Compost tea is one of the classic organic fertilizers. It's best when it's brewed from fully composted materials, but you can brew it with a composter like the Envirocycle compost tea maker and tumbler. Alternatives there are kits for making compost tea. Here's some tips on how to brew your own compost tea.
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The Mantis Compost-Twin is often thought of as the Cadillac of garden composters. Here's a look at the pros and cons of the Compost -Twin.
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Grass clippings are one of the most common forms of yard waste, and in the spirit of composting and recycling the question often comes up about using grass clippings as mulch for the garden. Here's a look at using grass clippings for garden mulch.
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Kitchen scraps are a great source of composting materials for your compost pile. But you do need to take a little care in choosing the materials that you save from the kitchen for the compost bin. Some materials will only serve to attract pests to the compost pile while not really breaking down well into compost. Others may not attract vermin and other pests, but still are slow to break down and do little to help the composting process. Here's a look at some of the items that would be good to include in your compost crock or compost pail.
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One great way to improve the soil in your garden is to use earthworm castings. There are a couple of ways to start worm composting (or vermicomposting as it's often known), one is to add somered wigglers to your compost bin, taking care that it will not heat up too quickly. The other is to use a worm composter like the Can o Worm Composter that will let you keep composting year round, even indoors if you like. Here'e and article where we take a look at how to use worm castings in your garden.
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When any gardener starts composting, it usually begins with just a pile over in the corner of the yard. But at some point you'd like to have a compost bin that is a little more attractive, but not a lot of money. Here's a look at the Garden Gourmet Composter that is so popular these days.
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When we take a look at composters, often we are doing so because we want to get fast compost, as opposed to the slow "natural" way of composting. the technical terms for these two types of composting are aerobic composting and anaerobic composting. Here's a look at the differences between the two approaches and some ideas to speed up our garden compost bin.
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One of the most common natural fertilizers is rotted manure. Almost any organic gardening book will recommend it. But how well does it work on tomatoes, and if you have a choice, which type of manure makes the best tomato fertilizer?
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We know that compost is a great addition to any garden, especially our tomato gardens. But if you look at the composters available you'll find that some of them are priced pretty high, which makes it tough to justify based on the return you get from the garden. Another alternative is to make your own compost bin, but that can be a lot of work and if you aren't too handy then it's not that attractive. This article reviews some of the options for inexpensive composters. See if you can come up with a cheap composting solution for your garden.
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The other day I was looking for information on the types of things that can be added to your compost pile. I ran across this article that highlights over 100 things you can add to a compost pile, and where to find free material to add to a compost pile.
On that list one of the more popular ones is used coffee grounds, which can often be found for free at coffee shops as well. The article and video here describe some of the benefits of using coffee grounds on your garden.
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Making compost for your garden is one of the best ways to boost your tomato production. There are a variety of way to go about making compost, the simplest just being a pile somewhere near the garden. But there are a variety of tools, ranging from simple compost thermometers to deluxe compost tumblers that can help accelerate the composting process. Here's an article that takes a look at the tradeoffs between compost tumbler and simple compost bins.
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One of the easiest things to do to build up your garden is to add compost to it on a regular basis. While most gardens will have a compost bin in place somewhere, one of the easiest ways to get a large amount of compost is to simply set aside a pile for composting leaves. The following article gives a few tips on how to easily take advantage of leaf compost to build up the soil in your garden.
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