Creating Soil Compost – There Are Compostable Materials All Around You!

Everywhere people are looking for cheaper alternatives. Chemicals are expensive. If used incorrectly they can also cause environmental harm. Farmyard manure is one alternative.

When composted and properly stored, animal manure is very good compost. The crop residues and manure in compost decomposes into humus. Humus is the organic material in various stages of decomposing. You can use cows as well as goats, sheep, poultry, rabbits, and pig manure. You can also collect food remains and bedding for compost.

The use of compost is one way to get around tying up nitrogen during decomposition. The gardener usually makes compost from plant wastes. Correct composting can result in a valuable nutrient and humus source for any garden.

You can use many other composting materials. These include sweepings from around the yard, kitchen waste, and any other rubbish that will decompose. Sweeping under large trees can provide a lot of material for composting. Fallen leaves, twigs, and branches are excellent for composting. Leaves from trees, are good sources. Composting material can also come from live fences around the homestead, the vegetable gardens, along field boundaries, terraces and contour ridges. Bunch grasses are excellent bulk compost material. Trim hedges regularly and use the cuttings for composting.

The plant material is chopped or ground into small pieces. Microbes need water and air to thrive; keep the compost uniformly moist–about the dampness of a wrung-out sponge–and turn it once a week. Use the weeds from your garden in the compost pile as well. Pile the weeds at the compost site, when manure is added composting begins. Weeds decay quickly and can be recycled back to the garden. Crop remains can be used as well. These may need to be broken into smaller pieces. The material decomposes more quickly this way.

Any fresh, light-colored, un-weathered organic mulch will tie up nitrogen during the early stages of decomposition. Properly composted wood chips can be used as a long lasting mulch that weathers to a silver-gray color.

Although all the above-mentioned compost ingredients will break down over time, you can speed up the process of decomposition by making sure you have a good distribution of dry ingredients (such as dead leaves and pine needles) and wet ingredients.