Compost Tumblers For Sale

Hello! I hope you enjoy the article.

Have you ever thought about what actually happens when things rot? It may be that, like me, you have got confused reading garden books, as they are usually full of vague meanings for words like `stabilised humus’!

Many of you may think that making compost is an unpleasant or difficult process – well, I can assure you, it’s not!

For a fast track way of changing crude organic materials into humus (something resembling soil) read `a compost pile’. The word humus, however, is quite often misunderstood, together with the words organic matter and compost

Making compost is really a very simple process. It can become a natural part of your yard or gardening maintenance if done properly. If you are mowing your lawn or weeding your flower-beds, making compost doesn’t have to take any more effort than bagging up your garden waste.

To me, astounding as it may sound, handling well-made compost is actually a very pleasant experience. Don’t but put off by compost’s `dirty, nasty’ origins. There is little similarity between the healthy-smelling black or brown, crumbly substance dug out of a compost pile and the garbage, leaves, manure, grass clippings and other waste products from which it began.

To define composting precisely, it means ‘enhancing the consumption of crude organic matter by a complex ecology of biological decomposition organisms.’ Many raw organic materials are eaten and re-eaten by thousands of tiny organisms from the smallest (bacteria) to the largest (earthworms).

The components are altered gradually and recombined. Unfortunately, many gardeners use the terms compost, organic matter, and humus as interchangeable identities. However, there are important differences in meaning that need to be explained.

This organic matter food gardeners are vitally concerned with is actually formed by growing plants that manufacture the substances of life. Most organic molecules are very large and complex – inorganic materials are much simpler. Of course, animals can break down, reassemble and destroy organic matter but the one thing they cannot do is create it.

Only plants can make organic materials like proteins, cellulose, and sugars and they produce this from inorganic minerals derived from air, water or soil. The elements plants use to build include magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur, sodium, cobalt, zine, iron boron, molybdenum, carbon, manganese, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen

Thus, it is organic matter from both land and sea plants that fuels the entire chain of life from worms to whales. Because humans are most familiar with large animals, they rarely stop to consider that the soil is also filled with animal life consuming organic matter or each other.

Our rich earth is crowded with single cell organisms like bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes, rotifers and protozoa. Soil life forms increase in complexity to microscopic round worms called nematodes, various kinds of molluscs like slugs and snails (some so tiny the gardener has no idea they are even there), thousands of often microscopic soil-dwelling members of the spider family (arthropods), insects and, of course, the larger soil animals most of us are more familiar with such as moles.

The entire sum of all this organic matter – living plants, decomposing plant materials, and all the animals, living or dead, large and small – is sometimes called biomass. One realistic way to gauge the fertility of any particular soil body is to weigh the amount of biomass it sustains.

Good luck!

Hello! I hope you enjoy the article.

It seems that most organic gardeners love the idea of making their own compost, but some gardeners have trouble making it really happen. Don’t give up! There are ways to give your compost heap a boost and get it heating up again – creating beautiful, nutritious humus for your veggie garden.

OK, so after six months your ‘compost’ has remained unchanged from it’s original state? Remember there are certain conditions your heap needs to be able to actively turn it’s ingredients into compost. They are air and moisture. Here are some things you can try.

1. Turn your heap over, exposing it to air, watering if dry.

2. If your heap dries out it will stop breaking down. Water the heap every few days in summer if conditions are hot and dry.

3. Add ingredients that are as small as possible. Use a shredder, mulcher or lawn mower to chop up larger ingredients such as prunings and larger leaves.

4. To speed up the composting process add lots of nitrogen-rich ingredients such as clover, manure laden straws, herbal activators (see below), washed sea-weed or fishmeal.Herbal Compost Activators – some herbs are well known as particularly impressive compost activators. Add them to your heap to speed up your results.Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) is rich in calcium, nitrogen, phosphates and potassium. It has large hairy leaves that break down very quickly.Dandelion (Taraxacum sp) also accelerates the breaking down of materials in the heap. It is rich in copper, potash and iron, all valuable goodies in your compost.Valerian (Valeriana officinalis) has a reputation for attracting earthworms to the compost heap. It’s leaves are also rich in minerals.Yarrow (Achillea sp) can have the most dramatic effect in your heap, even in small amounts. It will enrich your compost with nitrates, potash, phosphares and copper, so is a very valuable addition.Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) has the ability to concentrate potassium from the soil where it grows. Adding Tansy to your compost means adding potassium.

If you have the room, it’s best to have two or more compost piles on the go. One that you are preparing by gathering materials, one that is semi-matured and one that has already turned into that gorgeous, black, earthy plant tonic – ready to use.

One more tip is to make sure air can get to the middle of your heap, especially if you don’t plan to turn it often. Place garden stakes or pvc pipes through the middle of your heap so that you can ‘jiggle’ them every few weeks allowing air to the centre.

Try some of these tips and I’m sure you will speed things up for your compost heap and you will be topdressing your veggies with your own compost in no time.

Good luck!