By Devon Brugh
The sea of light brown dirt in front of us was just a minor setback. If the soil lacked the nutrients it needed, then we would have to supplement those items. One way of doing that was to create a compost box. There a variety of ways to create a box or keeper. They just need to be easy to dump waste in the top and be able to remove the compost from the bottom. Ours looked similar to the one shown here. My husband brought skids home from work. The back skid was lower than the front. We would fill the box from the back and remove the compost from the front. There are many sites on line to show the beginner how to make a compost box. I’ve added one site for you; I encourage you to look at Mother Earth News as mentioned in the previous blog.
Compost itself is “A mixture of decaying organic matter, as from leaves and manure, used to improve soil structure and provide nutrients” (Farlex, 2013). All the leaves from our trees, all the grass clippings and any scraps from our fresh food and vegetables were thrown the box to let them decay. We live next to a business that has someone come out and cut their grass. They normally bagged the clippings and took them. We asked them for their assistance and they would leave the bags of grass by the fence.
Besides the leaves, grass and plant waste, we added ashes to our compost pile from our fire pit. I was a little leery about this at first but my husband insisted. He told me the ash will not only provide potash that the soil needs but will provide more charcoal for the compost to be able to retain more moisture.
The last thing we applied in our garden as well as in our compost box was animal manure. The animal manure like the compost has high amounts of nutrients like nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus that plants need to grow and thrive. I was unaware of the varieties of manure that could be used. It stands to reason that before store fertilizers were created farmers would use the waste products of their animals. Secondly depending on the animal there are different levels of Potassium, Phosphorus and Nitrogen in the manure. My husband came home one day with 6 thirty-gallon size trash bags full of duck manure. One of the few times I was graetful the garden was in the back end of our half-acre yard. Surprisingly it didn’t have very much of an odor, I was concerned about the neighbors complaining. All the bags were tilled into the garden along with a layer of compost. We didn’t want to burn the soil up but still wanted to be able to plant a garden that spring. We also later in the year bought prepared cow manure from the garden center to add to our compost pile.
Even though we didn’t start with the soil we had hoped for, we were able to introduce the nutrients and microorganisms back into what we had to start the rebirth of a healthy soil.
Farlex. (2013). The Free Dictionary. Retrieved September 29, 2013, from The Free Online Dictionary, Thusarus and Encylopedia: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/compost
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