Composting in Organic Gardening

Organic gardening is known by its use of natural materials and substances as part of the cultivating process. In organic gardening, the use of natural waste products as the eventual fertilizers for the plants is common practice. This is made possible by means of composting.

Compost is the main foundation in the practice of organic gardening. Any gardener would be able to make his own compost in no time. It is not rocket science to make compost. What a gardener would need would be a shovel or a pitchfork and some organic waste material that would comprise much of the compost. Composting is actually just collecting organic wastes into a pile where they can decompose and turn into mulch.

Mulch is what you would need to spread on your plants. Mulch can help improve soil condition in many various ways. They can help improve the soils structure as well as its water holding capacity. Mulch can also improve soil aeration on soils that may contain too much clay or too much sand. What is most important is that compost and mulch do these things without doing any harm to the environment. It is just a means of letting nature taking its course of bringing back the nutrients to the soil.

But in the process of composting, there are also other things to consider when it comes to collecting organic matter to use as compost. One of the most important organic materials that you can use on your compost would be fallen leaves and grass clippings after mowing the lawn. You can use these as the main base of your compost since there are likely to be plenty of them to find in your garden when you do your daily cleaning. Instead of having them hauled away by garbage collectors you can pile them up in a vacant space in your garden or make a containing facility for them if you have the time and the money.

The reason why you would need the leaves and grass clippings is that they can provide the carbon for the soil when they eventually become compost. But make sure that you avoid putting diseased vines or twigs into the pile or they might contaminate all your other plants that would be applied with the compost later on.

Another nutrient that you may need is nitrogen. This can be provided for your compost by kitchen scraps. You can collect your kitchen scraps (there would be plenty, I’m sure) and add them to your compost pile. You can either do this daily or weekly, depending on the amount of kitchen scraps that you accumulate. But bear in mind to avoid adding animal fats or meat scraps into your compost pile since they might attract critters and other animals that may become a hassle. You can also try adding bone meal, blood meal as well as egg shells to the compost pile since they can also provide the minerals to your compost as well as help discourage garden pests.

Once you have these organic materials on hand, your compost pile would become nutrient rich mulch in no time. That is organic gardening in action. Although they might pile up considerably the first time you do so. They would eventually shrink down in size as they decompose. To speed up the process of composting, you can try to turn the compost pile every other week to allow the organic matter to circulate and decompose faster. It is normal that you will find worms and other insects in the compost pile. They would help turn the organic matter into compost that you will use.