Some houses are blessed with perfect soil in their backyards, and most of us are not lucky enough to have that perfect soil where we can plant vegetables or herbs that we want. It is either it has too much clay, sandy, or too acidic to be planted on.
This blog may help you convert your non-ideal soil to plant-friendly soil. The only thing that you need is to understand the components of healthy soil.
Soil is composed of many things, weathered rocks, organic matter, insects, and other microbes. If your soil is not ideal enough, one way to improve its quality is to create high-quality compost.
The raw materials that will go to your compost should come from organic wastes. You may find these in your garden or kitchen. After this blog, you will learn not only to create good compost but also to save waste as much as possible.
Supplies that you may need:
Dried leaves
Coffee grounds
Manure (organic)
Food scraps (fruit, vegetables, peelings, bread and etc.)
Thrown-away wine
Dry pet food
Dust from the vacuum
Ready to be thrown herbs or spices
Shredded papers such as newspaper or receipts
Sawdust
Wood chips
Pinecones
Things to avoid:
Brambles from berries
Long twigs and branches
Animal products
Pet droppings
Colored paper
Coal
Coal ashes
Inorganic materials
Plastics and metals
You can increase the amount of organic matter in your soil by adding compost, aged animal manures, green manures (cover crops), mulches, or peat moss. Because most soil life and plant roots are located in the top 6 inches of soil, concentrate on this upper layer. To learn more about making your own compost, read All About Composting.
Be cautious about incorporating large amounts of high-carbon material (straw, leaves, wood chips, and sawdust). Soil microorganisms will consume a lot of nitrogen in their efforts to digest these materials and they may deprive your plants of nitrogen in the short run. They will require a long time and/or a lot of nitrogen to break down. Use them in only moderate amounts, and add them in thin layers or mix them in with other ingredients, so the maximum surface area will be exposed to air and to microbes. Sawdust, like grass clippings, tends to form dense, anaerobic clumps that resist composting, so this material, in particular, should only be sprinkled into a compost heap in thin layers.