By Bryan Good
Sustainability Studies student
A first time gardener knows very little about the need to amend the soil. Heck, he just got something to grow which is cool enough. As one learns, it will be seen that growing food takes minerals and nutrients out of the soil which need to replaced. This can be done by adding compost.
Compost is a nutrient and mineral dense “soil” that is added to “increase octane” to the
dirt. In it’s simplest explanation, it adds back what is taken out by the plants.
There are many ways to do this, the easiest is to purchase compost and then add it
to your garden but another is to make your own. It’s easy to do but a little labor, energy
and love are needed.
One example that I’ve done for several years:leaves and rabbit food. Every year beginning around September, the trees start to drop their leaves onto our lawns. Traditionally, one would rake those leaves and either burn them or throw them away.
Why!?
It breaks my heart to see someone burning leaves once I learned the benefit they provide a garden. So why add to the burden of landfills or the carbon in the atmosphere? Leaves are minerals that the tree has pulled out of the ground that it can use to make food and grow. They are mineral and nutrient dense, so why not compact them more by shredding the leaves? When fall and winter come trees drop the leaves so they won’t be a liability through the cold, dark winter months. If you build a pile and let them sit they will compost but some people like the process done faster so we supplement with nitrogen.
Rabbit food is the best I’ve found to get the process going and going it gets. I’ve recently expanded my system to include wood shavings with chicken manure and coffee grounds. The pile was up to 140 degrees within one day of building it. Besides using the compost as a direct soil supplement, you can use it to make compost tea. This allows your compost to go much further as you use very little compost to make a lot of tea. No, you don’t drink it, your plants do, and they will love you for it. So much so that they will shower you with whatever they are producing; flowers, fruits, veggies or whatever that you can share with others which as we learned last time is one of the keys to sustaining the earth for our future.
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