By Jonathan White, environmental scientist
For many people, composting is just an alternative way of
dealing with rubbish. It prevents the garbage bin from getting full
and smelly. It’s also a way of disposing of grass clippings and
leaves, which saves many trips to the garbage depot. Whilst these
things are valid, they are not giving compost the full credibility it
deserves. Compost can be very valuable when used in the right way.
I have a completely different way of looking at compost. To
me, composting is a way of building valuable nutrients that will, one
day, feed me and my family. I only use compost on my vegetable
gardens. The way I manage my vegetable gardens means that composting
is an integral part of the whole food production system. I create
compost as a way of collecting nutrients in one form (waste), and
turning them into another form (food).
The average person buys food from a shop, consumes it and then
sends the waste away. This is simply buying nutrients, taking what you
need for that precise moment, and disregarding the remainder. It’s a
nutrient flow that only flows in one direction, like a fancy car
roaring down the road. You admire the car for a moment, but after a
second or two, it’s gone.
My goal is to slow down the car and then get it to do a
U-turn. I want to keep the nutrients within my property where I can
capitalize on them. By doing this, I am able to use the nutrients
again, so I don’t have to buy them for a second time. Surely, that’s
going to save me money. It may seem strange to think of nutrients in
this way when we can’t even physically see them. However, all organic
materials contain nutrients. My goal is to get those nutrients out of
the form they are in and into a form that is useful to me and my
family.
To put it in a different way; composting is a vehicle in which we are able to create a nutrient cycle within our property.
We are part of that cycle because we consume the nutrients when they
are, for a brief time, in a useful form. Then they return to the
compost and slowly make their way into another useful form where we
consume them again. This cycle can go on and on indefinitely. Of
course, there will be many lost nutrients that you will never see
again, but with a little diligence, you will be surprised at how much
compost you can create, and hence, how many valuable nutrients you can
recycle.
My composting system is large because I have a few large
vegetable gardens. I believe that the size of your vegetable garden
should be determined by how much compost you can create, and not merely
by the amount of space you have in your backyard. To run a rich, high
yielding vegetable garden you need to have some sort of soil
conditioning plan, and the best thing for your soil is a generous layer
of good compost on the surface a few times per year.
If you can create your own compost from the organic waste that
you generate in your everyday life, then you can have a vegetable
garden that is self-sustainable. Once it is set up, it will never need
nutrients in the form of store-bought fertilizers. You will have
established a flow of nutrients, and your nutrient-store will grow
bigger and bigger, year after year. Applying compost to your garden
will have a very positive effect on your soil structure and fertility.
With good soil structure and plenty of organic material, you will be
able to release nutrients that have been locked up and unavailable to
your plants. You will be speeding up the flow of nutrients, thus
increasing your yield significantly. Your soil will become alive and
healthy with micro-organisms and soil bacteria that are beneficial to
creating the conditions for proper plant growth. Your vegetables will
contain all the essential nutrients in the correct proportions, giving
your body the vitamins and minerals it needs to function at its best.
Composting is very easy once you make it part of your everyday
life. A small container on your kitchen bench to collect scraps and a
daily trip to the compost bin is all it takes. It’s a small effort
for huge rewards. The golden rule in making compost is never to have
large clumps of a single type of material. Thin layers of hot and cold
materials work best. Cold materials include leaves, shredded
newspaper and dried grass clippings. Hot materials include fresh grass
clippings, manures, weeds, discarded soft plants and kitchen scraps.
If you make composting part of you daily routine, along with an
effective method of growing food, you can literally save thousands of
dollars per year. This is possible simply because you won’t have to
keep buying nutrients over and over. You will buy them once, hold onto
them and then convert them into useful forms again and again. It’s
that simple!
Jonathan White is an Environmental Scientist and the
founder of the Food4Wealth Method, a high yielding, low-maintenance
form of vegetable gardening. For more information see Food4Wealth
