Natural Composting

Compost bins and plans for various do-it-yourself compost containers will probably make you feel as if you’ve accomplished something when you pull out that rich, dark soil to mix into your garden, but how would you like the joy of growing wonderful, lush flowers and vegetables without going to all that trouble and expense?

It’s a natural process

Mother Nature does it, you know. Every year, dead flowers, vegetables, leaves and even whole trees, fall onto the ground and begin decaying, returning to the soil those nutrients which they taken, plus what they’ve recouped from the air and rain. That’s what we call natural composting.

Since Mother Nature doesn’t carry a shovel and hoe, she doesn’t cover the plant remains with soil, but leaves them there to slowly and naturally disintegrate to return to that from which they sprang – dirt. Nutrient rich dirt, ready to feed and support another generation of life giving plants.

Natural composting has happened that way since the beginning of time and will happen that way until human beings pave over every inch of dirt on this planet. Even when we spray, rake, dig, smooth and clean out our gardens and other grounds, there are small bits of plant material left, which eventually break down and return to the earth.

Why not do it on purpose? Sheet composting, which is the idea of layering composting materials in and on garden soil, isn’t a new concept at all, but we humans tend to make things harder than they have to be.

What’s the difference between natural and sheet composting?

Not much. Sheet compost is made when you simply throw vegetable peelings, tea leaves, clean weeds (before they seed out), limp lettuce and other vegetable scraps onto the surface of your garden soil, like nature itself does. If you leave it alone, it will eventually compost naturally, but if you turn the soil around it to bury these vegetable bits shallowly, natural composting is speeded up due to organisms in the soil.

There’s nothing complicated about it. You don’t need a formula or a tumbler or “starter,” or experience. The hardest part is to put the vegetable matter in a more or less even layer, the turn it under the same way. For the quickest compost, don’t let the soil dry out completely.

If you want to sheet compost in your garden during the growing season, you’ll need to be careful to not do it within a few feet of garden plants, as composting materials release some nutrients too fast and create an imbalance. {Natural composting is much slower, so that this isn’t a problem in the forest or fallow field.)

How fast does natural composting work?

Natural composting is the simplest way to make good dirt, but with a little help, Mother Nature does it faster. Depending on the weather, microbial and other life in your soil and how closely you monitor moisture and spading, you can have greatly improved soil as soon as six weeks.

Even if you don’t monitor moisture and if you’re a little lazy getting out there with a shovel, you can expect results by the end of the growing season. That’s just in time to put the whole thing to rest and dream of next year’s glorious crop!