Waste less, grow more in your garden by composting

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Consider adding compost to your vegetable garden.  It provides the necessary nutrients as well as organic matter for the soil.

Now that your garden is growing during the summer season, let’s start planning what you can do with the leftover produce that you are going to harvest.

Composting is an easy way to reuse fallen veggies you didn’t pick up on time, half-eaten fruits starting to get a little overripe on your counter, or even endless weeds you’ve picked. of your beds.

A woman makes compost from leftover vegetables.

Adding compost to your soil will improve its health, giving you healthier plants and a greater chance of success no matter what you plant. Following these steps can help you prepare to add beneficial compost to your fall planting or save it until next spring.

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Browns and greens

Compostable items fall into two categories: browns and greens. Greens are materials like fresh leaves, weeds, grass clippings, fruits and vegetables, and coffee grounds. Browns include dead weeds and dry leaves, wood ash, sawdust, wood chips, and straw.

To start

Starting a compost pile is relatively easy. The easiest way to start is to create a compost pile right in your garden, between 3 and 5 cubic feet. Add a 6 inch layer of brown material, a 2 inch layer of green material, and cover with a 2 inch layer of soil.

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Vegetable scraps from meals are great for making compost to add to your garden.

Maintenance

Keep the compost pile moist, but not too wet. You may need to add additional materials to your stack to help keep your carbon to nitrogen ratios at an ideal ratio. You will need to turn the battery more frequently in the first few weeks, but not very often in the following months.

A compost pile should be kept moist but not too wet.

When it’s done

A well-maintained compost pile will usually be ready for use in about four months.

A man and a child are shown composting kitchen waste.  A well-maintained compost pile can be ready for use in about four months.

It’s a good idea to sift your compost before adding it to your soil in case there are any larger pieces left. The way you apply the compost will vary depending on the end use of the soil.

The finished and sieved compost has accumulated at the base of a custom-made trash screen.

Penn State Extension Master Gardeners of Erie County can answer any of your additional questions by sending an email to [email protected].

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Additional Resources

Kathleen Kelley, assistant professor of consumer horticulture at Penn State, has prepared a resource for home composting. You can find all the information included in this article and much more here:

• Home composting: a guide for home gardeners: https://bit.ly/3AWKyLK

• “Using compost to improve turf performance”: https://bit.ly/3kc4AvI

• “Create new flower beds with composting and mulching the leaves”: https://bit.ly/3hXRIqg

• “Compost Leaves” (add this one to your favorites for fall.): Https://bit.ly/2Vs3bH5

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