How Do You Make “Black Gold”?
A gardener’s paradise is a place where you can grow healthy plants. To have a healthy garden, you need to make sure that your soil is fertile. The best way to do this and ensure the healthiest plants possible Is through composting–what exactly does it mean though? How does it work? What is compost made of? Why should you use organic material like vegetable scraps, grass clippings and leaves.
These are all good questions. You see the magic of composting is in its very simple ingredients. In this post, we’ll explore what they are and how to turn them into “black gold”, a soil conditioner that will help your plants thrive in any climate or environment!
What Is Compost
Compost is a natural fertilizer that’s rich in nutrients, reducing the need for chemical fertilizers. Compost can even increase your soil’s water retention abilities when mixed with it! Just mix up some of this black gold and watch how quickly plants grow strong roots from nutrient-rich topsoil below their feet—all because you had enough patience to wait them out while they finished whatever task lay before them (you know what I’m talking about).
What Is Compost Made Of?
Compost is a natural, renewable resource! It can be made with leaves and food waste to enrich the soil in your garden or used as an organic fertilizer for growing plants. All you need are three basic ingredients: browns (yard trimmings), greens (vegetables) & water
Brown’s are carbon-rich materials. They include things like dead leaves, branches and twigs to name a few! The browns produce heat as they decompose which speeds up the green material’s degradation because of this increased temperature disturbance in soil microbes that break down organic matter into smaller molecules for use by plants or animals who feed off them later on through digestion processes such as nutrient absorption
Greens: This is stuff rich in nitrogen, and it includes materials such as grass clippings. The greens also provide bacteria and fungi to the process which work together with one another!
Water – Water is not really an essential ingredient in composting, but it does help the process along. You should keep things damp but not soaking wet.
How Does Composting Work?
Composting is the process of decomposition, and it’s a natural one! The earth’s humus consists largely from organic material that decomposes over time. You can speed up this amazing transformation by putting your fresh food scraps in an enclosed pile – as long as they’re at least three feet square with holes so air circulation goes through them all day long.
The end product of composting is a rich soil-like material with an earthy smell. This process reduces waste volume by up to 90%, and the resulting compost can be used as both fertilizer for your garden or added on top without any problems in between! All this while reducing pollution caused by conventional fertilizers used in agriculture today.
How Long Does It Take To Make Compost?
Compost can be made anywhere you have organic material and some time available. How long? That depends on the type of materials used, how big your pile is, etcetera; however for most people it will take 2 months – 2 years (or even more!).
Here are 5 tips that should make things go faster:
Size matters
It’s a balancing act. If you have the wrong size compost heap, it will take longer for your pile to heat up and break down all its ingredients. It’s crucial to size it correctly! Compost heaps with a volume of about 1 cu yd (3 ft sq x 3 ft h) heat up quicker(Up to 140°F!). An indication that the organisms are working at their maximum efficiency, and breaking down ingredients, as indicated by high temperatures and fast microbial activity.
Mix it up
Compost is the result of an ongoing microbial war between different types of microbes fighting for limited resources. Some are fungi who eat woody material, others bacteria that eat grass blades and leaves, still more reproduce by making spores to spread to other parts of the pile. However, if all these bacteria are eating the same thing, they aren’t likely to fight much over it. The solution is to mix up the composting material so that different types of microbes are eating different foods and fighting each other for those resources and making heat and compost in the process.
Get the mix right
More browns, less greens you’re looking for about 20:1 mix. The more carbon-based material you have, the more successful your composting will be. Grass clippings and leaves are mostly water and nitrogen while sawdust is very high in carbon. So while grass goes faster, it doesn’t make as much heat or compost by comparison to a pile
Shred it
It should come as no surprise that smaller materials decompose more quickly. You may help your compost along by shredding fallen leaves with your lawnmower or leaf shredder, and chopping up your kitchen waste. Some avid gardeners even suggest processing kitchen waste in a blender, which adds moisture to the mix when adding it to your compost heap.
Keep it moist
The microorganisms that make your compost need water to reproduce and for their enzymes to work. If the pile isn’t moist enough, they won’t be as efficient at their job. You don’t need an excessive amount of water in compost making. Your compost pile should be moist like a damp sponge rather than soggy or waterlogged.
Why Should You Use Compost
Compost is an essential tool for gardeners. It improves soil fertility, increases water retention and minimizes erosion problems to provide healthy plants with all the nutrients they need! A good quality compost contains many beneficial organisms which work together with your plant roots in order to break down organic matter into easy-to-use forms of nitrogen that can help grow new crops better than ever before.
So next time you’re feeling tired after a long day at work just remember how amazing this humble ingredient really is. Compost is the perfect soil amendment for gardens, and it does so much more than make your plants healthier. Not only can compost help you create a better environment in which to grow them but also enrich the quality of life on our planet while we wait out this environmental crisis!
What Is Compost Let’s Just Recap.
Compost is what you get at the end of composting and it can be used to improve soil quality because it’s rich in nutrients that give plants energy. Compost is made up of decayed organic materials. Some examples of compostable material are grass clippings, leaves, food scraps, weeds and straw.
To make compost, you need to put materials together. Brown things which are carbon-based material and green things that are nitrogen-based material. It is better if there is more brown than green because of all the carbon in brown things. It takes weeks to years to make compost, but you can speed up the process.
Compost is good for the soil. It helps plants grow and makes it rich with nutrients like nitrogen and potassium. Compost also has microorganisms that will break down organic matter into nutrients.
I hope you found this post helpful
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How much do compost do u mix with soil when planting flowers
As much as 50/50