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Compost is the most valuable organic fertilizer, which is successfully used on all soils to feed any plants. Compost fully ripened to a state of humus will not harm vegetables, it will only make them stronger, and the harvest richer. Almost all summer gardeners themselves produce it on their plots every year, caring only about how to speed up the maturation of compost. For this, the preparations “Doctor Robik” and “Baikal EM” are recommended.
What to put in compost
At each summer cottage, a lot of garbage accumulates when cultivating a garden and a vegetable garden. Prudent owners do not burn it, do not throw it away, but lay it in a compost pit (heap) for further processing into valuable organic fertilizer. Tree branches after pruning, green grass after mowing the lawn, weeds after weeding, tops of vegetables after harvesting from the garden, fallen leaves, fruits spoiled by frost are sent to the compost. Everything that grew on the site can get a second life as a top dressing for the next plantings, decomposing in a compost heap.
Waste of human life in the country also needs to be sent for recycling. Not only kitchen waste (potato peelings, leftover vegetables, coffee and tea grounds, all half-eaten food) will fit, but scraps of paper, ash from a fireplace or fire, straw, hay, wood shavings. And a bucket from a country toilet, like bird droppings or manure, will accelerate decomposition almost like a special preparation.
It is undesirable to send meat, animal fats, roots of especially dangerous weeds, such as bindweed and thistle, weeds with seeds, to the compost heap. It is absolutely impossible for tin, plastic and glass objects to get there, in no case should plants affected by diseases, for example, potato tops, tomatoes with late blight, be allowed to enter. Large solid waste, such as branches, paper, must be shredded so that the decomposition process occurs faster. Special preparations have been created to speed up the preparation of compost. “Doctor Robik”, “Baikal EM” and other means are used to ensure that useful fertilizer does not ripen in 1,5–2 years (as the old gardener’s guides indicate), but in just a few weeks.
Video “How to speed up the maturation of the compost heap”
In this video you can hear tips on how to speed up the preparation of compost.
Conditions for creating
In order for waste to become humus, certain conditions must be created and maintained. First of all, the compost heap must be air permeable. He not only has to get there, but also circulate inside. The decomposition of organics is accompanied by the release of gases and heat, these gases must move, and heat should contribute to further processing.
The compost heap should be moistened as needed, but not flooded. If there is too much moisture, the mass will rot, and if there is too little, the decomposition process may stop. Therefore, it is watered in dry, hot summers, covered with burlap or a film with holes on top to retain moisture longer, and covered with a film in the rain to protect it from excess and prevent useful substances from washing into the surrounding soil. All these wastes can decompose only if there is a sufficient amount of nitrogen. It is he who will create the conditions for the activity of fungi and bacteria that do this. There is a lot of nitrogen in fresh mowed grass, nettles, bean tops. Even more nitrogen in manure, in order to increase its amount, various preparations are added – compost activators.
The decomposition process is accompanied by the release of heat, the larger the pile, the more it is released. Therefore, in the cold season, the process slows down, and accelerates in the summer. It was to speed up the process of turning heaps of garbage and waste into humus that drugs such as Doctor Robik and Baikal EM were created.
How to make a compost heap
A compost pit can be arranged at any time except winter, usually gardeners do it in the fall, when a lot of plant waste has accumulated. A good place for her is a secluded shady corner where there is no direct sunlight and moisture is well preserved, woodlice, earthworms, and microorganisms that contribute to the decomposition of plant mass live there. There are different recommendations for arrangement: some talk about a pit (no deeper than 1 m), others about a pile (no more than 2 m2), others advise a wooden box, the fourth – old metal barrels without a bottom, painted in dark colors. Old guides state that it is better to have 3 heaps formed in different years, then every year you can have fresh ready-made fertilizer. This is good advice, but where on the site to place 3 heaps of 2 m2? I immediately want to recall preparations such as “Doctor Robik” or “Baikal EM”, which will help reduce the preparation of fertilizer to several weeks.
The compost heap is laid in layers. Branches, spruce branches, straw are placed at the very bottom to create drainage, and then a green layer of mowed grass or weeds is alternated with a brown layer of chopped branches, paper, and coarse tops. All components should be finely chopped, just poured on top of each other without tamping. Periodically, all this is interspersed with layers of liquid manure, wood ash, nitrogen fertilizers and earth. The very top is covered with earth and covered with straw or burlap to retain moisture.
Secrets of use
If you provided the compost heap with air, heat, moisture and nitrogen, then the process will definitely go on. First, the breakdown of fiber occurs, and then, with the involvement of not only wood lice and earthworms, but also special bacteria and fungi, more and more plant residues, cellulose, wood are processed into fine-grained humus. In order to always have access to air and the movement of gases, at least once a month the whole mass must be mixed with a shovel or fork. This is very difficult to do, but necessary. Without the involvement of fertilizers, activators and any accelerator preparations, the preparation of humus is stretched at best for 1-7 months, and maybe for a year and a half.
If you use “Baikal EM” or “Doctor Robik”, then the process will be significantly accelerated due to the involvement of effective microorganisms (EM), there will simply be more of these same EMs that process organic matter into humus. In addition, they will not allow the development of pathogenic microflora, destroy the larvae of harmful insects. These drugs should be applied once a month after (or together) watering the compost heap, that is, one watering of the heap with a diluted preparation is enough to turn it into humus.
Ready humus smells pleasantly of the earth, crumbles in the fingers. They fertilize and mulch the beds. This most useful fertilizer without contraindications can improve any soil. Only you can not plant seedlings in it, you need to mix it with the ground.
Video “How to make compost”
In this video you can see how to make compost, after which you need to fertilize it to speed up maturation.
