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Composting as a Part of a Family Recycling
Program
by Patricia
A. Michaels
Families with yards can improve their environmental practices four score by
composting. The term compost literally means putting together, and in its
simplest form, composting amounts to putting some of your yard waste together
with some of your food waste to make soil.
At once, composting improves on the family recycling program while providing
benefits for the house plants, garden and shrubbery. Soils come in all textures
and texture is composting's middle name. Compost's benefits generalize across
all soils, clay to sandy, by adding texture more conducive to healthy air, water
and nutrient flow through soil to plant roots.
Composting practices range from simple to complex. A three square foot piece of
land, perhaps at the edge of your garden, might be the easiest composting
program any family could adopt. Vegetable and fruit waste can be taken out daily
and mixed with a daily gathering of yard waste such as leaves, grass clippings
or shredded branches.
Open air composting, or building piles of materials in a designated place,
provides many practical benefits, spring through fall, particularly if practiced
in conjunction with a garden. Plant stalks and left over vegetables can be
removed as part of a natural weed and pest management program. Family members
would do well in remembering that open air compost piles are tempting delights
for all types of animals and insects and might be counterproductive to their
garden goals if improperly managed.
Families may also opt to build or purchase a compost bin. While they come in all
types of shapes and sizes, they share a common characteristic of being either
totally or partially enclosed structures, thus offering an element of protection
against uninvited animal guests. A three sided cement block enclosure or an old
outdoor barbecue serve as very simple examples of partially enclosed compost
bins. Totally enclosed compost bins, which offer even greater protection against
unwelcome guests, start off as simply as a wired fence around your open air
compost pile.
 Humanity's
passion for architecture being what it is, perhaps only rivaled by humanity's
love of food, shines through in other compost bin construction projects. Space
age compost bins rivaling the durability of any of the newer backyard barbecuing
appliances offer the added benefit of ease of turning. Wooden bins take on all
different forms ranging from one to three or more compartments, depending on the
composter's preferences.
Much of the soil around the world, including your back yard, may be the product
of millennium in the making. Consider the last time you found some type of
fossilized impression on a rock in your yard and you're one step closer to
specifically locating your soils' age. Composting leans closer to the speed
chess version rather than the marathon version of soil production. Depending on
the your family's choice of tools and the precision they apply during the
mixing, watering and turning stages, soil can be produced anywhere in two weeks
to one years' time. Here are a few simple steps to follow.
First and foremost, think about the composting process as an organic meal for
microorganisms such as bacteria and insects such as worms. Assuming that healthy
meals produce healthy soils, your basic five star compost menu consists of a
fixed ratio of carbon and nitrogen ingredients (30 parts carbon to 1 part
nitrogen). One of carbon's wonders is as an energy source. Soil residents depend
on the carbon energy to move to composting's second course, the nitrogen, which
they then digest and further transform into a nutrient amenable to plant roots.
Unusual odors, such as ammonia, indicate an excess nitrogen content in the
compost pile and can be remedied by adding more organic material. A
comparatively slower composting process might point to instances of nutrient
deficiency in the compost pile.
Composting as meal preparation, follows a logic of layers. Typically, organic
products such as coffee grounds, and fruits and vegetables constitute the first
layer. Nitrogen products such as grass clipping and other yard wastes constitute
the second layer. Many compost advocates recommend adding a manure layer on top
of this mixture as an additional nutrient supplement, however composters need
also recognize flies affiliation to this ingredient and adjust their menus
accordingly. A small layer of soil tops off this combination creating an
atmosphere conductive to decomposition. Certainly soil chefs retain a certain
amount of prerogative in choosing compost ingredients, however, certain
ingredients such as meats, oils and diseased plants are not recommended.
Soil residents additionally need air and water to survive and consequently
family members maintain the healthiest soil producing compost pile when they
water and aerate it on a regular basis. The most efficient compost piles
maintain a moist consistency throughout. Compost bins with lids prevent storm
soaking episodes in especially rainy areas. Aeration means little more than
waiting a week or so, picking up the pile with a pitch fork or other appropriate
garden tool and flipping it around. Once done, new layers of ingredients can be
added, further moving the composting process along the right track. Family
members will be able to tell when the soil's done because it looks like soil.
© 2000. Photo and Text. Patricia A. Michaels. | |
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