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Composting
Gardening Thoughts:
Loam
wasn't built in a day.
Composting is a great way to cut down on what goes out to the garbage. Most of those food scraps can go into a composter and give you wonderful soil to add to your garden. Find a small container with a tight fitting lid (like and ice cream tub) to keep in your kitchen. Add your kitchen scraps - like potato and carrot peelings, apple cores, coffee grounds, tea bags, crushed egg shells, - to the compost pail. Every couple of days take the compost pail and empty it into the back yard composter. At least once a week be sure to wash out this compost pail. I fill mine with water and add a couple of drops of bleach to be sure all smells and stains are gone. Some people think that composters smell and put them in the furthest spot in their garden. A well maintained composter should not create this problem. Put your composter in a spot that is easy to get at year round.
I have 4 composters in the garden - in winter one is close to the edge of the deck for quick emptying of the compost pail. Three of them are about mid way down the garden. These are tucked away behind a fence panel. The garden in front of this is full of hollyhocks, mint and some annuals. During the winter the composter near the deck gets full. So one of the first jobs to do in the spring, is to roll this composter (it is a barrel type composter) to the back of the yard and transfer some of the waste into the other two composters. When adding to the composter, do it in layers. Add kitchen scraps, green layers such as grass cuttings, brown layers such as dried grass, pine needles, or dried leaves and every so often add a shovel full of dirt. Use a garden fork or turning device to mix the layers. Over the winter I find the composter that gets used the most doesn’t get this layering effect. The composting process is also slowed down considerably in the cold weather. I do keep a bag full of dried leaves from the fall to add during the winter. That is one of the reasons that I distribute the waste into the other composters in the early spring. You should avoid meat, fish and bones, oils & fats, dairy products, mature weeds with seeds, corn cobs, pet wastes, and any meaty sauce. If you have a digestor, (which I don't) these items can go into it.
Eggshells don't actually decompose but do break down into very small pieces. I usually save my eggshells in a separate container. When they are dry they can be crushed into very small pieces to mix in with the compost. They are an excellent source of calcium for the plants. You can even sprinkle crushed eggshells directly around the stems of your plants to deter slugs. Visit my blog to see some other ideas for using eggshells.
When is the compost ready? When most of what you have added to the composter is unrecognizable and the compost has a dark crumbly appearance it is usually ready. Some people screen the compost before they use it, this will eliminate any large pieces that haven’t fully broken down. These large pieces can be added back into the composter.
Compost tea Make some tea for your plants with some of your compost. Fill a burlap bag with compost and suspend it into a large barrel of water for a few days. The "tea" will be high in nutrients and can be used to water your plants.
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