The 5 Incredibly Simple Benefits of Composting
Are You Still Fighting These 5 Common Garden Killers? Are These Problems Constantly Frustrating Your Gardening Efforts? Could This ONE Simple Secret Be The Cure?
Composting is a process of taking organic matter (green waste) and rotating and mixing them with brown food so that the entire pile decomposes into humus after a period of weeks or months. It’s a decomposition process that creates nutrient-rich matter than can be used to fertilize the soil for gardening.
There are several benefits from composting. This article will give you the 5 main benefits and you can think about whether you wish to try your hand at composting after seeing the benefits.
Some of the Benefits are:
- Soil Too Compacted: In the event that the soil you are using is clay-like, compost will make the dirt less dense and you will be able to work it more easily. Compacted soil won’t allow the roots to penetrate to the depths they need in order to draw precious nutrients and also can cause the roots to rot since water cannot drain properly. This leads to stunting, wilting and discolored leaves.
- Soil Infertility: Compost acts as fertilizer and is nutrient-rich. The compost also makes the soil nice and warm which is very conducive for the plants to grow happily. It won’t matter if the roots penetrate to great depths if there are no nutrients for them to feed on. It would be like you eating cardboard and expecting to be healthy…your stomach is full but there is no nutrition in the food.
- Improper pH Levels: Since compost is all-natural, the pH balance of your soil will be stable and healthy. Keeping your soil within the ideal pH levels eliminates many problems with plants not producing proper yields.
- Disease: Compost also creates healthier plants because the compost discourages the plants from contracting diseases that will kill them, spread to other plants and ruin the rest of the garden. Many plant diseases, like powdery mildew, are soil borne and good compost contains beneficial microbes that feed on the disease pathogens that cause them.
- Weeds: You’ll be able to reduce and eliminate unwanted weeds from sprouting in your garden.This is because compost prevents weed seeds from growing or thriving. It is akin to an organic weed killer but it’s all natural unlike the pesticides sold in stores. You get the best of both worlds.
Bonus: These are a Few More Benefits of Composting
- Compost material can be used to prevent soil erosion, especially in areas where there is heavy rain. The compost has binding capabilities that ensure the soil stays in place and doesn’t result in drop-offs.
- Instead of wasting organic matter that routinely gets thrown out, you can use them to create beneficial compost.
- In many wetland areas, people have successfully used compost to revitalize the soil and caused the plant life to become strong and healthy.
- Compost also remedies soil that is sandy or too dry. Mixing compost in such soil will help it retain much needed water.
These are just some of the major benefits of composting. It only takes a small amount of time and effort to set-up a compost bin that will reap rewards many times over in future.
You should be aware that there are different types of composting. One type of composting which is the most common is to use organic material which contains naturally occurring microbes. By adding some water, food scraps and air, you will be able to leverage off the existing fungi and bacteria which will do all the work for you and create the compost.
The microbes that exist in the composter will require oxygen to live and thrive. You will need to rake the compost regularly to aerate it. Alternatively, you could add slightly bulky wood chips in the mix to create air pockets which will cause better air circulation on the compost.
Another type of composting is known as vermicomposting. With this method, you will be using red earthworms to convert your leftover table scraps into compost. It would be a good idea to speed up the process by chopping up the organic material before adding them to the composter.
Only use paper, yard waste and food scraps when using vermicomposting as your method of choice. You can obtain the red worms from your local pet store or at a fishing supplies store. Do note that these worms are not the same as the worms crawling in your backyard.
Now that you know the benefits of composting and the types of composting out there, you will need to decide for yourself if you’d like to give composting a try. There is something quite satisfying about transforming your spoil into soil.
One other thing that’s necessary to a great garden is the use of high quality heirloom seeds. Nothing can ruin your gardening experience like making all the right moves, as described above, and then not reaping a bountiful harvest because of poor seed selection.
You’ll want to make sure that the seeds your using are free from GMOs and that they’re naturally grown, open pollinated and non-hybrid. This is the way to insure a healthy harvest of nutritious food for yourself and your family.
Another benefit of high quality non-GMO seeds is that they will reproduce themselves over and over into infinity while GMO varieties do not reproduce.
There is a lot of discussion these days, about the effects of GMOs on our bodies and lab tests have shown that large tumors and death resulted in rats that were fed a diet of genetically modified foods.
So, with good, rich composted soil and a batch of high quality non-GMO seeds you will see a thriving garden and lots of rewards for your efforts come harvest time.
Happy Gardening!
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