Last, compost can be made virtually free at home, by
mimicking the earth's recycling system. Chemical
fertilizers, on the other hand, cost money and use
nonrenewable fossil fuels (both as ingredients and in their
manufacture).
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VACUUM AND NITROGEN PACKING
August/September 1999
Issue # 175 - August/September 1999
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Readers' tips to live by....
Composting requires nitrogen, carbon, air, water, mass,
and microorganisms.
Where
Well, are you convinced? I hope so. Composting really is
the backbone of good horticulture.
If you are ready to start your own pile of black soil
magic, the first concern is where you'll build it.
When choosing a spot, take into account these suggestions:
1. Try to locate your pile near your garden — a
wheelbarrow loaded with compost is heavy.
2. If you're going to be importing some compost-building
ingredients by vehicle, try to build your pile in a spot
you can drive to.
3. Wetting the pile will be a lot easier if you locate near
a water source.
4. A good deciduous shade tree near the pile can provide
some shelter from heavy thunderstorms and excessively hot
summer sun, while it lets warmth-boosting fall and winter
light through. It'll even provide leaf material! However,
evergreens (which have acidic needles), walnuts (which
exude a toxin through their roots), and eucalyptuses (which
have resinous leaves) are not good choices.
In What
Now we need something to put your ingredients in. Actually,
a straight-sided pile can be constructed with no bin or
supports. That's a perfectly acceptable way to compost.
But it takes time to shape a freestanding pile; being able
to toss the makings into a container can really speed the
process along. In addition, if your neighbors live nearby,
they may voice aesthetic objections to a freestanding pile
of decomposing materials. In that case, you can compost
incognito by using an attractive homemade or commercial
bin. Privacy fencing (plant or wire) might also help shut
out the critical eyes.
The creative scrounger will find that numerous materials
make good bin buildings. Boards, poles, screen, wire, old
pallets, concrete blocks, snow fencing, and hay bales will
all serve well. At the other end of the spectrum are the
$70 to $200 commercial composters you can buy through
garden supply catalogs.
In the middle, between total scrounging and total spending,
are the two composters we recently designed at MOTHER EARTH
NEWS. (See the sidebar "Any Way You Stack It . . ." for
construction details.) The "quickie" version is a mobile
pen made out of hogwire panels. This low-cost model allows
you to use it to make a pile and then easily move the pen
when you want to start a new pile or turn the old one. The
"uptown" model is meant to be more aesthetically
acceptable, yet still entirely practical. Although you
could build it with just one bin (the design is basically
modular), you'll do better if you build more than one
enclosure so you can turn compost from one bin to the
other. Better still, build a three-bin version so you can
turn two half-decomposed "side" piles into the middle bin
to finish cooking!
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