Composting: Bob's Basics
()
About this ebook
Read more from Bob Flowerdew
Sowing, Planting, Watering, and Feeding: Bob's Basics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPruning, Training, and Tidying: Bob's Basics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCompanion Planting: Bob's Basics Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Weeding Without Chemicals: Bob's Basics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSimple Green Pest and Disease Control: Bob's Basics Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to Composting
Related ebooks
Composting for Organic Gardens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBokashi Composting: Kitchen Scraps to Black Gold in 2 Weeks: Black Gold Organic Gardening, #2 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stay Grounded: Soil Building for Sustainable Gardens: Easy-Growing Gardening, #8 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHomegrown Humus: Cover Crops in a No-Till Garden: Permaculture Gardener, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ultimate Guide to Soil: The Real Dirt on Cultivating Crops, Compost, and a Healthier Home: Permaculture Gardener, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEasy Organic Gardening Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPersonality Tests For Your Soil: The Ultimate Guide to Soil, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Intelligent Gardener: Growing Nutrient-Dense Food Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secrets of Soil Building Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rot That Stuff!: Learning How to Compost Organically Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mini Farming Guide to Composting: Self-Sufficiency from Your Kitchen to Your Backyard Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Greenhouse Gardening: A Step-By-Step Guide on How to Grow Foods and Plants for Beginners Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBasics and Benefits of Composting Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Edible Garden: How to Have Your Garden and Eat It, Too Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Essential Guide to Self-Sufficient Living: Vegetable Gardening, Canning and Fermenting, Keeping Chickens, and More Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPerfect Compost: The Complete Guide To Composting At Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Grow Potatoes: Growing Guides Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComposting Basics: All the Skills and Tools You Need to Get Started Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5No-Dig Gardening: Raised Beds, Layered Gardens, and Other No-Till Techniques Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Raised Bed Gardening Incorporating Straw Bales - RS Combo Method Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Grow Berries At Home: The complete guide to growing all kinds of berries in your backyard! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSmall-Scale No-Till Gardening Basics: The Ultimate Guide to Soil, #2 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Own Food: Save Money, Live Better, and Enjoy Life with Food from Your Garden or Orchard Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Organic Composting Handbook: Techniques for a Healthy, Abundant Garden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Gardening For You
The Self-Sufficient Backyard Homestead Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Backyard Pharmacy: Growing Medicinal Plants in Your Own Yard Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lost Book of Simple Herbal Remedies: Discover over 100 herbal Medicine for all kinds of Ailment, Inspired By Dr. Barbara O'Neill Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMidwest-The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies, Unlock the Secrets of Natural Medicine at Home Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Medicinal Herbal: A Practical Guide to the Healing Properties of Herbs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Floriography: An Illustrated Guide to the Victorian Language of Flowers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemy of Herbs - A Beginner's Guide: Healing Herbs to Know, Grow, and Use Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - 10th anniversary edition: A Year of Food Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Opium for the Masses: Harvesting Nature's Best Pain Medication Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Big Book of Backyard Medicine: The Ultimate Guide to Home-Grown Herbal Remedies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHerbal Remedies and Natural Medicine Guide: Embracing Nature’s Bounty for Holistic Wellness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Native American Herbalist Bible: A Handbook of Native American Herbs Usage in Modern Day Life and Recipes for Aliments Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Weekend Homesteader: A Twelve-Month Guide to Self-Sufficiency Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Self-Sufficiency Handbook: Your Complete Guide to a Self-Sufficient Home, Garden, and Kitchen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Floret Farm's Cut Flower Garden: Grow, Harvest, and Arrange Stunning Seasonal Blooms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wild Witchcraft: Folk Herbalism, Garden Magic, and Foraging for Spells, Rituals, and Remedies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cannabis Grow Bible: The Definitive Guide to Growing Marijuana for Recreational and Medical Use Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gardening Hacks: 300+ Time and Money Saving Hacks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Modern Witchcraft Guide to Magickal Herbs: Your Complete Guide to the Hidden Powers of Herbs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Edible Wild Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Square Foot Gardening: A Beginner's Guide to Square Foot Gardening at Home Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Companion Planting - The Lazy Gardener's Guide to Organic Vegetable Gardening Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Practical Botany for Gardeners: Over 3,000 Botanical Terms Explained and Explored Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mycelial Mayhem: Growing Mushrooms for Fun, Profit and Companion Planting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Composting
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Composting - Bob Flowerdew
Introduction
Compost is magical stuff—much like well-rotted farmyard manure but cleaner and sweeter, more like rich friable loam. And it has a host of benefits. Indeed, the more compost is investigated, the more benefits are found. Applying compost feeds your soil, helps conserve moisture, then feeds your plants and simultaneously controls many pests and diseases. Yet it is but the rotted down remains of our kitchen and garden wastes. Stuff that otherwise would be a problem and would cost you to get rid of.
Making and applying compost is an essential for organic gardeners, but it is good sense for everyone else, too. Nothing you can do in the garden gives as many returns as collecting materials and mixing them into a compost bin. The health, vigor, yield, and taste of your plants all improve and you benefit from eating the nutrient-rich produce that grows from it. Not only will you recycle your wastes; probably soon you will be scavenging from others and helping to clean up a messy world. Even weeding, mowing, and hedge trimming become less arduous when you realize what valuable nutrients they contribute to your compost bin.
I am fascinated by composting; how different mixtures of all sorts of things come out as such a uniform and useful product. I have been composting for three decades and I have tried many methods. What is amazing is that, given a few basics, composting always works so well and produces such excellent results. Even badly made compost has a use, indeed, left much longer it would eventually become better compost. However, with careful mixing in a decent container good compost can be made in only a matter of months. Be warned, though; once you find out how effective and useful compost is there is never enough.
Why compost?
We’re all composting nowadays. Most of us compost because we want to, but some because there is no other legal easy way of disposing of household and garden wastes. Apart from being such a simple solution, composting has another benefit worth having. In decomposing the raw materials a compost bin creates fertility, something you would have to buy otherwise. Compost is a natural fertilizer and soil enricher that feeds your garden better than any store-bought fertilizer, and does as much good as a whole load of well-rotted manure. For compost does not just feed the soil immediately but also inoculates it with micro-organisms that liberate the soil’s locked-up wealth of nutrients. Compost in the soil degrades and becomes humus, which benefits the soil by improving its crumb structure, multiplying the water-holding capacity, and darkening the soil so that it warms up more in the sun. All this from wastes that would otherwise be sent to landfills (costing us money to transport them there), where they would slowly decay giving off atmosphere-destroying gases while leaching residues into our drinking water. Whereas a proper compost heap lets little of value escape, capturing it all to be returned as fertility for healthier plants and bigger crops. Even just having a compost heap encourages wildlife in your garden. Vast numbers of small critters live in, around and especially underneath compost bins. These in turn bring in more attractive creatures, such as rodents and birds. So your garden wins in many ways, and all for free. Remember, composting is a natural process, and even if it does go a bit wrong it can always be put right again, and no innocent lives are lost—in fact, countless billions are born hourly in every bin!
Not trash but treasure…
Food for thought
Here’s some food for thought: organisms in healthy soil need but a small addition of compost annually to help them combine minerals, water, and air to create natural fertilizers that will feed and fatten plants. Figures suggest that somewhere between a quarter to half of all food produced is not eaten but thrown away. If it were returned to the farmers and composted, it could be enough fertility to grow much of our food for the following year.
There are no more weeds, wastes, or surplusses; they have all become pieces of future fertility.
When did composting begin?
The deliberate construction of actively decomposing compost heaps for their soil-enhancing and enriching product is a relatively recent introduction to Western gardening. On the other side of the world, clever composting processes have long been employed by the Chinese, but their use rarely spread outside their region.
Perhaps the earliest pioneers copied nature, which gives us examples of natural composting. Fallen leaves and other matter accumulate in holes and against banks and hedges, and piles of dung build into heaps as animals return to the same toilet.
As early humans settled here and there, they left archaeologists treasure troves of their kitchen middens. These, the remains of all their household wastes, were lazily dumped near their dwellings. With civilization, the wastes became deposited further from the house, though, at best, just outside the town or city walls. The fertility of these piles of rotting materials must have been evident from the vigor of the plants that sprang from seeds consigned to these dumps.
Interestingly, somehow from ancient