Dear Family & Friends
Good soil brings good food! Compost is essential for a healthy garden. We make our own compost just by using all the spent garden greens like the weeds, grass clippings, dried leaves, shredded cardboards...yes, just pile them all up, water them or better still, use liquid gold, which is easier for man to contribute, but a bit tricky for the women...! Our compost heap gets so warm and they will start decomposting, creating a rich medium to use in the garden. All natural!
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| Making compost is just one of the most prized work around here:) |
Our chickens help a lot in contributing to the health of our garden soil too. Their poops are valuable resource, they scratch and peck on bugs in the soil, and any overgrown veggies in their pen will be eaten up...so no waste. Likewise, our cared for worms, also create rich compost in the confine of their home in the corner of the barn.
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| Our chickens are free to scratch and peck all year long, we give them portions of our garden to work on with. |
If you have comfrey plants, they are great for making compost tea drinks for the garden plants. Just gather the leaves and rot them in a bucket of water. In a week's time, you'll have a very stinky smelly liquid which we now call comfrey tea...yes, highly nutricious for the garden, to grow robust plants.
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| This is what comfrey plant looks like...a perennial plant that will come back once winter is over |
In two to six months time, the compost pile would crumble to soil like state. It's odorless and looks like dark soft rich garden soil. By all means, use them to spread around the garden plants. Then, it's time to start making another pile all over again:)
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| This guy loves compost making, keeping our garden clean and we end up having lots of free compost to use! |
Compost is really what makes all our garden plants happy and strong...in return, we end up eating fruits and veggies that are richer in nutrient value too. So, no chewing exercise comes to futility!!
Stay happy, healthy and strong.
Yours
I'm trying to make more of my own compost this year to reduce how much I have to buy in. I like your method. Do you still buy any or is it all what you produce?
ReplyDeleteWe never buy compost as we don't know anyplace to buy them from. Given the situation, we just have to make our own. We pack our garden with veggie/flower plants, that alone makes a big mount of compost materials, plus we hoard boxes from big supermarket to mix in too. Recently,also started adding ashes from our log burner as per your suggestion...as you know, more compost is always better.
DeleteLet me know if you think the wood ash makes a difference, crushed egg shells are meant to be good as well for calcium (tomatoes love it apparently) . The woodash at oours tends to get saved for the onions and tomatoes as I never have enough.
DeleteSuch a wonderful post Annie! I have a tumbler but I think I need to start a pile like yours! Do you just collect the urine in a bucket?? I would love to get chickens for this exact reason! Happy composting my friend! Nicole xoxo
ReplyDeleteMy husband layers the compost mount. After a week or two, he moves the mount next to it's original place to introduce air. This heats up the compost that even snow never settles on it. As for the liquid gold, he's the only direct contributor..after all the compost pile is at the end of the garden and it's hidden from people's view;P
DeleteNicole, I think having chickens is wonderful..even with just two hens, your little ones will really enjoy having them, to collect their eggs, feed them and just watch their silly ways.
Make sense! Thank you for the tips about compost! My husband and I would like to put more effort on our garden this year!
ReplyDeleteVery nice! I actually find composting very therapeutic (believe it or not).
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