Composting: The Benefits for Your Garden and the Earth

Hi! I’m Emma Clark from The Art of Home Renovations, an interior designer with one true passion: home improvement. With my experience and skill, I want to help you make your home into a revolutionary & magical work of art through easy, inexpensive, and innovative ideas that you can DIY!

Posted on Saturday 25th February 2017
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Composting

Composting is the best way to minimize solid waste in the home. Most green thumbs find it essential for better garden growth, while environmentally-mindful homeowners find it a good way to lessen the garbage that goes in the dumps. But what other benefits hide in that glorious pile of nutritious dirt? In this article, we're going to tell you just what it is that makes composting so important.

Benefits of Composting

Saving the environment won't be easy for us. Repairing the damage comes with long-term changes and small steps that truly make a difference. Composting, or the act of fortifying soil with nutrient-rich biodegradable waste, is one of these steps into redeeming Mother Nature’s glory.

With composting, we can reduce the solid waste that goes in the landfills. Imagine the reduction of waste if every home had a compost pile in the US alone! Needless to say, composting provides a significant change for you, the environment, and your wallet (yes, you can save money by composting!)

Now, what about the benefits for the home gardener?

One of the most important benefits of composting is providing additional nutrients to your soil that will make it more fertile. Fertile soil means healthier plants and faster growth, and you won't find a better fertilizer than decayed organic material such as food scraps and leaves. The organic material will give your soil all the nutrients it needs, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, copper, iron, and zinc.

A good compost will also provide the structure that your soil needs. The ideal texture of soil is crumbly; not too packed and not too loose either. This kind of texture will allow the soil to "breathe" and pass water and nutrients more easily. Using compost will allow the soil to absorb more nutrients and pass it onto the plants, which is what you want for excellent garden growth.

Ideal soil structure is followed by better water retention. With your soil retaining water better, you can use less water for your garden (and conserve the precious resource for other uses). Fertile soil is also known to prevent erosion and waterlogging; which is essential to preserve the life of your plants.

How Do You Start a Compost?

A compost pile will not automatically become a nutrient-packed soil overnight. It takes time, effort, and determination to produce a good compost pile. But it's not too difficult, and any homeowner can start one in his backyard. All you need are earth, twigs and straw, compost material, and manure (layer the compost with that order!).

Get your folding saw and start trimming off twigs and shrub wood. Then, start reserving your leftovers for the compost pile. Almost anything biodegradable can be composted! Here are a few examples:  

- fruit and vegetable scraps

- egg shells

- leaves

- weeds

- disease-free garden plants

- shrub prunings

- flowers

- coffee grounds

- tea leaves

- non-glossy newspaper

- corn cobs

However, you cannot use meat scraps for your compost, as these can attract pests and vermin. You also cannot use diseased plants, nor human or pet manure for your compost (that includes diapers!) if you plan to use the compost for growing fruits/vegetables.

Conclusion

Composting is pretty easy stuff. If you have the right combination, you can produce a high-quality compost that can make a significant difference in both your growth rate and plant quality. Why not do it, right? You're not only fortifying your home garden, but you're also helping save the environment bit by bit.

I hope you liked this article and learned a thing or two. Don't forget to share this with your friends, and leave a comment below if you have any questions. Thanks for reading!

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