Country Lore: Try Trenching Composting

Bury your kitchen scraps in the garden to enrich your garden soil.

August/September 2008
By Cathy Kotzé 
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Composting can be a challenge when you don’t have extra space, but it is still possible to improve your soil organically.

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I start my preparations as soon as the last of my veggies are harvested. I dig a trench about a spade deep and fill it with chopped fruit and vegetable scraps and skins as I collect them. Almost everything that normally would end up in the trash during food preparation can be used. I even chop up citrus skins and banana peels. As soon as one trench is filled, I cover it with soil and dig another one in front of it. This continues right through winter or until the whole future vegetable patch is done.

By May, the ground is ready to be tilled, and I’m always surprised by the abundance of earthworms who so ably assisted with the breakdown of my compost, while I was hiding indoors from the cold.

Cathy Kotzé
Nanaimo, Vancouver Island
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