The Ultimate Guide to Garden Compost: How to Make and Use Compost for Your Plants

The Ultimate Guide to Garden Compost: How to Make and Use Compost for Your Plants

Why Use Garden Compost?

By always maintaining a compost pile, growers have access to possibly the best possible nutrient source for their garden. Leaves, eggshells, orange rinds, and grass clipping, into one pile of rich compost filled with earthworm and other soil creatures.

Compost provide substantial benefits to the garden- they help improves soil structure, providing a ballance nutrients for plants while stimulates beneficial organisms

Compost is the perfect thing to spread around when you are creating a new garden, seeding a new lawn area, or planting a new tree. Compost can be sprinkled around plants during the growing season or used as a mulch in your perennial gardens. You can add compost to your flower boxes and deck planters, or enrich the potting soil for your indoor plants.

Compost vs Fertilizer: Choosing the Best Option for Your Garden

To some, compost is the only thing they want to use and think of it as the only thing they need. Well, microbes from compost that encourage plant growth are useful. Others prefer to use fertilizer to control the nutrients that they provide, depending on plants and soil. The case often falls to the best solution of using both. Compost works well with fertilizer, sponging up and storing the nutrients until they’re needed by the garden plants- organic fertilizer is usually the choice as chemicals from other ones could negatively affect microbes, effectively canceling out the compost.

Compost vs Fertilizer: Choosing the Best Option for Your Garden

Methods for Making the Best Garden Compost

Method 1: Electric Composter

If you have a small garden or don’t have a lot of area to work with, electric composters are an excellent choice. These composters function by utilizing bacteria and fungi to break down organic material. Electric composters are ideal for interior apartment composting because they typically have a 0.5 to 1 gallon capacity.

Electric composters have the advantage of being able to be installed indoors and out of the way. If you reside in a region with chilly winters, this is a fantastic alternative because you can compost all year.

Insight: The process of breakdown will move more quickly. This is because an electric composter will produce heat, which has the benefit of accelerating the breakdown of organic material.

Method 2: Compost Bin

Method 2: Compost Bin

Compost bins are a good option if you prefer something more conventional. You can put them in your backyard or garden. The beautiful thing about compost bins is that they include a cover, which keeps heat within and aids in sustaining the composting process.

Insight: Compost bins are a great option because they are very easy to use. Simply add your organic waste to the bin and leave it to compost. The bin will keep the compost contained, so you can use it at your leisure while keeping it out of sight.

Method 2: Compost Bin

Method 3: Compost Tumbler

A compost tumbler is a fantastic choice if you need to compost quickly. Compost tumblers make it simple to spin and aerate your pile, which speeds up the composting process.

In addition, compost tumblers are incredibly easy to operate; all you need to do is fill the tumbler with your yard waste and turn it occasionally.

Insight: Utilizing a compost tumbler has the benefit of accelerating the composting process. This is due to the tumbler’s ability to aerate the compost, which speeds up the breakdown of the organic material.

Method 3: Compost Tumbler https://www.planetnatural.com/tumbling-composter/

Method 4: Compost Pile

Utilizing a compost tumbler has the benefit of accelerating the composting process. This is due to the tumbler’s ability to aerate the compost, which speeds up the breakdown of the organic material.

Insight: The biggest benefit of using a compost pile is how simple it is to do so. Simply choose a location in your garden for the compost pile, deposit your organic waste there, and then wait for it to decompose.

Method 4: Compost Pile

Method 5: Compost Bag

Compost bags are an excellent option if you don’t have enough space for a compost pile or bin. Compost bags are fantastic, but you may also use standard garbage bags, which are affordable and simple to get.

Insight: The biggest benefit of utilizing a compost bag is how affordable and practical it is. Simply place your organic trash in the bag and drawstring shut. You don’t need to bother about stirring or turning the compost inside because the bag will maintain the composting process.

Method 5: Compost Bag

Top 10 Tips for Successful Garden Composting

For individual composing method we have:

  • Electric composter: The nutrient-rich dirt that they create in Grow mode can be used in your garden in a 1:10 ratio with other soil.
  • Compost bin: If you are using a compost bin, make sure that you turn the compost regularly. This will help keep your compost aerated, which is important for the composting process to be successful
  • Compost tumbler: If you are using a compost tumbler, make sure that you add the right proportion of organic matter. You should add one part green materials to thirty parts brown materials. This will help to create the perfect balance for your finished compost.
  • Compost pile:  If you are thinking of using a compost pile, make sure that you find a spot in your garden that gets plenty of sunlight. This will help to speed up the composting process.

That’s for the equipment, this now is for the compost

Follow the composting 1-2-3

  1. As you add larger materials, chop them.
  2. Combine the green and the brown materials.
  3. Keep the moisture as moist as a sponge that has been wrung out.

Two parts brown to one part green

The ideal ratio of nutrients for healthy compost is two parts nitrogen-rich “green” materials like grass clippings to one part carbon-rich “brown” materials like dry leaves. Although they may degrade more slowly, other ratios of brown to green can still produce acceptable compost.

Provide air and water

When the materials are as wet as a sponge that has been wrung out and have lots of air openings, a compost pile performs optimally. The equilibrium of air and moisture in your pile can be negatively impacted by extremes of sun or rain.

Chop it small

Smaller particles of waste decompose more quickly. Use shears, a machete, or a chipper-shredder to cut up garden waste; you may even shred it with a lawnmower.

Pile size matters if you like it hot

Composting can be sped up by the ability of compost piles to trap heat produced by the activity of millions of microorganisms. The minimal size for hot, quick composting is thought to be a 3-by-3-by-3-foot compost pile. The temperature will increase over a number of days if you obtain a good balance of carbon and nitrogen, chop the material finely, have a large amount of material, and keep it moist and aerated properly. Between 110 and 160 degrees Fahrenheit is the ideal temperature range for the most productive degrading bacteria. Don’t worry if your pile isn’t hot; cool piles can also produce excellent compost.

Use a rodent-resistant bin for food scraps

Rodents are particularly drawn to food scraps, and even yard waste can operate as a haven. Use a rodent-resistant bin with a cover, floor, and no holes or gaps larger than 14 inches to deter rats and mice from accessing your compost. Although it is not required, it is preferable if the floor contains holes to allow for drainage, aeration, and soil contact.

Frequently Asked Questions about Composting for Your Garden

1. How do I add compost to my garden?

The top 3-5 inches of soil should have compost incorporated into it. In the fall, add a lot of compost to your vegetable garden. On top of the current bed, spread several inches of compost, and in the spring, work it into the soil. When planting, place a small amount of compost in each hole.

2. When is the best time to add compost to the garden?

Compost addition to your garden is generally advised to be done either in the spring or the fall. In the first case, it is often finished two weeks or so before you begin planting.

3. What type of compost is best for a vegetable garden?

Compost made from loam is composed of dirt, sand, and clay and has undergone processing to provide a deep, rich material that is perfect for growing plants. Compost made from loam can be bought in stores or made at home in a straightforward compost container.

4. What is the ideal carbon-to-nitrogen ratio for composting?

The optimal carbon to nitrogen ratio for composting is typically thought to be 30:1, or 30 parts carbon to every 1 component nitrogen in weight. Nitrogen will be provided in excess at lower ratios and will be wasted as ammonia gas, producing foul odors.

5. What organic materials can I compost?

Scraps of food and vegetables, most yard trimmings and grass clippings, paper filters and coffee grinds. Paper tea bags can be used too, but no staples.

6. What should not be composted?

Cheese, dairy products, pet waste, cat litter, produce stickers, fats, oils and greases should be avoided.

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