Follow our simple tips when learning how to compost.
By Maria Paulia Belgado
Special to Relocation.com
Whether you own a country cottage that has large gardens or a posh city apartment with a few flowerpots, you should consider composting to benefit both your garden and the environment. Composting is essential, as it keeps waste products away, and fertilizes the land without any chemicals. It works by degrading plant substances into humus, which is very rich kind of fertilizer. In simple terms, composting means recycling plant products to create something useful.
There are several ways of creating compost. These include heaping up leaves and hay and allowing the pile to decompose. However, if you wish to decompose kitchen waste, try mixing dry and wet scraps in a silo and allow it to be aerated. This will create heat and help with the decomposition. This process can be used by apartment dwellers. However vermin composts are best for people living in flats. In vermin composts, essential bacteria decompose kitchen scraps into smaller particles and create food for the worms. In turn the worms excrete moist, odorless and rich compost.
There are several kinds of worms found for this purpose, but most use the red wigglers. These can be purchased online, or from bait shops and garden centers. After you have bought the worms, cut a newspaper into thin strips and place it at the bottom of a container, and moisten it with some water until it’s damp. Then, place the worms and the mud that came along with those. Cover the container and place it in a cool and dark place, making sure the temperature is not too hot or too cold.
Now is the time to feed those worms. Put in kitchen scraps and cover with mud in one corner. After a few days, add more scraps in another corner. Rotate these corners every time. The first will be ready by the time you reach the last one. Whenever you add wastes, make sure you bury in rotation. Few months later, there will be less paper and lots of crumbly, brown stuff in the container. The compost is ready. Once the compost is ready, you can easily scoop it up and use it. To create a new set of compost, clear all the materials of the container and repeat the entire process again.
If you want to have good quality compost you should also avoid garlic, spicy and salty stuff, which are poisonous for worms. These worms will reproduce while they are decomposing your scraps. In case of overcrowding you can donate those worms to schools, bait houses or to a plant nursery.
All of these methods mentioned above are really low-maintenance and easy for you. The best thing about composting is that it is free, fabulous and extremely useful for your plants. The humus you create from your own wastes and scraps will help your plants stay healthy and thrive well.
Don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!
• Follow us on Twitter @Relocation_News
• Become a fan of Relocation.com on Facebook
This entry was posted
on Friday, June 3rd, 2011 at 8:03 am and is filed under DIY Projects, Do It Yourself, exterior projects, Green home, Home Improvement.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Leave a Reply
