Hey again tomato guru’s! Hope the garden is going well. As you already know (well, you probably don’t seeing that I’m the only loyal follower of this blog so far!), yesterday I started off writing a series called How to Make Organic Compost that Tomatoes Will Love, in Twelve Weeks, you should read it first if you haven’t as yet. This is part two and in this article I will delve deeper in this topic and lets see how far I can go.
Again, I have not yet completed this series and am writing as it comes to me, so forgive me if the structure is not perfect. I would rather write this article and concentrate on providing solid info as compared to worrying about the technical details. Hope that you feel the same way!
Don’t forget to read part 1 on How to Make Organic Compost that Tomatoes Will Love, in Twelve Weeks-Collecting Organic Materials first.
Just to quickly re-cap yesterday, I spoke about what you should use in your tomato gardening compost heap, and what you should not use.
Very briefly:
USE: Leaves, hedge stems, woody twigs and dry branches, tree bark; Grass cuttings and weeds; Old cardboard boxes and newspaper; And the best off all Cut Tomato Plants.
DON’T USE: Any cooked food and dairy products, and human faeces.
Okay then tomato gardeners, shall we get our hands messy? Yes? Great! You should put some gloves on first. You do know why right? To keep germs off your hands off course!Get ready to make organic compost that tomatoes love! I’m done babbling sorry, time to get to work! Lets make some great organic compost that tomato plants will absolutely love. They may even reward you with some great tomatoes! Oh, no I’m babbling again aren’t I…
1) Shredding all of the organic matter into smaller pieces:
Since the aim of this project is to make compost really quickly, we need the matter to decompose as soon as possible. Shredding up all of the branches and twigs will greatly reduce the time that it takes to breakdown and release stored nutrients.
There are two ways of getting the shredding done, and NO, I don’t mean getting someone to do it for you! You could either use a metal shredder that you can purchase from most gardening stores. I’m not really sure about the price of them coz’ I don’t use them. They are however, apparently much more quicker to use and therefore may be great choice for you if you have the money to spend. Also, they cut up the branches into much smaller pieces and this will help it to decompose faster.
The cheaper method is to manually chop up the branches into finer pieces. You can do this by using the side of a spade like a jackhammer. The edges of a spade are usually quite sharp and with some force it will easily rip through a small tree branch. I recommend that you lay the braches and twigs flat on the ground and then start chopping away. You should do this in a vacant piece of garden soil as a miss with the spade could easily damage a concrete floor. Take note though, this method is really hard work!
Now that you have all of your materials in small pieces, we can move onto the next step of making organic compost that tomato plants really love…
2)Getting soil to mix with the rest of the organic matter:
the next thing that you need to get is soil for your compost heap. You can just add all of the organic matter into a compost bin and expect it to decompose! I suggest that you get as much soil as you can (well, a barrel full should be enough. Don’t be a “real” tomato gardener and order a truckload!). I suggest that you get se good quality topsoil, which you can get from most gardening nurseries or even from your own garden. The reason we need top soil is because it will have microbes in it that play a vital role in decomposing the organic matter. Wherever you get the soil from you need to make sure that it doesn’t have Any weeds in it or even any seeds as they will grow and spoil your tomato gardening compost. That’s why I suggest that you get the soil from a nursery, as it will probably not have this problem.
Okay tomatoes, and that’s it for today. No, its not that I’m lazy to write more its just that its human tendency to NOT take action if given too much of information at once. For today you will need to shred up all of your gardening materials and then get some topsoil for your organic tomato compost heap.
Tomorrow I will try to close up this series on How to Make Organic Compost that Tomatoes Will Love, in Twelve Weeks. now that you have collected the materials and are going to cut it up, all that’s left is to actually make the compost. That’s the fun part and also the easy part! I’m going to tell you about a way that will allow your organic matter to decompose as quick as possible.
I hope that you are enjoying this series so far? Am I doing this blogging thingy right? Do I need to provide more info? Should I have just turned this whole series into one Long article (around 2500 words)? Please give me some feed back tomato gardeners, I really Do want to provide solid info that benefits all of you guys! Chat tomorrow guys, don’t forget to water the tomatoes!
Check out the final part of this series, How to Make Organic Compost that Tomatoes will Love, in 12 weeks-composting-part 3
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