Building a Winter Compost for Enriching Garden Soil
by writecorner on Jun 06, 2009 with 0 Comments
The garden compost pile is an ongoing project, so don’t forget about it during the long winter months. Building up a winter compost will help save time and enrich your soil come spring.
Enrich your compost pile over the winter months by building up those layers of vegetation. Don’t wait until early spring to invest extra effort in soil preparation, since much of the best material is available in the months after harvest season.
For new gardeners and seasoned ones, the compost pile is an important part of enriching and restoring the soil each season. The process of building up compost usually begins in the fall, with leaf piles and other organic matter collected and piled in a single location or large container and let decay. The process of organic decay is gradual, meaning many gardeners have more than one compost pile, with each pile at a different stage of “breaking down” vegetation.
Most avoid using grass clippings or landscaping refuse, since this risks additional seeds or weed roots being added for transplant to your garden soil; others prefer to avoid rotten vegetation for the same reasons.
Other gardeners use their winter organic refuse to build up their new compost supply, beginning in the fall months and moving towards early spring. Piles of damp leaves, crumbling tree bark from the firewood pile, and limited organic food matter are combined in the compost heap for future use. Potato skin and lettuce and spinach leaves are among the potential compost remains, since they break down quickly and won’t carry seeds into your pile.
While food vegetation is not ideal, many gardeners prefer to add the skins or rotten vegetable matter once they remove any seeds or sprouts, since winter cooking typically uses up much of the harvest stores and incorporates vegetables into several dishes, such as hearty stews, soups, and casseroles.
By early spring, the winter compost pile should show signs of strong organic decay, while pile left over from last season is broken down to a fraction of its original size and ready to be used. As the new winter pile decays, parts of it will also be added to the soil to help enrich its contents during the planting season.
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Published in: Gardening
