Tag: Compost

Composting How To: A collection of composting books

Photo available on Flickr.com courtesy of This is Green.

If you are curious about composting, there are a wide variety of books available to help you with your composting needs. Many of these books can serve as a comprehensive guide to compost, or can add to your collection of gardening books at home. Certain books such as Let it Rot! The Gardener’s Guide to Composting are quick and easy reads to really help you with your compost information. This book in particular is an in-depth 160-page analysis of composting, complete with detailed illustrations for those of you who are visual learners.

Here is a great collection of composting books:

Compost Turner: This Tool Works for Home Bins

Compost turners are great for homemade bins! Typically, when you make a homemade bin, the opening will be large and there will be a lot of room for excess compost and organic material. This means the compost has to be turned with a certain frequency – as there is no tumbling motion such as seen in rotating or tumbling composters.

So, when you purchase a compost turner, you are able to properly aerate and mix your compost in a matter of minutes. Using a tool is simple – just plunge it into the compost and then move it and mix the compost around. It’s that simple. You are then able to blend the different elements in your compost bin together, make sure they get the proper amount of exposure and aeration, and then let nature do the rest of the work. A compost turning tool works twice as well as a shovel or pitchfork, and really lets you get down deep into the soil.

Garden Composting to improve your soil


Photo courtesy of geo rich at Flickr.com.

Does your yard have terrible soil? If even mesquite trees and tumbleweeds struggle to survive, it’s still possible to save the ground and restore life to the most barren patch of dust. Instead of bringing in bags and bags of topsoil from somewhere else (where they were probably needed!), have you considered composting?

A compost pile or compost bin does 2 good things at once. Composting helps reduce the amount of garbage that you send to a landfill, and it produces nutrient rich soil that can be used to improve the health, water retention, and elasticity of your yard.

Compost is made from organic material and contains many of the elements that plants need in just the right balance. It also contains millions of good bacteria – the very bacteria that spread out into the surrounding earth and restart the cycle of life. Compost holds water very well, which can come in handy if your yard floods easily or has a runoff problem that depletes the soil. Compost is also light and fluffy, which means that it can be used to fill cracks in the ground and it will loosen up compacted soil.


Photo courtesy of CleanAirGardening at Flickr.com.