Compost
By Bruce Lee Deuley - 10/23/03

For those of you who have already started your compost, here are a few ideas that should help your compost pile along. If you haven’t started a compost pile, it is never too late to get one going. It utilizes organic material found around most homes and helps to feed and promote soil organic organisms in your lawn and garden areas.

The easiest way to make compost is to pile up some organic material and let it sit until it has naturally decomposed and then apply it to your lawn and garden areas. However, with a little help, mother nature can produce good compost is as little as a month or 6 weeks.

Autumn leaves
Store some dry leaves to mix with grass mowings and other soft green stuff. Make large quantities into leafmould - stuff wet leaves into black plastic sacks (loosely tied), or a wire mesh container. Use after a year or two. Mow leaves on a lawn to chop and compost them and just allow them to stay and decompose right on your lawn.

Grass mowings
Mix well with tougher items to avoid a slimy mess. Leave on the lawn whenever possible - they will soon disappear and feed the grass. Is spite of popular opinion, this will not cause 'thatch'. Can also be mixed into a leafmould heap, or used as a soil mulch.

Diseased plants
Persistent diseases, such as white rot and clubroot, are best avoided. A hot heap, turned several times, should deal with everything else. Diseases that don't need living plants to survive - gray mould, mildews, wilts - may survive in a slow, cool heap. But heat is not the only factor that will kill diseases - the intense microbial activity will also help to dispose of them.

Perennial weeds
Some perennial weeds will be killed in a hot heap; It might be best to avoid really persistent horrors such as grass burs and bindweed. However, you don't have to burn or dump these weeds if you don’t want to - they are rich in plant foods. Mix with grass mowings in a plastic sack. Tie it up and leave for a few months until the weeds are no longer recognizable, then add to the compost heap.

Weed seeds
Weed seeds may survive a cool heap, but should be killed in a hot one. If your compost tends to grow weeds, dig it in rather than spreading it on the soil surface.