I have always been a little intimidated by composting. It seemed so...difficult. Then...a few weeks ago we did a segment on the show with Jan Mcneilan (gardentime.tv) and I really got inspired.
There were several reasons I did not want to compost..
1st...I did not want this huge ugly 'thing' in my yard...
2nd...it would be too much work with the turning of the compost pile and the additives to make it work and on and on and on...
3rd...did I mention it would be too much work?
Well...we filmed the segment and Jan had this amazing compost pile and all she did was...nothing but pile the debris up...really...she made a pile and left it. No turning, no additives, nothing. I thought while we were filming...'I could do this'
I have more than 60 trees in my gardens at home and right behind my property are several 60' tall Sycamores...so I have a ton of leaves each year that I usually send to a land fill. Armed with my experience with Jan I decided to give her methods a try.
I raked up the leaves and piled them in the veggie garden. As I did not do a great job last year of clean up, I had a lot of leaves. I have also been putting any weeds I have pulled into the pile. When the gardens are finished and ready for summer...in about a week...I will cover the whole pile with plastic to hide it a little and assist with heat from the sun in the decomposition. The pile does not look that bad and by next spring I will have a ton of great compost for my yard and veggie garden. Plus...I will be NOT sending over a hundred bags of leaves to a landfill.
Hopefully by now you all know me well enough that if this is a failure for me I will totally tell you. But if it works...I can't wait to spread the rich new compost over everything. It really makes me feel good to think I am doing more than in the past to be self contained a leave a smaller footprint on this earth.
So if composting seems out of reach, if you don't think you don't have the space, if you are intimidated by the idea..take hope! It really is easy. Thanks Jan for teaching this old a dog a new trick.
Happy Gardening,
William
There were several reasons I did not want to compost..
1st...I did not want this huge ugly 'thing' in my yard...
2nd...it would be too much work with the turning of the compost pile and the additives to make it work and on and on and on...
3rd...did I mention it would be too much work?
Well...we filmed the segment and Jan had this amazing compost pile and all she did was...nothing but pile the debris up...really...she made a pile and left it. No turning, no additives, nothing. I thought while we were filming...'I could do this'
I have more than 60 trees in my gardens at home and right behind my property are several 60' tall Sycamores...so I have a ton of leaves each year that I usually send to a land fill. Armed with my experience with Jan I decided to give her methods a try.
I raked up the leaves and piled them in the veggie garden. As I did not do a great job last year of clean up, I had a lot of leaves. I have also been putting any weeds I have pulled into the pile. When the gardens are finished and ready for summer...in about a week...I will cover the whole pile with plastic to hide it a little and assist with heat from the sun in the decomposition. The pile does not look that bad and by next spring I will have a ton of great compost for my yard and veggie garden. Plus...I will be NOT sending over a hundred bags of leaves to a landfill.
Hopefully by now you all know me well enough that if this is a failure for me I will totally tell you. But if it works...I can't wait to spread the rich new compost over everything. It really makes me feel good to think I am doing more than in the past to be self contained a leave a smaller footprint on this earth.
So if composting seems out of reach, if you don't think you don't have the space, if you are intimidated by the idea..take hope! It really is easy. Thanks Jan for teaching this old a dog a new trick.
Happy Gardening,
William
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