Our Hometown
|
|
Compost - a gift from the garden to itself We certainly enjoy the leaves all summer, don't we? Providing shade from the sun, stirring in the breeze, sheltering us from a gentle rain. And now! in the fall, the leaves provide a show of colors that lasts for weeks. Spectacular! We all know what's coming, unfortunately. The leaves will give up their hold on the tree that provided water and nutrients so the leaves could in turn provide energy for the tree. Then we have all those leaves on our lawns. In some villages the municipal crews will remove the leaves from the curb and take them away and out of our yards and lives. But wait! There's a better way. Keep the leaves at home to nourish the yard another year. Your trees have provided so much all during the warm months. They are not done with all they can give. We can extend the usefulness of the leaves and bring them back in another form. Compost is the great final gift of leaves from our trees, of annuals that brightened our homes and of garden plants that yielded food. By managing the leaves and yard waste in a compost pile, we can create a rich soil amendment that will nourish our plants next year. Humus is the final product of the compost process. Gardeners are familiar with humus, the dark and crumbly dirt-like material that creates ideal growing conditions for plants. Plenty has been written about compost from simple directions to elaborate manuals. For the backyard compost pile, less is often more. A simple pile in a corner of the yard where the gardener piles plants, leaves and grass will eventually decompose. Presto! Humus! The October/November issue of Mother Earth News has a myth-debunking article about compost. The article even includes a sun-powered, low-tech method for cooking compost that contains weeds and diseased plants, yielding still more useable humus. Elaborate pre-fabricated containers hide the materials while they decompose, but spending $100 on a plastic container is not really required. A length of chicken wire and a couple of stakes provide a corral for leaves for winter composting. Too many leaves? Bag them in black plastic. Poke a few holes in the bags. Put them in a corner of the yard and go back next spring. The leaves will have begun to decompose. They can complete the decomposition into humus by themselves or grass clippings intermixed with the leaves will enrich the process. Cornell University has several brochures available online: go to http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/compostbrochure.pdf For more information on composting, contact Western Finger Lakes Authority, 1.800.724.3867. 9 Pearl Street, Lyons; 315.946.7650 Fax: 315.946.7657 Copyright
©
2006 |
     Ads have a Patent Pending. Click Here for More Information  |
