By Jonathan White, environmental scientist
For many
people, composting is just an alternative way of dealing with rubbish. It
prevents the garbage bin from getting full and smelly.
It’s also
a way of disposing of grass clippings and leaves, which saves many trips to the
garbage depot. Whilst these things are valid, they are not giving compost
the full credibility it deserves. Compost can be very valuable when used
in the right way.
I have a
completely different way of looking at compost. To me, composting is a
way of building valuable nutrients that will, one day, feed me and my
family. I only use compost on my vegetable gardens.
The way I
manage my vegetable gardens means that composting is an integral part of the
whole food production system. I create compost as a way of collecting
nutrients in one form (waste), and turning them into another form (food).
The
average person buys food from a shop, consumes it and then sends the waste
away. This is simply buying nutrients, taking what you need for that
precise moment, and disregarding the remainder. It’s a nutrient flow that
only flows in one direction, like a fancy car roaring down the road. You
admire the car for a moment, but after a second or two, it’s gone.
My goal
is to slow down the car and then get it to do a U-turn. I want to keep
the nutrients within my property where I can capitalize on them. By doing
this, I am able to use the nutrients again, so I don’t have to buy them for a
second time. Surely, that’s going to save me money.
It may
seem strange to think of nutrients in this way when we can’t even physically
see them. However, all organic materials contain nutrients. My goal
is to get those nutrients out of the form they are in and into a form that is
useful to me and my family.
To put it
in a different way; composting is a vehicle in which we are able to create a
nutrient cycle within our property. We are part of that cycle because
we consume the nutrients when they are, for a brief time, in a useful
form. Then they return to the compost and slowly make their way into
another useful form where we consume them again.
This
cycle can go on and on indefinitely. Of course, there will be many lost
nutrients that you will never see again, but with a little diligence, you will
be surprised at how much compost you can create, and hence, how many valuable
nutrients you can recycle.
My
composting system is large because I have a few large vegetable gardens.
I believe that the size of your vegetable garden should be determined by how
much compost you can create, and not merely by the amount of space you have in
your backyard.
To run a rich, high yielding vegetable garden you need to
have some sort of soil conditioning plan, and the best thing for your soil is a
generous layer of good compost on the surface a few times per year.
If you
can create your own compost from the organic waste that you generate in your
everyday life, then you can have a vegetable garden that is
self-sustainable. Once it is set up, it will never need nutrients in the
form of store-bought fertilizers.
You will
have established a flow of nutrients, and your nutrient-store will grow bigger
and bigger, year after year. Applying compost to your garden will have a
very positive effect on your soil structure and fertility. With good soil
structure and plenty of organic material, you will be able to release nutrients
that have been locked up and unavailable to your plants.
You will
be speeding up the flow of nutrients, thus increasing your yield
significantly. Your soil will become alive and healthy with
micro-organisms and soil bacteria that are beneficial to creating the
conditions for proper plant growth.
Your vegetables will contain all the
essential nutrients in the correct proportions, giving your body the vitamins
and minerals it needs to function at its best.
Composting
is very easy once you make it part of your everyday life. A small
container on your kitchen bench to collect scraps and a daily trip to the
compost bin is all it takes. It’s a small effort for huge rewards.
The
golden rule in making compost is never to have large clumps of a single type of
material. Thin layers of hot and cold materials work best. Cold
materials include leaves, shredded newspaper and dried grass clippings.
Hot materials include fresh grass clippings, manures, weeds, discarded soft
plants and kitchen scraps.
If you
make composting part of you daily routine, along with an effective method of
growing food, you can literally save thousands of dollars per year. This
is possible simply because you won’t have to keep buying nutrients over and
over. You will buy them once, hold onto them and then convert them into
useful forms again and again.
It’s that simple!
Jonathan
White is an Environmental Scientist and the founder of the Food4Wealth Method,
a high yielding, low-maintenance form of vegetable gardening. For more
information see www.Food4Wealth.com
Compost looks after your soil and your soil looks after your plants. At the end we all win.:-)
Have you started your compost yet?
Allan & Heli
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