A down home gal give you a look at what you can do to start composting in your own backyard
Margeaux Denham may live on over 4000 acres and have a 2 acres vegetable garden, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t give some advice to the urban gardener! Here are some tips from the cowgirl-gardener to get your garden looking picture perfect this growing season, the organic way.
Composting for nutrient rich soil is super cost effective and keeps a lot of “trash” out of landfills. Build a composting bin and place yard clippings, veggie food scraps, chicken and cow manure in and in a couple of months you will have beautiful soil for your much appreciating plants! Or make your family a worm composting bin. (This is really fun for kids and people that love fishing.) There are dozens of ways to accomplish making a worm bin, check the internet or visit your local library. You can even use an old refrigerator. It is just laid on its side and filled with layers of sphagnum moss, grass clippings, cow and chicken manure, veggie food scraps and cornmeal (which aids in the worms digestion.) Keep this combo well watered and doors closed and your worms will thrive. Where the heck do you get worms??? Well, worms may be purchased on the internet, of course! Every few months the worms must be separated from your new soil; the scraps will be well broken down. Your soil is now useable in your garden and worms can be put back in the bin. Continue the above combination of ingredients and you can make more worms and more soil.
Worms are not the only beneficial critters in the bunch; butterflies, bees, and ladybugs are important to the over all health of your garden. You can attract these beneficial insects so you can reduce the use of polluting chemical pesticides. Some of the plants such as herbs like sage, chives, mint, thyme, garlic, and marigolds repel bad bugs; but are edible for humans.
-Remember if you don’t have the space to flip an old fridge on its side… like some of us… ahem… Margeaux… you can do a lot of this on your own kitchen counter! Just buy air-tight containers to keep your compost and keep your little worm friends in a bucket… away from your food. Yeah, it is possible.
