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Starting a Compost Pile, How to Make Garden Compost, How to Make Compost

starting a compost pile
Easy tips for starting a compost pile, building and maintaining a garden compost pile. Find compost plans and which materials to use for best results.

You can recycle garden materials, kitchen scraps, grass clippings and autumn leaves to help enrich your vegetable garden soil!

Design Your Own Vegetable Garden Layout Using our Free "Vegetable Garden Planner" Software!

Starting a Compost Pile: Back to Basics

If you are searching for inexpensive and healthy natural fertilizers to ensure your vegetable garden thrives, starting a compost pile is a great idea. If your garden soil is poor and has bad drainage, dig in compost in the fall and spring to create healthy fertile garden soil.

Otherwise, use compost as mulch, which can be spread or dug in any time on top of the ground where it will slowly seep nutrients into the soil. This also keeps the ground moist and prevents weeds.

Download Free Garden Planning Worksheets, Garden Diary, Zone Chart, Or Planting Guide

Turning Kitchen and Garden Waste into Compost

starting a compost pile

How to make garden compost:

Follow the example of traditional vegetable gardening and put all your kitchen scraps and garden waste into a pile to rot into nutritious compost for the plants.

This makes a perfect and free soil supplement, which also helps garden beds retain moisture. It is the ideal slow release fertilizer for all your plants' nutritional needs.

Starting a compost pile is simple. Instead of throwing away kitchen waste, dead flowers, and garden rubbish in your trashcans or disposal, save these compost materials in a heap and let microscopic creatures turn the unwanted garbage into useful material for vegetable gardening.

How Long Does it Take to Make Compost?

starting a compost pile

• Make compost in a few weeks by combining a whole load of materials in different layers in a pile all at once. It will heat up quickly and rot as long as the mound is turned regularly. Piles decay faster in the summertime during the hottest months where the sun heats it up quickly.

• On the other hand, take your time making a compost pile, if you have extra time to spare. Add scraps and plant material as they become available, allowing the heap to mature over a couple of vegetable gardening seasons. It can typically take six to twelve months to produce enriched usable compost.

• Use the rich compost as mulch or dig it in to improve soil structure, feed plants, and aid in controlling plant diseases. In the 18th century, it was a popular vegetable gardening practice to place banana skins in a trench under vegetables. The peels rot quickly and provide calcium, magnesium, sulfur, phosphates, sodium, and silica. They are also useful on a compost pile by aiding in speeding up the composting process.

How to Make Compost--Building a Garden Compost Pile

starting a compost pile What materials can be composted?

Good compost materials include grass clippings, manure, and tender weeds will rapidly decompose.

Mix them with fruit, vegetable scraps, used tea bags, coffee grounds, crushed eggshells, vegetable plant remains, and hedge clippings.

• Never compost meat, fish, cat litter, dog waste, disposable napkins, or glossy magazines.

• Avoid putting too many grass cuttings into the compost pile at once, or they get too slimy. Add grasses in layers of approximately four inches, alternating with other materials.

• Compost is most valuable used on vegetable crops with a long growing period.

Do not use clippings from a lawn that has been dosed with chemicals because they can inhibit the growth patterns of other plants. Compost treated lawn clippings in a pile of their own to heat up and destroy any chemical residues before using.

Maintaining a Garden Compost Pile

Composting needs adequate air, moisture, and warmth. A traditional compost pile is just a mixture of decayed plants and other organic matter. Never allow your compost pile to dry out. Keep it moist by watering in dry spells, or the decomposition process will stop.

• On the first days of November if the weather is clear, an end to the sowing you will do for the year. ~ Vegetable Gardening Folklore and sound advice!


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Starting a Compost Pile to Vegetable Gardening


Starting a Compost Pile to Vegetable Garden Fertilizer


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