LILA'S  O R G A N I C   K I T C H E N    G A R D E N                                     SUSTAINABLE    EARTH    LIVING.   New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand.© 2007 
Compost piles: compost heaps :composting :compost bays : soil improvement with compost
                         

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   COMPOST BAYS and COMPOST HEAPS and POP'S TRENCHES
 MY GARDEN CALENDAR                            
December 2007     If you don't want to make  8 week compost rich in all nutrients, but instead want to compost in the more slow traditional method of a Kiwi garden then you can have wooden bays, wire rounds, or just an area in your garden where you can pile all the things that go into making compost, but beware that this could take up to a year to break down depending on how often you turn your heap and what you add to it, urea [urine] is the best activator and a sprinkling of lime will assist the breakdown process, a lot of people just put 'stuff' in their compost heap along with weed seeds, if the compost does not heat up to over 70 degrees  the weed seeds thrive and then come up again when you add compost to your garden.  
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GARDEN ALMANAC      
My Garden Photos      
 Photos send in by the     public      
                Left:  this is a picture of four areas of composting, 1. the 8 week composter 2. first bay where everything is first dumped, lawn clippings, leaves, scraps, old bits of potting mix, anything organic that I am not  using in the the 8 week composter, once bay 4 is empty I turn all bays over by one, adding lime and urea blood and bone and sheep pellets, plus rich compost.  
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A-Z LIST OF VEGETABLES AND HERBS, WHEN AND HOW TO GROW THEM.

      
     
     
 soil preparation      
 compost making      
liquid fertilizers      
 about permaculture      
 fruit growing                            
 growing nut trees     Remember that if it is not rock, concrete or plastic it is organic, if it is clothing that is not synthetic, you can cut it up into pieces and compost it, if it is old rags or old sheets with little use left, you can cut it up and compost it, what you should not compost however is meat or cat or dog poos, any other animal or bird that is not a meat eater is fine, why not meat, because it will rot, attract rats or insects that you do not want in your garden, if you have hedgehogs encourage them, they will scrounge through your compost heaps and eat the slugs and snails, they will in fact do this in your garden as well.                                                                     If you are a well off gardener then invest in a mulcher, or chipper, so that when branches are cut down they can be cut up, a mulcher is also handy to cut up that Seaweed that you are collecting if you live in Taranaki, because you see, before oil was discovered, Kelp or seaweed collecting was a very prominent form of plant food, soil improver,  whole families in the old days, particularly in Europe would go collecting, in fact whole business stemmed from Kelp collection and some countries still have kelp collection enterprises,  we all need to realise that food for kelp is whatever is washed from the land into the sea, it is rich in all minerals, so start taking your plastic bag if you are headed to the beach and if you like, wait until we get a stormy couple of days and and westerly wind                                   Add your kelp to your green tea liquid fertilizer or your compost heap, it is a wonderful addition to the compost contributing many minerals..                           If you can have a separate area for your raked up dried leaves or straw: see the 8 week composter  ensure this area is dry and convenient, you do not want your leaves to start composting due to moisture before making the 8 week compost.

Another good form of adding compost to your garden is trench digging, make a hole or trench in your garden, put your scraps or anything organic in the hole and cover over with soil.  Pop and Sadie, an older couple in Five Dock in Sydney, who were lovely people, Pop had a process of gardening that in my mind is so hard to beat, Pop would once a month dig a trench in his garden they looked like little shallow organic graves, he would then put grass clippings in there, scraps, in fact everything organic and when it was about 15 cm from the top, sprinkle it with garden lime then he would then cover over with soil, dig his next trench and then plant on top of the one he just filled in. Secondly Pop and Sadie had an old fashioned pot or PO under their bed and every morning Pop would dilute the urine with water and water it on his garden, this man never purchased a thing for his garden, he collected his own seeds, he grew everything anyone could possibly imagine and he also gave away food to the neighborhood, an old mate of Pops down the road had carrier pigeons and doves, Pop would regularly trudge off down the road to collect his bird poo to put in his organic grave.  We all need to learn from the likes of Pop, who in fact lived sustainably off the land in the middle of urban Sydney surrounded by bricks and morter and noise and pollution. Pop passed on a few years back now.. and I am picking that not one of his children carried on his methods, he was 78 at the time he was my neighbor.

 
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website created by  Lila Smith ©  DECEMBER 2007   New Plymouth,  Taranaki New Zealand