Did you know that worm castings which you can harvest when you are worm composting (vermi-composting ) are the absolute best enriching material you can put in your soil around your plants? This past spring I have personally found out how superior to synthetic fertilizers such as RX15 and other liquid fertilizer even a trowel full of soil with worm castings in it can be. (Here’s more about my experience with composting worms and using the castings at
http://www.plantsandgardeningtips.com/worm-composting/worm-castings). Read the rest of this entry »

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Although mulching is perhaps the slowest method of cold composting, it offers many benefits. It discourages weeds, protects soil from compacting or eroding, and keeps the roots of plants cool and moist in hot weather and insulated in the winter.

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What is Rotation Trenching?

Rotation trenching, often used by British gardeners, is a simple three-year rotation of crop, composting trench, and path. Instead of burying compost material in separate holes as done in postholing, rotation trenching involves digging a long pit (usually between rows in a garden) to do your cold composting via soil incorporation.

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What Is Soil Incorporation?

Cold Composting by soil incorporation is probably the simplest method of composting. Food and yard wastes are finely chopped, mixed with soil, and buried 200 cm (8 inches) or deeper in the earth.

Depending on soil temperature, bacterial activity, and the carbon content of the wastes, decomposition via soil incorporation, a method of cold composting, will take from one month to a year.

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When Should One Choose Cold Composting vs Hot Composting?

Cold composting is a great alternative if you cannot accumulate enough organic waste all at once to create a hot compost pile, or if you aren’t interested in the physical task of turning a compost pile.. or if you have plenty of space and don’t need the compost in a hurry. You don’t need much to start the process of cold composting. The cold compost pile builds gradually as materials come to hand.

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How to create the New Zealand box – another easy-to-make compost container for hot compost to be used in your organic garden.

Perhaps the best small-scale system for the relatively energetic composter is a design known as the New Zealand box.

This home-made New Zealand hot-compost box is a bottomless wooden box with ventilation spaces between the wall boards, and its face is easily removable to facilitate turning. Since the compost rests directly on the ground, a lid is normally added to prevent nutrients leaking from the pile during heavy rains.

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Home-Made Compost Container –The Compost Drum And The Compost Tumbler

The fourth type of home-made compost containers, the Compost Tumbler and the Compost Drum, are extremely easy to use. A rotating barrel composter can be made from a large drum with aeration holes punched in it . You can also have fins inside the drum to lift and mix the compost materials. A hinged loading door in the side allows wastes to be added gradually.

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