Make Your Own Landscape Fertilizer this Summer

The Greenburgh Nature Center’s Environmental Projects Coordinator Anne Jaffe Holmes recently conducted a personal one-on-one session on simple composting steps.

If you have not yet had the chance to participate in a Family Composting 101 session, then keep on reading. I have boiled down my hands-on comprehensive session into an easy-to-follow guide to read at your leisure.

Let us begin with the definition of composting. I attended the session with little knowledge on the subject. Basically, composting is comprised of fertilizing your soil with decayed organic materials, such as leaves and kitchen scraps. It is a great way for recycling waste and reducing garbage.

During the session, Holmes stressed the fact that the process is cyclical, and that  nature undergoes its own natural composting process. “The Earth takes everything in,” Holmes said. “Think about it. Every fall, leaves from the trees fall in mass amounts. And yet we are not up to our ears in leaves.”

After explaining the composting process, Holmes guided me along one of the easier trails at the Nature Center to illustrate the natural composting process. We looked at mushrooms and searched under rotted logs, noting how fungus and insects were contributing to the decomposition, which the nutrients eventually returned to the soil.

The trail led us to another area at the nature center where manual composting occurred. Holmes explained the lazy way one can compost is by pulling up weeds, tossing them aside in a pile and letting them decay while fertilizing the soil underneath.

Another way to compost is by creating a temporary and controlled enclosure. Purchase some fencing and arrange it in a circular fashion before piling your weeds inside.

Holmes instructed us to turn the pile a little to help speed up the composting process. Turning the pile is using a pitchfork or another garden tool and mix up the weeds. Most of the work is attributed to the bacteria and fungus breaking down the weeds.

Yet another way to compost is by purchasing an Earth Machine. An Earth Machine is similar in concept to creating your own enclosure. By turning the debris on a regular basis, the composting process could happen as fast as six to eight weeks. The GNC will sell Earth Machines at a cut rate price on Saturday, July 9 and Sunday, July 10.

People with larger properties and more organic materials to compost can use a different composting method, the three-binder. The three-binder looks like a crate with three sections. The GNC built their three-binder composter, but Holmes explained you could have one built.

Finally, there is the Vermiculture, which is indoor composting with live worms. You can place one in the attic or basement. Vermicultures are good teaching tools because you can actually see the various stages of composting due to the vermiculture's multi-tiered structure. The GNC uses the Can-O-Worms vermiculture.

Holmes instructed us to place Red Wiggler Worms inside the bins with kitchen scraps and strip newspapers before wetting them and wringing them out. The final step, layering the strips of newspaper over the worms and kitchen scraps,  keeps the worms warm and moist so they will not die.

Additionally, a vermiculture produces worm tea, a great fertilizer for flowers. Worm tea is very strong, so it is best to dilute it with water in a five (water) to one (worm tea) ratio. 

Keep in mind, when composting that whatever you put in your compost will stay in your compost. Therefore, Holmes explained that it is best to stay organic. Some suggestions are grass clippings, paper, coffee grounds (especially for the worms), food scraps, wood chips and dead leaves. No one wants pesticides, fats or meat in their soil.

Most importantly, remember to keep your compost moist, but not too wet.

If you are still not sold on composting, then consider these benefits. Composting is a free fertilizer, it eliminates or reduces yard waste and it saves taxpayer money by cutting down on the municipal “waste stream.”

For more information on composting, contact Environmental Projects Coordinator Anne Jaffe Holmes at the Greenburgh Nature Center.