Are you Dirt Poor?

My tanning days are over.  I’m afraid languorous days in the hot sun just make me wilt and wrinkle.    I’ll leave full sun exposure to my sunflowers, ripening tomatoes, prairie coneflowers and heat loving ornamental sages.

But even these plants will wither under the hot summer sun without good garden preparation.  We can properly site “right plant, right place”, drip and emit with optimum efficiency, reap the rain and cherish our limited water resources but without good soil all is quite literally lost.

“Soil” is a mixture of mineral particles and organic matter or humus. Every gardener’s dream is a good loam – a soil that holds water yet drains well.  Sandy soil feels gritty when rubbed between your fingers, while clay soils are slick and pack together into a solid mass.  Compost is a gardener’s secret soil-building weapon.  It acts like a sponge to hold water in sandy soils and loosens clay soils by introducing fibrous material which allows air to penetrate the heavy mass.  Best of all it’s nearly free when you make it in your own backyard.

Basic Backyard Compost

1 part green material: Fresh moist organic material like lawn clippings, kitchen scraps, and garden trimmings provide nitrogen and moisture.

1 part brown material: Dried fibrous material found in dead leaves, small twigs, straw, shredded newspaper and coffee grounds provide carbon and texture, and allow for air circulation.

1 part black material:  Garden soil, manure, and /or existing unfinished compost kick starts the decomposition process of the other two components by introducing valuable soil organisms.

Don’t include: pet wastes (potential to spread disease); diseased plant clippings (ditto); meat (attracts undesirable wildlife and will stink as it decays); inorganic materials which will not break down.

There are many different styles of commercial compost bins on the market, but it can be as simple as a 3-foot-by-3-foot bottomless box with wood or wire fencing sides.  Layer your ingredients (green, brown and black) and dampen the pile with a hose to thoroughly moisten.  Now wait for nature to take over.  You can hasten things along by periodically turning the mixture with a fork to introduce oxygen to the pile which fuels the decomposition process.

Me?  I’m a waiter not a turner, preferring to save my energy for other (less taxing) garden tasks.  I continue to add pulled weeds, garden trimmings and kitchen scraps to my pile throughout the season maintaining the simple ratio described above.  But I prefer to let Mother Nature do the heavy lifting.  During these high days of summer you’ll find me beneath a floppy straw hat or a shady umbrella with a cool drink in my hand.  I much prefer bronzed carexes and golden dahlias to a sunburned brow.

From my article for Angie’s List Magazine, July 2009.

Related posts:

1. Weeds: Some of nature’s most prolific opportunists I’m in the midst of a very busy week. ...
2. The green green grass of summer Make yourself comfortable in the dappled shade It’s officially...
3. My own private Idaho I’m quite pleased with this year’s potato caper…at least, to...
4. Never enough “Thyme” in the garden… We’re off to wrangle cowboys…I mean calves… in Montana...
5. Small Vegetable Garden? 10 secrets you need to know… Make use of semi-shaded areas unsuitable for tomatoes or...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tagged as: angie's list, backyard compost, compost, compost bins, dead leaves, garden soil, good soil, growing your own food, kitchen scraps, organic gardening tips, the environment, water wise, writing