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5 Benefits of Starting a Compost Pile
If you've spent a lot of time exploring Augusta homes for sale and finally found your dream home, you're likely to find that you need to breathe new life into your garden and landscaping. Starting a compost pile is a great way to repurpose kitchen scraps and other organic materials into a product that contains a full spectrum of essential plant nutrients.
But First, What is Composting?
Composting is a process by which organic material is broken down by naturally occurring bacteria, fungi, and worms. After decomposing in a concentrated environment over time, the organic matter transforms into a nutrient-rich mixture that looks a lot like the soil itself. You can compost fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, tea, tree trimmings, grass clippings, and leaves. Once the mixture is ready, use it to feed your growing veggies, top dress your lawn, and improve your flower garden.
Let's go over some of the benefits of starting a compost pile.
- Great for Your Garden
Bacteria, insects, microbes, fungi, worms, millipedes, and a myriad of other beneficial critters help break down your organic matter into compost. They munch, chew, defecate, break down, and mix the scraps, creating what you need to turn your soil into a variable plant haven. Compost naturally contains balanced amounts of potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorous, which are essential building blocks for your plants. The organic materials in compost act like a sponge that absorbs and retains water. This ensures your plants have a steady source of moisture, reduces the need for watering, and prevents weeds from growing. - Reduces Your Carbon Footprint
Compostable materials such as food waste, yard trimmings, wood waste, and paper account for more than 28 percent of our country's waste. Home composting is a great way to keep your organic waste from adding to the landfill pile and contribute to the health of the planet, so why not give it a shot. - Improves Soil Structure
Good soil structure is the basis for a quality garden. In good soil, different molecules glom into each other to form small particles or clumps known as aggregates. This clumping opens up spaces between the aggregates, allowing oxygen and water to flow through freely. Compost mixes with inorganic soil compounds to form a balanced, healthy soil structure. It also releases nutrients slowly and buffers the soil, bringing pH levels to the optimum range for nutrient availability to the roots. - Keeps Chemicals Out of Your Garden
It's no secret that foods grown with chemicals are becoming increasingly unhealthy. And if you have kids or pets, synthetic fertilizers and chemicals can be downright dangerous. What's more, these contaminants can spread into water sources, leading to oxygen dead zones or algal blooms in the ocean. Compost contains micro and macronutrients often absent in synthetic fertilizers. Some soil bacteria even produce antibodies and antibiotic properties to your compost. These can help protect your plants from a wide range of plant diseases and reduce the need for fungicides. - Good for the Wallet
While there's nothing better than beautiful flowers and fresh veggies from your own garden, keeping your wallet happy is a very close second. Depending on the techniques used, starting a compost pile can create great alternatives to store-bought compost, potting soil, and seedling mixtures, helping you save significantly over the years. Also, infrequent trash pickups may help reduce your trash bill.
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