Creating your own compost is easy and provides an excellent natural fertilizer. Compost is a mixture of organic materials - leaves, manure, table scraps and more - left in a pile to decay. Naturally occurring soil organisms will work on the material and eventually break it down into a fine, homogeneous soil additive for your vegetable garden.

Making a compost pile takes only a modest amount of effort. Start small and work your way up. Select an area about 10 feet (3 m) on a side, or a circle about 10 feet in diameter. If you have a pile of leaves raked from Fall, that’s a great beginning. Over the year you can add grass cuttings, straw, vegetable leftovers or any other organic material you have lying around.

Allow your pile to get 3-5 feet (1-2m) high. Then flatten the top and make a small indentation to trap rainwater. You want the pile to be moist but not too wet. Too much water blocks the air circulation that is needed for the material to compost.

Air provides oxygen that feeds the organisms that break down the material. Although you want air circulation, you dont want the pile to be too loose either. Because once the pile reaches a certain size and stage of chemical activity it will begin to heat. If the pile is too loose the heat will escape thus hindering the chemical activity process.

To beef up the value of the compost you can add a number of compounds that are not intended to be broken down, but will add to its eventual use as fertilizer. Raw bone meal, ground rock phosphate and lime make for good additions, though they’re not the only ones.

Vegetation and these additives can be layered throughout the compost pile. When you have a layer about a foot deep, add some rock phosphate. Add an amount proportional to the compost pile. For instance, for every 100 square foot of compost you should add five pounds of rock phosphate.

Manure can also be applied to the layers in the compost pile. Usually a few inches of high for every foot of compost is sufficient. Manure can either be used alone as a fertilizer or works to enhance compost pile.

When the compost pile has been active for a few weeks, you can stir up the material to keep it uniform. Organisms may be more populous in one area than another. One area may be substantially decomposed while another has barely altered. Rotating the layers will give you a more even fertilizer that is ready to go more or less at the same time. That way you know you are spreading the same concentration of nutrients at every point in your garden.

Once the pile is ready to use, you can spread it over the entire garden area. If you have enough spread about 25 pounds for every 100 square feet of garden area. If not simply apply it to those area where the garden will be planted and watch your vegetables flourish with the help of this wonderful natural fertilizer.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 7:43 pm and is filed under Organic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.