COMPOST is essential in any garden, particularly at the coast, where the soil tends to resemble beach sand rather than fertile humus.
The ingredients are all things that you would otherwise have thrown away, so it costs you nothing but a little bit of effort to make your own compost.
Roughly two-thirds of the mix should comprise carbon-rich materials, such as dead leaves, straw, dead flower heads and shredded newspaper. The other one-third consists of nitrogen-rich materials, such as grass clippings and plant-based kitchen waste. If you have access to kraal manure, that is also rich in nitrogen. A few shovels of garden soil and a sprinkling of water complete the recipe.
Start by spreading a layer several centimetres thick of coarse, dry brown stuff, like straw or cornstalks or leaves, where you want to build the pile. Top that with several centimetres of green stuff and add a thin layer of soil. Continue layering until the pile is a metre high. Water it lightly and cover with plastic. It should be kept moist but not allowed to become soggy.
Every couple of weeks, use a garden fork to turn the pile, moving the material at the centre of the pile to the outside and working the material on the outside to the centre of the pile. When you first turn the pile, you may see steam rising from it. This is a sign that the pile is heating up as a result of the materials in it decomposing.
If you turn the pile every couple of weeks and keep it moist, you will begin to see earthworms throughout the pile and the centre of the pile will turn into black, crumbly, sweet-smelling ‘black gold.’ When you have enough finished compost in the pile to use in your garden, shovel out the finished compost and start your next pile with any material that hadn’t fully decomposed in the previous one.
You don’t need a compost bin to make compost. You simply need a pile of at least one cubic metre. A pile this size will have enough mass to decompose without a bin. Many gardeners buy or build compost bins because they keep the pile neat. Some are designed to make turning the compost easier or protect it from soaking rains.
One thing you might want to buy from your local garden centre is an activating powder to get the decomposition process started.
(Information from organicgardening.com)
