Tell Me All About Compost :-)

Thanks for you response @DDream
So interesting to know what each person chooses to follow There's an enormous number of suggestions and viewpoints if I read gardening sites. So wanted to see what our fellow ILites follow.

I also got fish fertilizer - but diluting it at the recommended 2 tbs per gallon of water and then adding to each plant was time consuming (lazy me, yes! ) Tell me how often do you add this fish fertilizer to your veggie/fruit edible plants. Also thanks for the tip about acidic loving plants, I just added it last week to all my plants.

I also got some tomato/vegetable "plant food" from Home Depot - which might be the slow-release fertilizer you mention.

One last question: How do you add vegetable waste to the garden? Do you let it decompose a bit? Or do you dig a hole next to base of plants/trees and add it on and the close up with some dug-out soil? so that it decomposes by itself?

 

-ah!- true very good point. they could be from the we have a neighbor who keeps insisting i should never but anything "live" in a bag. most of the benificial microbes are dead by the time the bagged stuff comes to the store.

Are you saying look for nurseries? Or farms (horse, chicken) that sell their manure?

I hadn't thought of this. When I started reading about compost, a lot of the material was about above-ground compost piles or compost bins. I was concerned about small animals digging up a compost pile. And the compost bin (100-300$) was going to be an investment without knowing whether I was going to garden regularly. So started with storage tote composting. But I like under the ground style you suggest. So do you collect a lot of veggie/yarn waste, then did a big hole and then start the composting? It doesn't make sense to dig holes for small amounts of home waste, correct? Also after 6-8 weeks - do you dig it up and then spread it around your garden?

Hmm..I don't understand - how can worms be produced from worm castings? do they have eggs?

 

From what I have read about: compost needs a mix of browns (dry leaves, twigs, straw, cardboard, paper), greens (veggie waste, cut grass, ), water and oxygen. Just kitchen waste may not have enough carbon source to become the kind of "brown powdered compost" that I see talked about as "garden gold". But i have heard from my parents that most backyard gardens in India - only veggie waste (and water from veggie/grain washing) was used as nutrients for growing veggies at home. Will wait for others with experience to answer this.

 

This is what is confusing for me...I know that manure can be too strong for plants directly and can even burn plants if not mixed in the right proportions or composted enough. Can you please share how you composted your horse manure? Did you just let it dry out in your yard?

hm...I though worm castings meant worm poop maybe by castings you mean your manure came with some earthworms?

I love this idea of just alternate between these. I was getting tired of figuring how much, how often, what type - and ended up trying one after another in these last few weeks.

 

Not from personal experience. But from all the videos I watched on composting - the compost pile should be "damp" - not wet or dry. If wet it is recommended to add dry leaves, grass cuttings, shredded paper or cardboard (not glossy paper and those without much ink).