Composting from Your Yard and Kitchen
Thursday, August 26, 2010 18:05Composting from Your Yard and Kitchen
When you start composting from your yard and kitchen you are saving a lot of space in your local landfills and enriching your gardens. All of our yards and kitchens produce some sort of waste material that we can compost. It can come from grass clippings, pruning and plant care in the yard and from vegetable waste and leftovers just to name a few. Composting our yard waste reduces the amount of organic wastes by returning them to the soil.
Compost allows air and water to enter clay soil and it helps sandy soil to hold on to nutrients and water. Compost holds moisture like a sponge and releases fertilizer nutrients at a slow pace. It will also intensify earthworm activity and other organisms that are beneficial to growing plants. Remember, compost is not a fertilizer; it is only a soil amendment.
Some kitchen food scraps are usually from daily use such as fruit and vegetable waste, our meal leftovers, coffee grounds and tea bags. Other kitchen scraps we can use are any items that have spoiled in the refrigerator and also stale bread or grains. We can also use coffee filters, outdated boxed food, very well crushed egg shells, corn cobs and husks, and products made of flour.
Items from the kitchen we should not use for composting are meat or its waste such as bones, fat, gristle and skin as meats attract maggots. Fish or fish waste, dairy products, grease and oil will cause an imbalance, attract rodents and the compst pile will smell terrible. You can purchase a small kitchen compost container that has a tight fitting lid and a handle to store your kitchen waste until you are ready to take a walk to the compost bin in your backyard.
Composting is compiled of most yard wastes such as flower and vegetable parts, leaves, straw, a small amounts of woody prunings, grass clippings and weeds. Woody branches and twigs are best if they are shredded before adding. You don’t want to use highly resinous wood as they protect the wood from decomposing. Probably the best place for your grass clippings is to leave them on the lawn. They will return the nutrients back to the soil.
When making compost it is best to alternate your layers of shredded plant materials and kitchen waste. The layering helps the compost achieve the correct nitrogen balance. Traditional composting usually includes soil as a layer. When you add considerable amounts of soil, as a compost layer, the weight increases, which now makes composting less efficient. Also large amounts of soil could sufocate the microorganisms. It is better not to use soil for composting. Water will have to be added to the compost pile every so often.
Barbara E. Volkov and her husband Gene are a retired and enjoying tinkering around in the garden. We are looking into composting and want to share some of the things we have learned. Come visit our website Gardeners Garden Supplies for more interesting tidbits.
