Composting 2

As I mentioned in my last post, to build hot compost piles we need to mix brown (carbon) materials with green (nitrogen) materials. Brown materials are usually dead plant matter such as fallen leaves, straw, corn or sunflower stalks, saw dust or aged wood chips. Green materials can be garden waste, kitchen scraps, hedge trimmings, grass trimmings, spent cover crops or manure (even though manure is brown, its considered green because of its high in nitrogen content). All of these will attract earthworms which will build tunnels that help oxygen get into the soil and provide fertilizer with their castings (poop).

Manure is probably the best green material for heating up a pile. But I have read a lot recently about using manure from outside sources. Apparently, if  the livestock has been fed on hay or grass that has been treated with herbicides, these herbicides can pass through the animal and the composting process and effect crops that this compost is used on. So we must make sure the manure we use is free of herbicides

In my piles I try to use material from my own property. For brown material I use oak leaves, pine needles, banana stalks and leaves and palmetto leaves. For green materials I use lots of kitchen scraps and grass clippings. At this time I'm searching for a clean source of manure. Next year I'm going to start planting cover crops to grow materials for feeding the soil and composting.

If all of this seems like too much work, you can just start a pile with what ever you have. Keep adding material as it becomes available until your pile is 3 - 4 feet high, then just let it sit. After a year or so it will decompose.

 If you have an abundance of leaves, just pile them up. After a year or so they will rot down and provide what is referred to as leaf mold.  Leaf mold is a very good soil additive. It may be necessary to dig into the pile to find the leaf mold..... the outside layer doesn't decompose as quickly as the inside. A method to get leaf mold faster is to stuff leaves into a big yard waste bag and add a little water. Store them somewhere out of the way, laying the bags on their side. Then flip the bags over every couple of weeks and make sure there is still water in the bag. This speeds up the decomposition of the leaves and it won't be long till you have a bag of leaf mold. It can be dug into the soil or used as mulch. Either way it is great for your garden. Try some of these methods and see if they help. If you know of other methods, please comment and share them.

Soooo..... Until next time...... HAPPY GARDENING!