Composting on your own plot is a great opportunity to get rid of garden debris and, at the same time, prepare valuable organic fertilizer.

Well, especially practical owners also manage to grow early vegetables on a compost heap.

Compost, being a product of microbiological transformation, provides balanced plant nutrition, improves soil structure, saturating it with humus and imparting loose properties, which undoubtedly affects the ease of subsequent soil processing. Unlike other organic matter, such as manure, compost gently fertilizes the roots of plants without causing burns.

WHERE TO POST

The composting process begins with choosing a location for the compost pit. According to sanitary requirements, such structures should be located no closer than 15 meters from the house and 20 meters from the well. The most favorable place for a compost device is at the end of a garden or vegetable garden.

An additional requirement is the choice of a shaded area so that the compost does not dry out in the summer. For the same purpose, the compost device is covered with a film or other synthetic material — this technique significantly prolongs the decomposition period.

TYPES OF COMPOST DEVICES

Compost the device may look like a compost bin, a box, or just a pile. What is better to choose? Let’s look at each option separately, and you will draw your own conclusions.

COMPOST TANK sold in finished assembled form, it is most often made of plastic, less often from boards. Depending on the type of construction, it can become a very aesthetic and intelligent garden helper — most models are made with an opening window for excavating finished compost located at the bottom.

The principle of «work» of such a device is quite simple: through the top you periodically lay raw materials for
compost, and after a year, opening the bottom hole, as needed, take out the already prepared compost with a shovel. Such a circulation of raw materials in a composting device can last exactly as long as the container material lasts.

The downside is that the life of plastic (meaning cheap polyethylene options) in open air is quite short (no more than three years) and the solid walls of the container cannot provide aeration of the contents, which speeds up the composting process.

The advantage is the absence of an unpleasant odor outside the container and a fairly aesthetic appearance that does not require masking. Some designs are equipped with upper removable trays in which you can grow early vegetables (processing raw materials into compost is accompanied by heat release) or simply flowers.

zealous owner will give preference to self-made COMPOSTER. It is preferred to be made of two or three sections.

Organics are laid in one for one season and left until spring, and the second begins to be filled only the next year. The third section is for fallen leaves — they are put into the compost only dry (last year’s). Thus, when both compartments are full, the first one can be opened and excellent quality fertilizer can be taken out. And then start bookmarking again.

The disadvantage of this variant of the composting device is the spread of smell and the need for masking.

Plus — the influx of fresh air speeds up the process of compost maturation.

BURT — the simplest compost a device that looks like a mound on the surface of the earth or in a recess (up to 50 cm), often bordered by low wooden sides. The top layer of the pile is covered with layers of straw and earth.

This is the most common way to dispose of plant waste in our villages, but such a structure looks and smells unattractive. I recommend building a compost mound instead of a pile.

You just need to cover the compost heap on all sides with a layer of earth 10 cm thick in the fall, and then sow vegetable seeds on it.

Compost hills are the most optimistic, unusual, aesthetic and simple way to create beds — hills are laid before winter, crops are sown in autumn and spring, and compost is ready in autumn. And no smell!

I don’t have a lot of waste in my dacha, so I opted for a pile with sidewalls from a tire from a truck with a diameter of more than a meter (I found it barbarously cut off on the side of the road).

First, I dug a hole half a meter deep and a little less than a tire in diameter.

Then she cut off the tire with a knife.

She laid thin branches in the structure, sprouted vegetables from the cellar, sprinkled with ash (the soil in the area is slightly acidic), a thin layer of earth and spilled it. As the garden is processed, I will add greenery, kitchen waste and kurpomet.

Over time, I will get another tire and make another pile to give the compost time to ripen.

A well-organized composting process is the presence of a container for a composter, a container for soil and a box for fallen leaves last fall. The last two components are necessary for the rearrangement of organic layers. Sprinkled on top, they will cover the decaying waste and save you from the obsessive smell and swarm of flies over the composter.

Composting begins with laying out the bottom of the container with sawdust, shavings, thin twigs.

Many publications write about laying organic matter in a composter (compost pit) in layers. This is ideal.

In fact, the flow of waste is not always uniform and sometimes not enough to create even a thin layer. Therefore, small parties simply pour out and cover this place with an armful of grass or last year’s foliage (you can’t put fresh ones in compost, but it’s better to send oak or walnut trees away from the garden).

It’s a good idea to alternate the laying of compost with layers of chicken manure or manure. Livestock waste, after lying in the compost for a year, will burn out and will no longer be so dangerous for young growth in the garden.

In order to regulate the balance of carbon and nitrogen in the resulting fertilizer, we recommend using the following table:

Compost turns into solid humus in one and a half to two years (cold compost). At your disposal will be crumbly «earth» of black color with a high content of «usefulness» 🙂

But even in a year you will be able to add high-quality fertilizer to the beds, however, it will still contain the remains of vegetation that has not decomposed to the end.

In any case, the preparation of cold compost will require two containers (or two compartments — one for each year).

One-season compost (hot compost) is obtained using biopreparations with anaerobic bacteria.

First, all the material is bookmarked, then it is spilled with a solution with bacteria (according to the instructions), nothing more is reported, and after three months the compost is ready.

This method is convenient when there is a large amount of garden waste at the same time.

STRICTLY IMPOSSIBLE put waste of protein origin into the compost device: leftovers from cooked food, fish, meat, broths. You risk turning the biofactory into a source of stench and flies. We advise you to dig a hole under the fruit tree, put protein waste there and dig in. In this way, you will get rid of garbage, bad smell, flies and appease your garden.

The efficiency of compost maturation can be increased by adding missing nutrients to it. So, to improve the processing of coarse wood waste (wood, coarse stems, foliage, needles), nitrogen fertilizers are added to the compost mixture. Potash and phosphorus fertilizers are applied to grass waste.

You can increase the rate of compost maturation with the help of ash and eggshells, while
the quality of the compost itself improves dramatically.

Aeration will speed up the compost ripening process. Slots are provided for this in wooden composters.

Busy hosts it is better to buy a plastic composter, in which all waste will turn into fertilizer without any problems in a year.

Give preference to those designs that have a hole for excavating the end product at the bottom of the container. That is, at the top there is a bookmark of what is no longer needed, over time the level of garbage increases, but in a year it will be possible to select excellent compost from the lower section.

Ideas for creating a composter with your own hands are presented below.

From pallets you can make a lot of interesting things, up to garden furniture. Well, for a composter, this «raw material» will definitely fit, because it is made of strong wood.

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