Black Gold or compost is probably the best thing you can add to your garden soil to improve the health of your soil. It is chock-full of organic matter and nutrients that will help your plants to thrive. The natural process of plant and animal matter breaking down (or decomposing) will happen on its own, but there are things we can do to help that process along. You can purchase composted products from nurseries and garden centers in bags and sometimes in bulk. Adding two to four inches to your garden soil a year can help you maintain healthy soil that will retain water and provide nutrients for your plants. You can also make your own compost and keep all those food scraps, lawn clippings, dried leaves and yard trimmings out of the landfill (kind of a win-win).
There are a lot of composting bins available on the market out there if you want to give that a try. I have the space in my yard to do it right on the ground (which the earthworms like as they can tunnel down into the soil under the compost where it’s cooler in the heat of the summer days and come up to help the composting process at night).
A properly built compost pile is about a 50/50 ratio of Brown (carbon-rich) and Green (nitrogen-rich) materials. Here are some examples of each:
• Brown; dried leaves, shredded paper and cardboard, straw, wood chips, twigs and dry prunings.
• Green; kitchen scraps, lawn clippings, green garden waste and animal manure in moderation (not dog or cat)
Lay a layer of brown then a layer of green and add a shovel full of native soil or already composted material to inoculate the mix with the bacteria and soil microbes responsible for the decomposing process, a little water and repeat the layering process. You can build your pile as large as you want. The literature says a pile three feet high and wide or larger will heat up enough in the middle to kill weed seeds and plant pathogens (the composting process produces heat). Composting will still occur in smaller piles they just may not heat up much.
Note: The smaller you chop the ingredients before you add them to the pile, the faster the pile will compost. Turn the pile every week or to help it mix the materials and aerate (composting needs oxygen) add water to keep it all moist as well. Start a new pile when you turn the first pile. This will allow the first pile to fully compost by the time it’s done. You will usually have some material that was larger or maybe a little woody that did not fully compost. I just pull the larger stuff out and add it to the newest pile you are making.
Once compost is completed add it to your garden beds and watch your plants thrive!
By: Don Coughlin
