COMPOSTING
This is the time of the year when lots of green material from the garden should be recycled back into the compost pile. The true organic gardener embraces this concept. Everything from the earth has to go back into the earth. This is nature’s way and the organic gardener needs to mimic her ways. Whenever we deviate from nature we get into trouble. Nature has set up a system for us and all we need to do is follow it and enhance it. If we do this, we will solve a lot of our problems and we will fight global warming the biggest threat to our future generation’s existence. . Nature’s systems are based on balances which create sustainability.
There is robust activity and life in our soils that most of us can’t fathom. Within our soils is a food web that needs to be nurtured, fed and perpetuated. Chemical fertilizers, toxic pesticides, harmful herbicides kill the microbes in the soil. Microbes work for us day and night. Composting is a process wherein billions of bacteria, fungi and other organisms grow and reproduce. The microbial population is tremendously increased when you add compost to your soil. Compost creates an invaluable soil amendment for your garden. Compost improves soil structure, moisture retention, helps build the food web, and builds up the immune system of the plant that fights insect and disease.
Composting is an interesting process that takes place when we put together the right combination of organic material. It is easy to compost your organic materials and it is the right thing to do. Keep it simple. Place small cut up layers of 2 parts carbon materials to one part nitrogen material into a compost bin. Examples of nitrogen materials are grass clippings, vegetable scrapes, soft green plant tissue, coffee grinds and manures, just to list a few. Examples of carbon materials are leaves, wood materials such as wood chips, branches, straw and saw dust.
Enclosures for compost bins can be very simple to elaborate. A chicken wire fence 3’ high and 3’ in diameter can be placed anywhere in the yard. View Krautter’s Year Round Organic Vegetable Garden to see how five 3’wooden square consecutive compost bins can easily be built. CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE VIDEO. Shop the internet and stores for pre fabricated units. Oxygen circulation in a compost bin is key. Read the Chapter in my book ’12 Steps To Natural Gardening’ on composting, page 79 and as you get more involved learn more about the art of composting.
When we study composting we understand the amazing organic process that takes place. Composting is a pure organic process. . It is a process that makes the forests grow and the world perpetuates itself. From the earth springs forth life and from plant life we exist. We take from the earth but we must also give back. When we add toxic chemical formulations to our soils, we pollute our earth. Composting should be a part of every household. We need to be part of building a stronger earth not a weaker one.
A byproduct of great compost is brewing compost tea. This is a simple process that will add millions of new microbes to your soil. In the same chapter on composting learn how to make your brew. When compost tea, is applied to your plants the results are amazing.
Converting Sprainbrook Nursery to an organic nursery and inventing Krautter’s Organic Year Round Vegetable Garden has been an eye opener to me. The more I understand the natural ways things occur, the more I am amazed. Every day I see how plants grow and how they exude beauty. I feel the impact of their beauty and it makes me happy. Doom and gloom does not exist in my beautiful greenhouses or in the towns that have beautified there streets. Plants make people feel happy and exude positive vibes.
I feel there should never be a hungry person in this world. If we all learn to work with nature, she will reward us with her beauty and her bounty. There is no better teacher than nature. From a few seeds can grow more than you can eat and from some fallen leaves mixed with some fresh grass we can create rich soils. From rich soils we can feed ourselves. Composting is an amazing process and is nature’s way of taking care of us.
Remember the Native American Proverb: We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children
