The first question most people ask is what is Composting anyway? Composting is rotten constituent(a) matter that has broken down to a soil like consistency and it is an excellent organic addition to your lawn and garden. Composting is taking garden and/or lawn waste along with certain food scraps, and recycling it into a valuable natural material. It then can be used as mulch in your garden beds and can provide nutrient value to your lawn and vegetable garden. Compost also provides good organic matter to your flowerbeds, lawn and gardens. Compost can be used rather of chemical fertilizers and is a natural solution for most organic gardens.

What happens during this process of composting is a breakdown of waste materials are digested by microbes, bacterium and fungi.  The microbes that are the workers of the composting world. When supplied with the proper quantitys of air and water these microbes help with the composting process and reduce the chance of a bad odor.  This will only happen if there is not sufficient air going through the composting bin or pile. If the composting bin is producing a bad odor, you can fix this by turning the compost with a muck fork and adding more yard waste to circulate more air.

Besides all the gains compost can do for your lawn and garden, there is a larger benefit.  Compost reduces space used in landfills and helps to reduce methane gases produced by these landfills. This also helps reduce the amount of yard waste you take to the curb every week. So you can stop bagging and dragging your yard waste.

Before starting your composting there are decisions you will need to make. First, what kind of composting bins will you need to get started? Next, what kind of waste will you add into your composting bin?  Finally, picking the best place in your backyard to place the bin. This should be in the back recess and away from your house as well as your neighboring houses. Remember it is best to start small and simple.

Compost is really not that hard to make. You just need a layer of green yard waste followed by a layer of brown decaying yard waste to your composting tumbler. For your green material you can use yard waste such as leaves and dry grass clippings. Don’t use wet grass or wet leaves.  Next, your brown layer materials can include dry grass, dry leaves, shredded branches, dry twigs, straw, and dry garden waste. Regardless of when and how you decide to start composting your waste one thing is for sure, you will have less yard waste going to the landfill.

Now go out and buy yourself a composting bin and get started.  With a little experimenting and reading material up on composting you will quickly become an skillful at it. Along with saving trips to the curb you will be producing an organic material that will make your lawn and garden thrive and grow. With greener grass and bigger flowers you will be the envy of your neighborhood.

Composting Bins, Composting Bin, Composting Tumbler

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 9th, 2010 at 5:46 am and is filed under Gardening Plants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.