a comPOST

As you may have guessed already, this is a post all about compost! Now if you have been following this blog for about three years now, you probably have a vague sense of deja vu. We did have a post about the basics of composting written around that time, however this post will go more in depth and provide some resources for further reference. Onto the fascinating topic of compost!

Just about the first thing to know about compost is that it is humus (not the dip!) and the product of decomposed organic matter which is utilized to provide nutrients to soil. As discussed in the aforementioned post, the organic matter is composed of two kinds of materials: green and dead (or brown). Green materials include grass clippings, potato peels, and hedge trimmings. Dead materials include wood ashes, sawdust, dried leaves, and animal manure. Materials that I do not feel like categorizing right now and can be included are coffee grounds, well-soaked newspapers, and even vacuum-cleaner fluff. Materials to NOT include are cooked food scraps, diseased plants, roots and seeds of weeds, and anything containing grease. The green materials provide nitrogen while the dead materials provide phosphorus and potassium.

Our school compost bins are wonderful and I did not realize just how wonderful they were until going into junior year when I read this Guide to School Composting. Our handy dandy bins are capable of rotating, possess air holes, and have considerable storage. Rotating or turning the bins are important to make sure that the green and dead materials are getting mixed up. To help with the decomposition process, it is also important to water on a regular basis. The air holes allow for good air circulation and also drainage if we somehow managed to overwater excessively. The one quality I personally do not like about our bins is the difficulty in actually getting the compost out. It is not necessarily hard, but it is rather troublesome because of the limited size of the hole to get the compost out of and managing to efficiently remove a significant amount of compost with each shovelful.

As of now, we have a pretty decent amount of compost hoarded away. A big shout out and thank you to Mr. Bollette for providing us with a regular supply of compost materials! Points in the year where compost is suggested to be added to our beds is after we clean up the beds in preparation for winter and in the spring, before we plant any seedlings into the beds.

Whew! That is A LOT of information and you are probably wondering just where I got it all from! Well, plenty of the information is in the link above which has a self-explanatory title. Other information I gathered from books! A long long time ago when I was doing my first informational post on herbs, I mentioned four books that I had gotten from a book sale. Two of those books, The Essential Gardener: Annuals, Perennials, Bulbs, Roses, Trees, Shrubs, Herbs, Vegetables and Reader's Digest Illustrated Guide to Gardening, I looked through to gather details about compost. They are both also super helpful for tips and methods about gardening topics other than compost. Never underestimate the resources of a library! If a library is too far or you need the information ASAP, then it is never shameful to turn towards the Internet. A problem I find with a lot of different gardening blogs is that they tend to be specific towards the region and climate where the blogger lives. A blog may have ultra helpful advice and beautiful diagrams; all of that information is moot if it is specific towards their area. Thus, this blog Mendham Garden Center Gardening Guide Blog contains a plethora of information and happens to discuss a few New Jersey related particulars. In other words, the ideal blog for us New Jerseyan gardeners!

See you next time!