maintaining a compost heap

Maintaining a Compost Heap
By Simon Morris

When you incorporate landscaping on your property, you will more than likely have a large amount of organic waste. Organic waste can include everything from grass clippings and dead plants to the fall leaves which fall onto your lawn. Most property owners go through a great deal of trouble and expense to bag and dispose of the organic waste. A savvy landscaper will see that this organic waste is actually a true treasure. Don't throw your organic waste away, use it as compost.

Your organic waste can actually be more valuable to you than any fertilizers or chemicals that you can buy. All you have to do is process this organic waste by using decomposition. Even uneaten food can be put into your compost heap. Once decomposed, all this organic matter becomes top grade nutrition for your garden, lawn, or trees to use.

The best place to maintain a compost pile is in your backyard. Most people believe compost heaps are equal to rotting garbage and think compost heaps emit foul odors. However, so long as a compost heap is maintained properly, there will be no offensive odor. It is important for a compost heap to get plenty of oxygen. It is also important for the compost heap to have water applied to it.

It is best if you have an area with a large square footage to devote to a compost pile. The more you can spread out the organic waste, the better. If the organic waste is piled too high,

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it will not properly decompose. You could actually convert the roof of your shed or tool shack into a compost pile. Obviously, you would have to put some boards around the edges so the compost does not fall off. By doing this, you are keeping your compost pile out of the way, and you are utilizing space that otherwise would go to waste

After you have collected all your organic waste for your compost pile, it is time to start decomposing it. You should moisten the entire pile. This helps the decomposition process. You should also try and cut the organic material into smaller pieces, if at all possible. As the organic material combines and compresses it will begin to decompose. You should frequently aerate the decomposing material. You can use a shovel or an aeration tool to puncture many holes into the organic material. This will allow the oxygen to flow through the pile and further allow the decomposition process to happen.

As you can see, maintaining a compost pile has many benefits. It allows you to re-use organic waste you would normally throw away. It can save you a lot of money in both disposal and fertilizer costs. The hardest part about having a compost pile is deciding where to put it. As long as you properly take care of the compost pile, you won't have any odor problems. A compost pile isn't something pretty to look at, so be sure to keep it out of view of your lawn and or garden.

Simon Morris is a long studied landscape design expert with 25 years of field expirience. You can find more articles written By Simon Morris on his Gardening website www.Garden-now.com. You can also find his articles on www.linkmyarticles.com.

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