Composting

Although many plants will thrive in poor soil, or even no soil, most of the plants that we depend on for food or beautification of our homes need good soil. Poor soils such as heavy clay or sandy soil can be improved by the application of compost.

Composting requires organic material such as newly mown grass, dried materials such as last years dead leaves, water and oxygen for the bacteria to break it all down to a useful product. These materials cannot just be tilled into the soil without composting as they will burn the new plants. It also works best during the warm Summer months. There are many methods used for composting, such as separate wire bins, or barrels that can be rolled, but the point is, you need to turn over the materials to expose it to the oxygen to keep the breakdown process working. (Do not use mown grass if you have added fertilizers or weedkillers to the lawn during the past year.)
We raked up all of our fallen leaves last fall, and bagged it all up to rot over the winter. Some of this was tilled into our vegetable garden, and some was used to get the compost going. To this we add all vegetable scraps from the kitchen, eggshells, coffee grounds, weeds, horse, chicken or cow manure, spent house plants, etc. Do not use any animal products except manure.

Compost takes a while to make, so we treat it like an expensive material and only use it for plants that like lots of organic matter to grow, such as tomatoes, & watermelons. Of course, you could just go to the store and buy fertilizer, but that is not an organic method for farming. Learn to compost.

June 9. We have been adding to our compost, and not only have we already emptied the composter, and filled it again, but we have 3 large trash cans full of decaying materials, and a long Summer to go yet. It looks like we will also have to build one of those 3 bin wire grid systems to take up the extra materials. We loaded the first pile around the potatoes, and will be using it to "hill up" around them, and they will grow very well in the soft compost.