Mystery Solved - What Goes Into Your Organic Gardening Compost Hello my wonderful gardening chums, it's your, "Organic Gardening Enthusiast.
" I know you're shaking your head and saying how can we possibly do only 3 articles concerning organic gardening fertilizer? It is a stretch my dear organic gardening aficionado.
But we will march forward and be brave.
As our wonderful spouse, Melvin would say, "Organic gardening compost is the life's blood of any truly worthy organic vegetable garden.
" So on with the show.
In our last article we left you with the very cogent question of, what can you include in your compost? Is it permissible to add 'anything?' And you my dear organic gardening buddy know very well that the answer to that is a resounding and absolute, No.
Let's examine exactly what we can add to our compost.
In fact let us talk about kitchen scraps for a few moments at this time.
Some would say that it's permissible to add anything that comes out of your kitchen.
Au contraire my dear friend.
That is a total misconception and dangerous misstatement.
Please stop and think about this for a minute, even as an organic gardening neophyte you know very well that we never, ever add any type of meat, bones or oils to our organic gardening compost.
Nor do we add anything with those as ingredients.
You also know very well that anything that grew and came out of the ground can be added back to the ground and our organic gardening fertilizer.
As an aside you may notice that your correspondent does not ever refer to our organic gardening compost as a "compost pile.
" Don't you agree that the word 'pile' is so very, well it's not a nice word.
Compost Pile has such a negative connotation and we do so much want to keep this on the positive side of gardening.
You also know very well that coffee grounds, eggshells and even newspaper are welcome additions to our organic gardening fertilizer, as long as they have been pre-prepared.
Ah ha, you say, what do we mean by pre-prepared? Your faithful correspondent has always reminded you that pre-preparing some of the more esoteric items that go into our organic gardening compost must first be put through the food processor.
We're not picky about which food processor you prefer to use.
It is, though absolutely critical that these, "hard to digest" items be rendered into extremely fine bits so that our digesting friends in the organic gardening compost will be able to make use of them quickly.
Melvin is fond of saying, "Grind them up so, the little beasties can chew them up.
" Our Mr.
Potts has such a way with words.
The next point that you're faithful organic gardening correspondent and her trusty sidekick, Melvin, "Mr.
Organic Gardening Compost Man," would like to make is that some people, and we won't name names, advocate using horse and cow manure.
On the surface, and we don't mean the surface of the manure, this would seem to be an excellent idea.
Hold your horses (pun intended).
Let's stop and think about this for just una memento, one moment.
Horses and cows, being the wonderful animals that they are, eat whatever plant and vegetation material is lower than their knees.
Very often that vegetation consists of weeds.
And you all know how your organic garden enthusiast feels about the dreaded W word, weeds are the enemy.
More often than you could possibly comprehend the digestion system of these wonderful equine and bovine animals is unable to digest the seeds of these pernicious and disgusting weeds.
What comes out the other end of these great animals, is to say the least truly remarkable, but it is also very possible that these weed seeds are still viable and able to not only sprout and grow but multiply and make our life miserable, and our organic vegetable garden a true fright.
For that reason your faithful correspondent most emphatically and strongly suggests that we not use equine and bovine manure.
In other words, no horse poo poo, no cow poo poo because all you're doing is planting weed seeds in your extraordinary and delightful organic vegetable garden.
Well, all right then this is been another delightful excursion into the wonderful world of organic gardening fertilizer.
Our spouse Melvin just loves compost, and yours truly, of course.
In our next article, Volume 3, we will look at one of the singular and most important issues concerning organic gardening compost, moisture levels.
(Note gentle reader that if you perchance missed Vol.
1 of this series of articles you must search using the title of this article and substitute the number 1 for the number 2.
We do so hope that you will avail yourself of this series in the proper order.
) Until next time I wish you, "Happy Gardening.
" Your faithful servant and gardening buddy.
" I know you're shaking your head and saying how can we possibly do only 3 articles concerning organic gardening fertilizer? It is a stretch my dear organic gardening aficionado.
But we will march forward and be brave.
As our wonderful spouse, Melvin would say, "Organic gardening compost is the life's blood of any truly worthy organic vegetable garden.
" So on with the show.
In our last article we left you with the very cogent question of, what can you include in your compost? Is it permissible to add 'anything?' And you my dear organic gardening buddy know very well that the answer to that is a resounding and absolute, No.
Let's examine exactly what we can add to our compost.
In fact let us talk about kitchen scraps for a few moments at this time.
Some would say that it's permissible to add anything that comes out of your kitchen.
Au contraire my dear friend.
That is a total misconception and dangerous misstatement.
Please stop and think about this for a minute, even as an organic gardening neophyte you know very well that we never, ever add any type of meat, bones or oils to our organic gardening compost.
Nor do we add anything with those as ingredients.
You also know very well that anything that grew and came out of the ground can be added back to the ground and our organic gardening fertilizer.
As an aside you may notice that your correspondent does not ever refer to our organic gardening compost as a "compost pile.
" Don't you agree that the word 'pile' is so very, well it's not a nice word.
Compost Pile has such a negative connotation and we do so much want to keep this on the positive side of gardening.
You also know very well that coffee grounds, eggshells and even newspaper are welcome additions to our organic gardening fertilizer, as long as they have been pre-prepared.
Ah ha, you say, what do we mean by pre-prepared? Your faithful correspondent has always reminded you that pre-preparing some of the more esoteric items that go into our organic gardening compost must first be put through the food processor.
We're not picky about which food processor you prefer to use.
It is, though absolutely critical that these, "hard to digest" items be rendered into extremely fine bits so that our digesting friends in the organic gardening compost will be able to make use of them quickly.
Melvin is fond of saying, "Grind them up so, the little beasties can chew them up.
" Our Mr.
Potts has such a way with words.
The next point that you're faithful organic gardening correspondent and her trusty sidekick, Melvin, "Mr.
Organic Gardening Compost Man," would like to make is that some people, and we won't name names, advocate using horse and cow manure.
On the surface, and we don't mean the surface of the manure, this would seem to be an excellent idea.
Hold your horses (pun intended).
Let's stop and think about this for just una memento, one moment.
Horses and cows, being the wonderful animals that they are, eat whatever plant and vegetation material is lower than their knees.
Very often that vegetation consists of weeds.
And you all know how your organic garden enthusiast feels about the dreaded W word, weeds are the enemy.
More often than you could possibly comprehend the digestion system of these wonderful equine and bovine animals is unable to digest the seeds of these pernicious and disgusting weeds.
What comes out the other end of these great animals, is to say the least truly remarkable, but it is also very possible that these weed seeds are still viable and able to not only sprout and grow but multiply and make our life miserable, and our organic vegetable garden a true fright.
For that reason your faithful correspondent most emphatically and strongly suggests that we not use equine and bovine manure.
In other words, no horse poo poo, no cow poo poo because all you're doing is planting weed seeds in your extraordinary and delightful organic vegetable garden.
Well, all right then this is been another delightful excursion into the wonderful world of organic gardening fertilizer.
Our spouse Melvin just loves compost, and yours truly, of course.
In our next article, Volume 3, we will look at one of the singular and most important issues concerning organic gardening compost, moisture levels.
(Note gentle reader that if you perchance missed Vol.
1 of this series of articles you must search using the title of this article and substitute the number 1 for the number 2.
We do so hope that you will avail yourself of this series in the proper order.
) Until next time I wish you, "Happy Gardening.
" Your faithful servant and gardening buddy.