There is a secret to growing a magnificent garden, and it’s simpler than you might think. Even novice gardeners can achieve expert results by mastering one key technique: composting. Composting is the secret to becoming a victorious gardener. It’s easy to do—anyone can compost and create an awe-inspiring garden. To get started, you need to understand the purpose of composting and learn a few tips for creating compost that will transform your garden.
The Purpose of Composting
Composting, as defined by a dictionary, is a mixture of decayed organic matter used to fertilize soil. By incorporating compost into your garden, you enrich the soil with nutrients naturally, eliminating the need for chemical fertilizers.
The primary goal of composting is to enhance soil quality naturally. High-quality soil is the foundation of a thriving garden. Poor soil leads to yellowing or wilting plants that appear starved, often due to nutrient deficiencies or improper pH levels. Even if your soil is marginally suitable for gardening, plants may grow but fail to produce optimally—or at all.
Adding organic matter through composting improves soil fertility and texture, ensuring proper drainage while retaining moisture. Compost also helps maintain pH balance and nitrogen levels, enabling the soil to nourish your garden effectively.
Turning Waste into Garden Gold
You’ve likely heard the saying, “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.” With composting, your household waste becomes your garden’s treasure. Despite efforts to recycle and protect the environment, much organic waste ends up in landfills. Instead, you can repurpose it to benefit your garden. Consider these common items:
- After making morning coffee, what do you do with the coffee grounds?
- When raking your yard, do you bag the leaves and leave them for pickup?
- After peeling a potato, where do the peelings go?
- When cracking an egg, what happens to the eggshell?
If you’re throwing these items away, you’re missing an opportunity to enrich your garden while reducing landfill waste, which poses environmental challenges. Coffee grounds, leaves, potato peels, and eggshells are all organic matter that can be transformed into compost instead of being discarded. Using compost in your garden is a cost-effective alternative to expensive fertilizers—it’s free when you repurpose your waste.
Composting can be as simple as creating a pile and allowing it to decay before mixing it into your soil. This is the most effective method, though some gardeners prefer burying organic waste directly in the garden. Either approach is better than throwing organic matter away.
You can include a variety of materials in your compost, such as fruits, vegetables, shredded paper, grass clippings, leaves, weeds, straw, dead flowers, tea leaves, coffee grounds, wood chips, sawdust, eggshells, and dried manure. However, avoid adding meat products, bones, fats, dairy products, diseased or poisonous plants, chemically treated wood or sawdust, and human or pet waste. Cow or horse manure is suitable, provided it’s not fresh.
To compost effectively, build a pile directly on the ground or use a composting bin, especially if you’re new to the process. Ensure a balanced mix of materials, such as dried greenery and vegetable peelings, and keep the pile moist to promote decomposition. When the compost is ready, it will be dark, with most materials decomposed beyond recognition. Even if some items aren’t fully broken down, they’ll continue to decay once mixed into the garden soil.
Composting is straightforward and forgiving—almost impossible to get wrong. As long as you use wholesome organic materials, your compost will be perfect for creating a healthy, productive garden.
