The beautiful thing about spending time gardening is that all of the time and money that you invest in the soil of your garden is going to be returned tenfold or more – there’s always a positive ROI with this kind of effort, and you’ll grow more beautiful grass, more beautiful flowers, and the tastiest vegetables around when you compost the right way.
Now, today there are plenty of top-tier compost options available at your favourite garden supply stores – and some of them are actually worth considering. However, when you realize that compost is really nothing more than decayed and degraded natural material (including scraps from your table, for example), you might think twice about purchasing commercial compost when you can make plenty of it all on your own.
Here are some highlights you’ll want to know before you start gardening with compost!
Pulling Off the Perfect Compost Mixture
If you are going to go down the route that so many other gardening experts do and make your own compost, you’re going to want to really think things through before you move forward with a more “set it and forget it” kind of approach.
For starters, you are going to need a high quality container that is not only going to be able to contain all of the compost that you are going to be creating but one that is also going to help support the bacterial breakdown of the vegetables, plants, and natural materials in your compost mixture to make sure it happens as efficiently as possible.
Secondly, you’re going to need to make sure that your ingredient mixture is right for your yard. Every professional gardener out there has their own specific mix that they like to make, and you’ll likely tinker and toy with your mixture until you find something that works perfectly for you, but generally you’ll want to make sure that you have plenty of brown and green plant matter as well as quite a bit of moisture to get the bacterial process moving.
Vegetables, fruit, flowers, and all kinds of other “grown” scraps are going to be welcome in your compost pile. Shredded newspaper, woodchips, and leaves can also be fantastic additions to the pot. You’ll want to shy away from meat, fish, and dairy – you don’t want those elements in your compost because you’ll attract messy animals that will spill your compost all over the place before you get a chance to use it.
Lastly, it’s important that you make sure you turn the pile of compost you are creating every week or so. This isn’t just to “blend” everything together (though that is a staple of gardening with compost), but also to expedite the bacterial process, provide fresh “food” throughout to the bacteria creating your compost, and to monitor your progress so you know when your compost is ready to rock and roll.
It’ll probably take a month or two for your compost to be ready to use, but armed with the tips and tricks that we’ve highlighted above you shouldn’t have any trouble whatsoever creating compost that would be the envy of your neighbours.
With your compost mixed in with a high quality soil, all of the plant matter that you decide to grow in this soil is going to have the very best chance of reaching its full potential. There may be no better way to support your gardening than with the quality compost you have “cooked” all on your own!
