Van Dyke Gardens: Compost

Kitchen Scraps, in your Garden?

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Every day, we throw out all kinds of food scraps that we think are garbage. While many of these scraps are considered useless, they can in fact be put directly into your gardens! Non-Composters unite for these nifty tips to recycle kitchen scraps!

Eggshells

  • Use the empty shells as a place to start your seedlings! Once the seedlings become large enough to plant in the ground, gently crack the eggshell and place the entire egg into the ground.
  • Crushing eggshells can be used as a fertilizer in your garden. The eggshells add calcium to the soil, creating a strong place for plants to grow.
  • Eggshells can also be used as a pest deterrent. If there is a slug problem in your garden, crushed eggshells can do the trick. By creating a ring of crushed eggshells around your garden that is 1/4-inch thick and 2-inches wide, slugs and snails will be discouraged.

Coffee Grounds

  • Just as Eggshells can be used to keep away slugs and sails, so can coffee grounds. However, coffee grounds can be also used as mulch to keep away cats, rabbits and squirrels.
  • For a less-smelly option, coffee grounds can be worked into the soil. They are welcome around onions, lettuce, corn, and other nitrogen loving plants.
  • If putting the grounds directly into or onto the soil doesn’t sound like you, by adding the grounds to water and watering the garden with that it also adds nitrogen.

Banana Peels

  • Banana peels can be used to create a trap for yellow jackets, you can read more about that here.
  • By burying small pieces of banana around your plants, it will deter aphids. However by small, you have to have tiny pieces, if you plant the whole peel you will attract larger pests.
  • By adding banana peels to water (just like the coffee grounds) you will be able to water your plants with nutrient full water.

Orange Peels

  • Scattering small pieces of orange peel around the garden, will keep cats away, and also small aphids and ants. To keep the smaller pests away, use grated peel or shredded peel.
  • Dried orange peels can be used as a fire starter, and create an aromatic atmosphere.
  • By rubbing the peels directly to the skin, it can be used as a mosquito repellant. \

Thank you Lindsay-Jean Hard from Food52.com for the original information. You can read more here.

Compost Area Cleanup

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KIC arranged to have compost and wood chips delivered to the site for use by the community vegetable gardeners. The area was full of tall weeds, but we were able to clear a large area for the delivery and we are very happy to have our first load of compost to start the season. Later, we will try and hide the area from view a little by planting a beautiful Forsythia hedge in front of the pile.

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Compost Pile

How to start your own Compost Pile

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You may ask, Why is composting good? Well there are many reasons. Here are some to name a few:

  • It saves water by helping the soil retain moisture and reduce runoff.
  • It reduces the need for commercial soil fertilizers, which contain chemicals that are not healthy in mass quantities for the environment.
  • Helps protects plants from drought and freezes.

You can read more here about the benefits of composting as written by The University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

The bigger question you may be asking now is, Why don’t I have a composting pile in my yard? Here is a helpful guide on how to start your own composting pile for your garden and yard.

To start, you will need a few things.

  • Carbon rich “brown” materials, like fall leaves, straw, dead flowers, and newspaper.
  • Nitrogen-rich “green” materials, like lawn clippings, vegetable peelings and fruit rinds (NO meat scraps), or animal manure*.
  • One or two shovels of garden soil.
  • A site that is at least 3 feet long by 3 feet wide.

*Manure, even though brown in color, is full of nitrogen. However, do not use manure from carnivores such as cats or dogs.

Here’s how you start!

  1. Start by putting down a layer that is several inches think of coarse dry “brown” stuff in the area where you wish your pile to be.
  2. Top that with several inches of “green” stuff.
  3. Add a thin layer of soil.
  4. Add a layer of “brown” stuff.
  5. Moisten the three layers.
  6. Repeat.

You want to layer your pile until it is roughly 3 feet tall. A good rule to go by is a ratio of three parts “brown” to one part “green.” Don’t be alarmed however, it will take a little while before your pile gets that high. Every couple of weeks, use a garden for or shovel to turn the pile, moving around the compost and releasing gases. Move the material from the center out. It is important to keep your pile moist, but not wet. If you keep up with turning and keeping it moist, you will have earth worms in a few weeks and it will begin to turn into a black, crumbly, and sweet smelling fertilizer.

Keep in mind that you do not need a compost bin, to make a compost. Just a pile in your yard works. Some gardeners make a box to keep it in, to insure a neat pile. But that is totally optional!

Thank you Organic Gardening for the original information. You can read more here.