Who spent the previous season sneezing like crazy while raking up and bagging all of your oak leaves? Anyone, anyone? Bueller? Bueller? I know some of you did, because I saw beds of countless pickup trucks piled high with lawn bags. All that carbon available and just thrown away! What about the bags of grass clippings that get shoved into our trashcans each week after mowing our lawns? Any idea how much nitrogen was just taken away to be dumped and thought of no more? And then we look at our brown lawns and shuffle our feet in disdain, or we haul in truckloads of compost for our garden beds while mumbling under our breaths over the cost. Our landfills are being pushed to the brink at an alarming rate, and a huge chunk of that waste could be avoided by recycling our organic material right back into our own lawns and gardens. This can all be done with minimal effort through composting, mulching, and grasscycling (letting clippings fall back onto lawn). If you’ve never composted before, have no fear, it’s not too late to start. With a little knowledge, you can make yourself part of the movement to encourage the cycle of natural life. In nature, demise plus deterioration equals newness of life and when we take portions out of that equation, we mess up the cycle. Ever hear the phrase, “You don’t mess with Mother Nature”? This blog is just to get you thinking about the reasons to start composting. I’ve included some links throughout the blog to dive deeper into the subject.
(Love the earth and leave your lawn “waste” out of the landfills.)
What is composting? Composting is using a variety of different organic materials (grass clippings, leaves, small wood clippings, fruit and vegetable peels, coffee grounds, non-fatty food scraps, soil and water) and allowing them to decompose with the end product resulting in a nutrient-rich humus. The finished composted product (humus) is then used to supply your gardens and lawns with viable nutrients increasing the overall health of your landscape. While there is a multitude of organic material you CAN add to your compost pile, it is not necessarily a free for all. I want to make sure I include a few words about some things NOT to throw into your bin. You don’t want to include diseased plants into your compost pile. If you include diseased plants, they will break down and spread their disease all over the rest of your compost pile. Same goes for weeds, especially those with seeds. You would just be creating a breeding ground and when you spread your new compost, you will also be spreading weeds. Do not compost meat products, or products contaminated with chemicals. And although manure is an acceptable form of compost, Fido’s poop is not. Yep, you still gotta scoop and discard that one.
(A slew of acceptable ingredients tossed into a compost bin made of recycled pallets.)
Why compost? I think the real question should be, why not? I don’t know many of you out there who would turn up your nose at the chance to help save the earth. Especially if it took minimal effort and you would get an amazing product that would boost the health of your lawns and gardens. Unfortunately, some people are not aware of just how beneficial some of the “waste, scraps and cast-offs” you have at your disposal are to your own landscape. There are many reasons for composting such as: improving soil conditions (loosening up that clay), helping retain moisture in the soil (we sure need that during our hot spells), and adding nutrients back into the soil (our lime water leaches out needed nutrients daily). There is also the bonus that while you are benefiting from the home improvement aspect, you are also doing your part in being environmentally conscious. Not only could you be saving yourself hundreds of dollars by creating your own delicious concoction for your garden, but you will also be saving a portion of the earth. It’s a win-win situation all around.
(Some people even choose to grow veggies on top of their compost because the nutrients are so good.)
There is not that much needed to get started with composting. You might choose to just pile up organic matter someplace out of sight in your yard and allow the decomposition to take place slowly on its own. Or you might choose to purchase or build a compost bin (easily done out of used pallets) so that you can speed up the decomposition process and use your composted product faster. If you are in town this weekend, you might want to come to our free seminar at Thousand Oaks to learn about another composting technique, “Composting with Worms”. How quickly your pile of organic material decomposes relates to certain variables such as: temperature (hotter temps tend to “cook” your compost faster), moisture (watering periodically, not overwatering, will speed up the decomposition), aeration (how often you turn your compost pile with a pitch fork to get some air circulation through to the bottom of the pile), the size of your waste (larger pieces of wood will decompose, but they take a really long time, so it’s best to mulch them up if you can), the ratio of Carbon to Nitrogen (basically you want to make sure you are adding browns and greens at a 30:1 ratio). Many also opt to add extra microorganisms to their compost pile to encourage the process. This could be done with products like Compost Starter from Espoma.
(Compost in a purchased bin that is well on its way to becoming nutrient rich humus.)
Once you get started composting, I bet you will get very excited about it. It will be like a whole new world has opened up to you. You’ll be amazed at all the options that are available for you to reuse. Friends will be shocked to have watermelon rinds ripped from their mouths and hands as you run joyously to toss it into your compost bin. Your morning coffee grinds and banana peels wont have to stink up your garbage anymore. You may start to enjoy mowing your lawn knowing that you are creating a fresh dose of grass clippings to add to the pile. You’ll smile while raking some of your leaves for your compost and then mowing the rest for a mulch your grass will love. I hope this blog has encouraged you to take a closer look at composting and that you’ll be able to see the great benefits it has not only for your landscape, but also for the earth. Now go hug a tree, make a “grass angel” in the lawn, and make your pledge to Mother Nature to recycle all she has to offer you.
(A little Happy Gardener loving the earth.)
The Happy Gardener
Lisa Mulroy
