Hey all you tomato gardening fanatics, how’s the tomatoes growing? Well, if they look a bit down and dreary rest assured you can help! I wrote this article to walk you through the steps that you need to take to make your own tomato gardening compost that your favorite plants will just love. The best part of this all? You can have your organic, and nutrient rich tomato growing compost ready in as little as twelve (yes, 12) weeks. Never again will you have to worry about your tomatoes being well nourished, and producing poor crops.
This article will probably span out into two or three parts, I’m not sure because I want to write as it flows. In this part (part one) of the series, “How to Make Organic Compost that Tomatoes Will Love, in Twelve Weeks” I will tell you about the types of materials that you can use in your tomato heap and will also tell you what you should not use.
The thing that I really like about making my tomato gardening compost compared with buying it is that you get to control what goes into the heap and what stays out. If you don’t want to add something to your compost heap, no problem, its totally up to you!
Another great thing about making your own organic gardening compost for tomato plants is that it saves money, a lot of it! Now every body wants to save a buck or two, or maybe even three or four, so why not try making your own tomato planting compost before you rush out to buy it.
Lets start off by looking at what you COULD use in your organic tomato heap:
- Grass cuttings and weeds. You’ve heard it before but its so true! But, what you probably haven’t heard is that they are nitrogen rich and will do a world of wonders for your tomatoes. You have to have grass cuttings in a compost heap for this process to work, and honestly I don’t see any excuses you as to why you can’t get any. You could mow your lawn, or better yet mow the neighbors’ lawn! You’ll get grass for your garden and a thumbs up from the neighbor’s, it’s a win-win situation really. Wherever you get it from, just make sure you have some for your tomato-composting heap.
- Leaves, woody branches and twigs, hedge prunings (like rose stems), and even tree bark. These contain carbon and are essential for the healthy growth of your tomato plants. However, since they decompose super slowly, you need to keep them to a minimum if you want your tomato gardening compost to be ready in twelve weeks.
- Cardboard, newspaper, and egg cartons. This is one of the simplest types of materials you can find and will work well in a tomato compost heap. The reason being is that they decompose fairly quickly and they are environmentally friendly so that makes them pretty cool to use for
tomato gardening. A note here: Don’t use any thing that has to much of color on it, as the color ink is not so environmentally friendly. Also, shy away from the glossy types they take much longer to decompose.
- Old tomato plants themselves- The Granddaddy of compost material for growing tomatoes in. did you know that old tomato vines are one of THE BEST materials that you could use in a compost heap for tomatoes? Well, its true! Tomatoes just love growing from the nutrients provided by decomposing tomato plants, I don’t know why, but they do. To use tomato vines for a compost heap, you need to first shred the vines up into smaller pieces so that they can decompose faster and be ready for the tomato gardening in around twelve weeks.
Now, let us go on to the material that you should not use for your tomato garden, I’m just going to list them very briefly as there is much to say except, DON’T USE THEM. They are: Meat (raw or cooked); dairy products like milk etc.; cooked food fruit or vegetables included; dog or human faeces (you’d be surprised at how many people think that you can, but you CAN’T); and anything inorganic like plastic, glass etc.
That’s’ it for this article folks, now its your turn to get involved. How about we set a challenge for today. Try to gather as many and much of the things that you are going to be using for your tomato compost heap today, and tomorrow we will go into how to use them. Get some grass cutting, leaves anything that will be going into your tomato gardening compost heap, and you can put them into a plastic bag for now, or a compost bin if you have one. But, before you do that, why not tell me what You think should go into our tomato gardening compost heap? I’d be glad to et your opinions in the comments section. Oh, and check back tomorrow for part two of this series in making organic compost that tomatoes will love.
Read part 2 of: How to Make Organic Compost that Tomatoes Will Love, in Twelve Weeks-Shredding and Getting Soil.
Or, check out part 3: How to Make Organic Compost that Tomatoes will Love, in 12 weeks-composting-part 3
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