Photo courtesy of iStockphoto / thinkstock
There is a manner to make your compost chore very soft , by making “ soil salad . ”
Some composting advice sounds like a cross between rocket salad science and gymnasium class : monitor strict ratio of carbon to nitrogen , turning besotted compost twice a week , and rotatingcompost binsthat could create zero gravitation inside if you twirl them fast enough . I ’m not knocking serious composters . I ’ve turned piles frequently enough to get horny , ruined compost in a couple of weeks , but I only take compost for natural spring and fall planting — a schedule that even a sleepy-eyed compost pile can match .
13th - generation Mississippi nurseryman Felder Rushing offers the best advice for the put - back composter : 1 ) Stop throwingorganic materialsaway , and 2 ) pile them up . All constitutional materials from the garden leaves , grass , garden clippings — eventually decompose into the brown , earthy compost get on the timberland story .
I ’ve found a method acting that allows me to addkitchen scrapsto the mix and give me more compost with less labor . The clip I save by leaving my compost unturned gets spend turning the pages ofgardening volume .
If you ’ve ever made a dinner party salad for your phratry , you have all the skills necessary to make a compost / stain salad that :
a ) does n’t reek , b ) does n’t need turning , c ) fend offgarden pests , d ) does n’t expect you to uncomfortably shovel compost from the bottom of a bin that has raw food scrap on top , ande ) make severalwheelbarrowloads of gorgeous compost .
And just as your folk eats a dinner salad , beneficial tool living in the ground literally eat this soil salad that move around dirt intosoiland territory into richgarden beds .
The three main components of a dinner salad and their rocky proportions are a good parallel for produce compost :
And , whether you ’re a dinner party - salad maker or a soil - salad maker , you need the right putz and workspace to get the job done .
Start with two enclosed compost binful , sturdy enough to deter urban wildlife , and line the bottoms with hardware material . Make certain the lid has openings to allow the rain in : Dry compost is still compost .
besprinkle a little garden ground over the kitchen scraps . The garden grime “ do ” parcel out composting bacterium throughout the pile . They will out - compete the rotting bacteria that cause kitchen scraps to stink . Keep a garbage can full of shredded leaves and a garden ramification nearby . ( Mine is break , but re - purposed . ) toss away a forkful of foliage over the kitchen chip in the compost bin to keep down fungus gnats . At this point , the cook would amalgamate the dinner party salad ingredients , but there ’s no motivation to coalesce the compost ingredient .
Start fulfill your first bank identification number this spring , then start filling the second one in early or mid - summertime , and forget the first one alone . By decline , your first bin will contain finished , or nearly finished , compost . Feed this soil salad to your garden , and then start filling that binful again . The second bin will be finished in time for give planting — or should we say spring feeding ?
