do for yourself. However, composting can be time consuming and hard work. I place , Types Of Lawn Mower Batteries a reasonable value on my time, so spending hours and hours turning compost , Choosing A Realtor piles doesn't qualify as a worthwhile exercise, at least in my book. Nonetheless, I do compost, , Sky Pencil Hollies Are Used in Quakertown Pa. but I do so on my terms. I built two composting bins. Each bin is five feet wide, five feet deep, and four feet high. I built the bins by sinking 4" by 4" posts in the ground for the corners, and then nailed 2 by 4's and 1 by 4's, alternating on the sides. I left 2" gaps between the boards for air , Security in Todays World circulation. The 2 by 4's are rigid enough to keep the sides from bowing out, and in between each 2 by 4 I used 1 by 4's to save , Greenhouse Gardening a little money. The bins are only 3 sided, I left the front of the bins open so they can be filled and emptied easily. Photos of my compost , Define your spaces with an area rug. bins are on this page: http://www.freeplants.com\composting.htm I started by filling just one of the bins. I put grass , Peace of Mind for Home Inspections clippings, dried leaves, and shrub , Warm & Toasty Outdoors with Patio Heaters clippings in the bins. I try not to put more than 6" of each material on a layer. You don't want 24" of grass , Define your spaces with an area rug. clippings in the bin and you should alternate layers of green , The Dawn Redwood Tree - Beyond Fast Growing and brown material. If necessary, keep a few bags of dry leaves around so you can alternate layers of brown waste and green , Decorating on a Shoestring Budget waste. When we root , A Look at Sewing Machine Parts cuttings we use coarse sand , Make you'r home look good with a floor rug in the flats, , Security in Todays World so when it's time to pull the rooted cuttings out of the flats, , Tips on Making Beautiful Floral Arrangements the old sand , Homeowner Tip: Receive $30 for your old, second fridge goes on the compost , Tarps – Your Versatile Outdoor Friend pile. In our little backyard , Picking the best flowers for your home garden nursery we also have some plants , Choosing A Realtor in containers that do not survive. Rather than pulling the dead plant , Using perennials in your garden and the weeds , Picking the best flowers for your home garden out of the container, and then dumping the potting soil , Define your spaces with an area rug. back on the soil , Decorating on a Shoestring Budget pile, we just dump the whole container in the compost , Picking the best flowers for your home garden bin. This adds more brown material to the mix, and is a lot easier than separating the soil , Add Some Pizzazz to Your Powder Room! and the weeds. , Choosing A Realtor Once the bin is full, the rules of composting say that you should turn the material in the bin every few weeks. There is no way that I have time to do that, so this is what I do. I pack as much material in the bin as I can before I start filling the second bin. I pile the material as high as I possibly can, and even let it spill out in front of the bin. Then I cover all the fresh material with mulch or potting soil, , How to choose your garden furniture and make it last whatever brown material I can find. Then when I'm out working in the garden , Getting to the top with flagpoles I set a small sprinkler on top of the pile and turn it on very low, so a small spray of water , Avoid Problems: Painting Aluminum And Vinyl Siding runs on the material. Since I have a good water , Popularity Of Patio Heaters Increases Year on Year well, this doesn't cost me anything, so I let it run for at least two hours as often as I can. This keeps the material damp, and the moisture , Plants and Trees Native to Bridgeton Township Pa. will cause the pile to heat , Warm & Toasty Outdoors with Patio ers up, which is what makes the compost , How to make your landscape look good. ing action take place. , Make you'r home look good with a floor rug Once I have the first bin completely full, I start using the second bin. As the material in the first bin starts to break down, it will settle and the bin is no longer heaped up, so I just keep shoveling the material that I piled in front of the bin, up on top of the pile, until all the material is either in the bin, or piled on top of the heap. Then I just leave it alone, except to water , How to Grow Bananas it once in a while. The watering isn't necessary, it just speeds the process. Because I don't turn the pile, I can't expect all of the material to rot completely. The material in the center is going to break down more than the material on the edges, but most of it does break down quite well. The next step works great for me because I've got a small nursery, so I keep a pile of potting soil , How to make your landscape look good. on hand at all times. But you can really do the same thing by just buying two or three yards , Peace of Mind for Home Inspections of shredded mulch to get started, and piling it up near your compost , Choosing A Realtor bins. If you do this, you will always have a supply of good compost , Plants and Trees Native to Bridgeton Township Pa. to work with. Shredded bark, left in a pile will eventually break down and become great compost. , Using perennials in your garden The potting soil , The Dawn Redwood Tree - Beyond Fast Growing that I use is about 80% rotted bark. I make potting soil , Peace of Mind for Home Inspections by purchasing fine textured and dark hardwood bark mulch, and I just put it in a pile and let it rot. The secret is to keep the pile low and flat, , Warm & Toasty Outdoors with Patio Heaters so that it does not shed , A Look at Sewing Machine Parts the rain water , Gardening: It may just be the best thing you can do for yourself. away. You want the mulch to stay as wet as possible, this will cause it to break down fairly quickly. So I keep a pile of rotted bark mulch near my compost , Discovering Fiberglass Roofing Panels for your Roofing Needs bins. When both bins are completely full, I empty the bin containing the oldest material by piling it on top of my rotted bark mulch. I make sure the pile of rotted mulch is wide and flat , How to choose your garden furniture and make it last on top so that when I put the material from the compost , Holiday Decorating Can Cast A Warm Glow All Year bin on top of the pile, the compost , Choosing A Realtor material is only 5 to 10 inches thick. My mulch pile might be 12' wide, but it may only be 24 to 30 inches high. Once I have all the compost , Getting to the top with flagpoles on top of the pile, then I go around the edge of the pile with a shovel, and take some of the material from the edges of the pile and toss it up on top of the pile, covering the compost , Getting to the top with flagpoles with at least 6" of rotted bark. This will cause the compost , Holiday Decorating Can Cast A Warm Glow All Year material to decompose the rest of the way. Once you get this system started, you never want to use all of the material in the pile. Always keep at least 2 to 3 cubic yard , Marvellous May Plant Colour s on hand so you've got something to mix with your compost. , Make you'r home look good with a floor rug If you use a lot of compost , Avoid Problems: Painting Aluminum And Vinyl Siding material like I do, then you should buy more material and add to your pile in the late summer , Add Some Pizzazz to Your Powder Room! or fall , Homeowner Tip: Receive $30 for your old, second fridge , once you are done using it for the season. , Perennial Garden Basics Around here many of the supply companies sell a compost , How to choose your garden furniture and make it last material that is already broken down quite well. This is what I buy to add to my stockpile. But I try to make sure that I have at least 3 yards , Add Some Pizzazz to Your Powder Room! of old material on hand, then I'll add another 3 yards , How to Make Your Own Concrete Curbs for Pennies Per Foot. of fresh material to that. Then in the spring , Getting to the top with flagpoles I'll empty one of the compost , Make you'r home look good with a floor rug bins and add the compost , Popularity Of Patio Heaters Increases Year on Year to the top of the pile. The pile of usable compost , Define your spaces with an area rug. will be layers of material, some more composted than others. Kind of like a sandwich. So what I do is chip off a section of the pile from the edge, spread it out on the ground so it's only about 8" deep, then run over it with my small rototiller. This mixes it together perfectly, and I shovel it onto the potting bench. , How to Make Your Own Concrete Curbs for Pennies Per Foot. Having a pile of rotted compost , Warm & Toasty Outdoors with Patio Heaters near your compost , Tarps – Your Versatile Outdoor Friend bins is great because if you have a lot of leaves or grass , (New construction windows or replacement windows? Which is r clippings, you can throw some rotted compost , (New construction windows or replacement windows? Which is r in the bin in order to maintain that layered effect that is necessary in order for the composting process to work well. Sure this process is a little work, but it sure is nice to have a place , Emerald Green Arborvitae for Buckingham Pa. to get rid of organic , Sky Pencil Hollies Are Used in Quakertown Pa. waste anytime I like. Then down the road when I have beautiful compost , The Dawn Redwood Tree - Beyond Fast Growing to add to my potting soil , Healthy for a Healthy Garden , I am grateful to have done the right thing earlier, and I know that I have wasted nothing.

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