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Composting Article
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Step by Step Composting
from: Lawn and Garden MagicOrganic matter tends to decompose naturally, however, you can help make this easier by learning the process of composting.
Having your own compost can be easy or difficult, depending on how you do things and manage your time.
Hot or Cold?
There are two basic ways to compost -- either hot or cold. The cold type is the easier way to go. All you have to do is leave the pile to rot, which is the point of composting. Gather useful materials for your compost including matters such as leaves, grass trimmings, vegetable peelings, fruit scraps and all the waste available in your garden. However, this method takes a long time because you aren't really helping the materials on the pile to disintegrate faster.
This is the main difference in your second option, the hot type. For this type of composting, there's an art and method to follow starting from the time you put your materials in bags or compost bins. Some people recommend you place the green leaves first, add soil, then add your kitchen waste.
These include the peelings of vegetables and fruits, eggshells plus other table scraps. Just don't add materials that will attract unwanted visitors to your compost such as excess food, especially meat.
You must keep the pile holding up your compost moist, but at a moist level. Your pile mustn't be totally wet. To do this, add just a bit of water to the pile periodically or when you feel it's necessary. Some gardeners suggest using beer instead of plain water. Beers contain yeast which will then make the bacteria on the pile very content.
Your compost pile should always be maintained. Along with keeping it moist, you need to add onto the trimmings as well as the soil whenever necessary. You can also add some manure to help advance the decomposition process and also take the time to turn the pile regularly. This helps air circulation to improve and makes the process faster.
When do you know the end result is ready to be used? If it smells like earth and it looks like dark soil, then it's time to get it out of the bin and use it in your garden.
Some gardeners feel the product of compost alone won't make your garden soil completely healthy. You must aid this with other materials and use the compost the way you use a conditioner on your hair. It can be treated as an amenity, but not the total package.
To make the process easy for you, remember that you're doing this for the sake of nature. You're giving back what it's given you. Look around you very closely before starting the process. Your location should be good enough to accommodate the process and shouldn't cause any inconvenience to your neighbors or the members of your family.
Composting is a great addition to your arsenal of gardening techniques and is easy to do.
Composting News
Why Michael Bloomberg?s Composting Plan Stinks for Supers - Daily Beast
Daily Beast | Why Michael Bloomberg?s Composting Plan Stinks for Supers Daily Beast Why now for this composting initiative, with Bloomberg leaving office at year's end? A voluntary pilot initiative on Staten Island, which included 3,500 single-family homes, was met with an unexpectedly high participation rate of 43 percent, according ... Take it from a composting veteran, it is easier than you think NYC aims to require composting of food scraps NYC May Force Residents to Compost Food Scraps |
It's OK, New York! You'll figure out composting eventually - Grist
It's OK, New York! You'll figure out composting eventually Grist When I asked Melanie Nutter, director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment, what counsel she would give, she said cities really have to teach people how to compost. “It's not something you necessarily know how to do, so there has to be ... |
New York City residents sort their garbage as part of new composting program - Yahoo! News
Yahoo! News | New York City residents sort their garbage as part of new composting program Yahoo! News Compost bins in Westerleigh (William Holt)NEW YORK -- Staten Island resident Donna Lokhammer can add another chore to her list: sorting through her garbage for organic waste like potato peels, coffee grounds, and chicken bones, and gathering these ... |
How Cities Compost Mountains of Food Waste - National Geographic
National Geographic | How Cities Compost Mountains of Food Waste National Geographic This week, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a plan to increase composting of food scraps generated by the city's eight million inhabitants. In a few years, separation of food waste from other refuse could be required of residents, the ... Let Us Start Composting Vegetables Mayor Bloomberg To Mayor Bloomberg's food composting edict could create a Manhattan feast - for rats |
Nanny Bloomberg, Food Composting, and the Complexity Creeps - PJ Media
Nanny Bloomberg, Food Composting, and the Complexity Creeps PJ Media Marketing guru Dan Kennedy coined the phrase “complexity creep” to describe what can happen to a business that doesn't keep things simple. As he wrote in the early 1990s, “Complexity just creeps on you when you're not looking. And unnecessary ... |
Watermelon heist; bill to stop Stafford area composting facility goes to ... - OregonLive.com
Watermelon heist; bill to stop Stafford area composting facility goes to ... OregonLive.com Two West Linn-Wilsonville School District schools, Athey Creek Middle School and Stafford Primary School, fall within those boundaries for a proposed composting facility in Clackamas County. An official with S&H Logging, the company behind the facility ... |