What is composting?

Question

What is composting?

Answer 1

Process to mix all ingredient of garbage (separated from inorganic materials) to make fertilizer.

Answer 2

The natural breakdown of scraps from the kitchen or garden into a usable fertilizer for growing things in a garden

Answer 3

some general notes on soil conservation,and Compost

make compost heap from all kitchen wastes and any organic material you can find ,organic,paper,eggshells,bones wet branches tec,

a compost heap will have topsoil after 6 months or so a lot depends on you weather and humidity you can speed it up by

adding red earthworms and turning the compost with a fork to avoid killing the worms or by adding lime and always keep it covered with leaves or .sand or plastic to enhance the humidity(check info on worm,or lombriculture)

i got a compost heap that has been going for 5 years ,tons of cuttings from the garden including coconut palm leaves and bits of trees ,does not seem to get bigger and i still havent got around to using it.

make your compost heap on top of a bowel shaped hole so that the centre is wet and it will consume just about everything.and have it in the shade ,under a tree or put a little roof on it

but more practical is mulching directly on your garden plots

MULCH

what you can do imediatly is to cover the ground with mulch which is the same principal as compost but it includes the whole garden surface

the top part of the soil where the topsoil is being produced houses a world or microbiotic life.

Mulch is organic material green or dry that covers the ground,the thicker the better the composting process will turn it in to black topsoil

the humidity is preserved underneath and promotes the devellopment of worms(their exists no better compost than their excrements)and a variety of micro biotic life which together with the mulch produce more topsoil.

the mulch also keeps the ground temperature even and guards against the impact of the rain ,which would other wise brings salt to the surfave if on unprotected land

Mulch also prevents the soil from drying out because of the sun and, lay it open to wind erosian.

FERTILISER

only use manures and animal urine to fertilise,one can plant plants for mulch on the edges of vegetable plots to be chopped down for green mulch

PEST CONTROL

many weeds have natural properties that are good for insect repellents

another priceless pest control is the silky and bantum chickens which dont rake the ground but only run and eat 70% of all walking and jumping insects and they also leave quit a lot of manure behind ,if you have enough of them

guiny fowel and partridge will do almost the same job

snakes kill rats.iguanas eat a variety of pests

HUMIDITY

One should always shape the land inicially and make it bowel shaped (if small)terassed if on a slope with an edge around it so that it becomes receptive as aposed to repellent of the water that falls on it and to prevent erosion.

if on the flats it should be self draining.but with cannals also bringing water flows into the land from higher up.

I have connected cannals to road gutters to bring more water in.

soil management should be a component of a larger concept

which includes ,waterharvesting (to zero run off)and form

as well as pest control and diversity of plants.

so you dont have to wait for compost to be ready ,first shape the garden ,i always start by making all the garden paths the resulting design gives me the individual plots.

then dig the drainage cannals and put in your irrigation systems

then devellop the individual plots one by one ,put in the plants and as you leave ,cover the ground with a mulch ,so that nowhere the bare soil can be seen .

a good book that has a very large section on soil and some of the things mentioned is

the Permaculture designers manual by Bil Mollison cost about 40 dollars.

and is the best all round book you can get.(tagiari publishing, [e-mail])

some other writers that are on the internet are

david Holmgren

Larry Santoyo

Kirk Hanson

Masanobu Fukuaka has written ,

One-Straw Revolution

The Road Back to Nature

The Natural Way of Farming

http://www.context.org/iclib/ic14/fukuok...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/masanobu_fu...

Simon Henderson

and Bill Molisson.

a representitive of the concept in USA is

Dan Hemenway at [e-mail]

[e-mail]

http://barkingfrogspc.tripod.com/frames....

http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalo...

I am a permaculture consultant for the department of Ecology for the regional government of Guerrero in Mexico

http://spaces.msn.com/byderule