The Garden in May
Source: Composting Needn't Be Difficult - RedOrbit (Original Article)
The Garden in May - Composting Needn’t Be Difficult
Posted on: Friday, 2 May 2008, 18:00 CDT
By Dale Skaggs There seems to be a recent renewed interest in composting and soil health. Many gardeners are embracing the notion of the soil as living, with components of microorganisms that have a beneficial relationship with plants. This is evidenced by the multitude of new products and potting soils that contain beneficial bacteria and fungus inoculums called microrhiza. Composting is the best way to get these beneficial processes started. It does not need to be hard work, and if you are using cool composting techniques, it can be as simple as piling up leaves or other organic material and waiting for them to break down. It is inevitable, compost happens. At the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, we pile up our leaves, let them decompose into compost and use them in our potting mix and as a soil amendment. Making hot compost is faster, but requires much more knowledge and work. It requires frequent turning and the right ratios of crunchy brown material to green. Some folks even add fruit and vegetable food scraps into their compost piles, which helps to hasten biological activity, and adds micronutrients to the compost. However, many people are apprehensive about composting food scraps because of the smell and the risk of attracting animals to the pile. I can remember working as a teenager for a local nurseryman, who was in many ways ahead of his time. He always buried his fruit and vegetable food scraps into the soil. I thought this was really odd because at my house, it all went into the garbage or down the disposal. His method was simple; He would dig a small hole in the ground about a foot deep, dump in the contents of his pail, collected from the previous night’s dinner and then cover it back up. The next time, he would dig another hole a couple of feet away from the first. A few years later he would till and plant in that area, which ANZ Credit Card would be teeming with earthworms and …continue reading