Composting Guide For Small Gardeners

You often have thought of making a composting pile, if you love gardening or are a kitchen gardener. The organic waste management company helps you to solve your composting problems. However, there might always have been a few problems you are always struggling with like turning the pile into the too wet or dry mixture.

With this, sometimes, you do not add the right proportions of dry & wet scraps which thereby does not harvest a good quality manure at the end.

To resolve all these problems, I have come up with a composting guide. This blog will educate you on the compost problems, precaution & measures to be taken if pile harvesting goes wrong, and so on.

So, without wasting time, let’s dive right into the guide:

Gather green & brown scraps

To get the quality manure, you will need to wait until you assemble enough scraps to make a 3 feet deep pile. Whether you are making a garden-side pile or vermicompost bin, wait until you gather enough scrap quantities. Also, make sure that you are collecting a variety of wet residues. Because the microorganisms can decompose the wet residuals better when they get a good combination of scraps for decomposition. As such residue combination tends to have the right proportions of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, etc.

Maintain the right scrap proportion

As much as the combined variety of residues is necessary, the same way, you are required to maintain the right proportions as well. Green scrap includes kitchen leftovers, fresh plant or grass trimmings, etc which are ultimately high in nitrogen contents. Whereas brown scrap includes shredded tree branches, fallen dried flowers & leaves, hay, straw, wood shavings, etc which add carbon to the heap. Ideally, you should start building a pile structure by adding three parts brown & one part green materials in the garden-side stack or vermicompost bin.

Water the heap correctly

Once the heap is arranged properly, it is time to add requisite amounts of water into it. Water is necessary to keep your pile properly moisturized. For instance, it should not turn too dry. Adding water maintains its water elements consistency within it. However, you must also keep a check that you are not adding too much water. If added, the microorganisms will become waterlogged and drown. The effect of which is your heap will start to rot instead of getting decomposed.

Monitor the temperatures

You should also keep a frequent check on the temperatures of your stack. You can monitor the temperature with a thermometer or simply reach the middle of the heap with the hand. Your heap should feel warm to your hand. If it feels warm, then the microbial decomposition is getting done in the right way. The ideal temperature range is between 135-160 degrees Fahrenheit. All such checks are necessary when you are harvesting a pile on small scales.

Maintain proper aerations

A compost stack does require the right oxygen and air for the decomposition process. Microbes can only decompose the residuals in the presence of oxygen. Otherwise, the stack will rot & start smelling real bad. Therefore, you must turn up the stack with a garden fork once in every week. The ideal time to turn the stack is when the heap feels warm or thermometer readings are ranging between 130 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Stirring up the stack also makes the decomposition process faster.

Conclusion:

So, you can follow these steps when you are cultivating a compost stack. This way, your efforts most probably will not go wrong. However, if you are finding this procedure a bit lengthy & troublesome, then you can also install a fully automatic composting machine-like Goldust.

It is a product of LAHS Eco Engineering - an organic waste management company. Goldust organically decomposes wet waste and generates ready eco-friendly manure for use. This organic waste compost machine follows the 3R principles that are Reduce, Recycle, and Reuse. You can visit the official website of LAHS Eco Engineering to learn more about Goldust.