Compost Made Easy
(Page 3 of 7)
October/November 2006, Issue #218
By Barbara Pleasant
To make it easier to keep these piles wet, I arrange a soaker hose in a figure 8 pattern, with about 4 inches of mower-shredded leaves and weathered hay between each layer of hose. I’ve found that hay vastly improves a leaf heap’s ability to retain water, and until the weather gets too cold to use it, there is no easier way to moisten the inside of a dry heap than by using a soaker hose.
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Unpleasant odors in compost can be caused by the materials themselves (for example, broccoli stems or rotten oranges), but even smelly things won’t stink if they are buried a few inches deep. However, enclosed compost can go stinky if it’s too wet, which is easily fixed by adding dry material or simply letting it dry out. If you’re using a plastic bin or tumbler (see "Compost Tumblers"), do pay close attention to water, because it’s easy to add too much.
6. Compost need not be a secret. A compost bin or pile is only ugly if you make it that way, so there’s no need to hide compost in a remote corner. Carrying stuff across the yard to a hidden heap is a waste of time and energy. Locate compost as close as possible to where the materials are generated and/or where the finished compost will be used. Visually speaking, using a black or dark green enclosure will help a compost heap blend into a shady background. Or, you can use painted posts or fencing to make your setup a more colorful, great looking bin.
My yard includes four areas of working gardens, so I always have at least four heaps going — each within pitching distance from the garden beds. Those heaps will be turned three or four times, so I plan ahead for them to “walk” toward their final resting place with each turning. For example, a 5-foot diameter heap that starts out 15 feet from a garden plot will arrive at its destination after its fourth turning (the math allows for shrinkage). It’s a slow trip that starts in November and ends in June, but that’s how it is when you’re composting slow-rotting oak leaves.
7. You can compost diseased or weedy plants. Many experts recommend keeping seed-bearing weeds and diseased plants out of the compost heap so as not to reintroduce them into your garden. This makes sense, but what are you supposed to do with the stuff? I suggest giving these bad boys their own heap. Later on, after mildewed squash vines and seed-bearing crabgrass clippings have been given a few months to shrink to a more manageable size, you can cook the half-done compost to kill diseases and weed seeds.
For this job, I use a solar cooker made from a 20-inch cardboard box lined with aluminum foil. (You can find plans for simple solar cookers at the Solar Cooking Archive; be sure to search for “eye safety” and read the precautions for shielding your retinas from superintense light.) When I have compost from diseased and weedy plants, I take a 3-gallon heavy plastic pot filled with damp compost, enclose it in a clear plastic bag and place it in the cooker in direct sun. You can use an oven thermometer to find out how hot your cooker is. Two hours at 140 degrees kills most weed seeds and soilborne pathogens.
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