Organic Vegetable Gardening

Whatever your growing, vegetables, fruits or herbs having some good compost is going to massively improve the quality and health of your soil and therefore produce wonderful results when it comes to your vegetables, plants etc. Plus making your own compost will save you money and help you to recycle your rubbish, which can’t be a bad thing.

Having a good quality compost enables your soil to retain nutrients, air and water as well as protecting your valuable plants from certain diseases. Not only will it help your plants to grow bigger and stronger but it will give the worms and other such animals in your garden lots to munch on and keep them happy.

So I guess you are now wondering what goes into making a good compost exactly…. Well here are some of the things that I use when making my compost:

• Kitchen left overs like old fruit and vegetables, vegetable peelings, fruit peelings/cores, ground coffee, tea bags.
• Manure is a great thing to add if you are able to get hold of any from a local farm.
• Garden waste like leaves, dead plants, wood chippings or bark, straw and hay, soft hedge clippings.
• Waste from around the house like newspaper (shredded) but not magazines with the shiny paper.
• Pet droppings from animals such as guinea pigs, rabbits and budgies. But NOT from dogs and cats.

Some of the things that you should keep off your compost heap are:

• Meat or fish
• Dairy products
• Cooked food
• Disposable nappies

In order to make the most of your compost it is important to use a mixture of different ‘greens’ and ‘browns’ the greens being things like vegetable peelings etc. and the browns being all of your newspapers, pet droppings etc.

It is important not to have your compost too wet or too dry so if yours is looking a little on the wet side then you should think about adding more ‘browns’ or vice versa.

If you seem to be having trouble with too many flies buzzing around your compost heap then you may have it a little too wet, in which case if you add some more of your ‘brown’ ingredients like the shredded newspaper then that should sort out the problem.

Once your compost has turned into a dark brown crumbly type consistency with an earthy smell then it should be ready for you to begin using on your plants.