One of nature’s best mulches for your garden is compost (instead of commercial fertilizers).
You can contribute by composting your own yard and kitchen wastes. Depending on the size of your yard, you have many options.
Compost isn't just for vegetable gardens! You can spread compost on your flower beds, around trees, and even on your lawn!
Here are a few basics of composting to get you started:
- Find a a container, with a lid, to collect your kitchen waste. (A large yogurt container works great!)
- Find an area or container in your yard or outside for your compost pile. Bins are available through the Town Hall (978-250-5203) or you could make your own. (There are many resources available at your library in the non-fiction section 631.875.)
- Collect your kitchen waste, such as coffee grounds, egg shells, potato peels, banana peels, paper towels, and so on. It is recommended that you NOT put meat or dairy into your compost bin.
- You will need a layer of soil to help the natural process begin. Manure works great, too.
- Make sure your bin or pile is exposed to rain, or you may need to water it now and then.
- Flip the pile a few times a year, but if you aren't too crazy about doing that, you can skip this step with slower results.
- When it is ready, you can spread it on your gardens or lawn in the Spring and Fall.
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RESOURCES
Products
National Geographic :: GreenGuide
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For more information on composting, read the article Let It Rot? by Bonnie Rankin. Check out your local library for more information on how to get started or visit http://www.mass.gov/dep/recycle/reduce/compos01.htm. If you don’t have a yard, don’t worry there is information out there for you too. Try The Urban/Suburban Composter by Mark Cullen and Lorraine Johnson.
You can purchase a New Age Composter Bin from the Town of Chelmsford! These bins are available to Chelmsford residents at below cost ($40 for a 30 cubic foot bin). The bins are made of heavy duty black recycled plastic, are animal proof, easy to assemble and use and a great ongoing science project for the kids!
In addition to composting yard waste, by composting kitchen scraps you will improve the quality of your compost and you can drastically reduce the weight and volume of your household trash and thus help reduce the town's trash disposal costs.
The MassDEP has a brochure entitled, Home Composting: A guide for composting yard and food waste. View the Composting Resources section for additional information on how to start composting, and options that are available.
GOOD COMPOST
| Grass and lawn clippings |
- Leave grass clippings in the lawn-they will decompose and benefit the soil directly.
- Be cautious to add grass clippings in very thin layers, or thoroughly mix them in with other compost ingredients, as they otherwise tend to become slimy and matted down, excluding air from the pile.
- Fresh grass clippings are high in nitrogen, making them a 'green' compost ingredient.
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| Kitchen waste |
- Fruit and vegetable peels/rinds
- Tea bags
- Coffee grounds
- Eggshells
- ... and similar materials are great stuff to compost.
Mix in with drier/bulkier materials to allow complete air penetration.
Avoid composting meat scraps, fatty food wastes, milk products, and bones -- these materials are very attractive to pests. |
| Leaves |
- Excellent compost ingredient
- Break up clumps
- Layer
- Ash and poplar/cottonwood leaves can raise soil pH if used in compost while oaks, maples, and pine needles can lower soil pH. As long as you use a mix of kitchen waste, grasses, and leaves, the pH change is unlikely to be significant. Most soils in our area are acidic and most of our native plants are happy with acidic soil although garden plants vary'.
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BAD COMPOST
| Chemically treated wood products |
Sawdust from chemically-treated wood products is bad to compost due to the various chemicals used to treat the wood. |
| Diseased plants |
Many plant disease organisms are killed by consistent hot composting, but it's difficult to make sure that every speck of the diseased material gets fully composted. It's best not to compost diseased plant material at all, to avoid reinfecting next year's garden. |
| Meat, bones, and fatty food waste |
- These materials are very attractive to pests.
- Fatty food wastes can be very slow to break down, because the fat can exclude the air that composting microbes need to do their work.
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| Pernicious weeds |
- Morning glory/bindweed, sheep sorrel, ivy, several kinds of grasses, and some other plants can resprout from their roots and/or stems in the compost pile.
- Place these types of weeds in a sunny place for a couple of weeks before adding to compost.
- Avoid composting weeds that have gone to seed as this will create weeds in next year's garden.
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