Why Compost?
So – why this web-site? Why compost?
Well, this is my search for the most reliable and interesting information available about composting. A compost heap has been a part of any garden I have lived in, from my first years in New Zealand with my grandparents, while I grew up with my parents and then in my own garden, where I graduated from a pile to a basic bin! It was always a very casual affair, though. Lawn clippings, garden waste and kitchen waste.
As I learned to walk, I was included in the deal and would totter up to the end of the garden, helping to carry the peelings from the vegetables being prepared for the next meal. These I would throw on to the pile while my grandfather, and then my father would fork them into the general heap. As far as I was aware, this was all that was ever done. In later years, I would see my father giving the compost a drink as an adjunct to watering the garden. Occasionally he would fling a handful of blood and bone, or lime over it before giving it a bit of a dig, but on the whole, there was not a huge amount of maintenance. Mainly, I think it was as much a convenient place to put all our waste vegetation as it was a source of compost. And of course, we are more aware now and that is as it should be.
Recently, I visited friends who own an avocado and kiwifruit orchard. They are big into worm farming (for their vegetable and flower gardens) and their avocado orchards would have to be one of the best examples of natural composting around. My interest was piqued as I came to realise that science has now entered what was the once simple world of composting and that around the world this practice is being seen as not only a wonderfully economic way of restoring the health of badly depleted soil, but as a way of dealing with the over-use of land-fills by recycling all our vegetable waste instead of just ‘putting it out with the rubbish’.
Hence, this web-site. Do join me, while I search for, and uncover, knowledge about this fascinating aspect of gardening. Hopefully, you will be inspired to start your own composting thus contributing to the push to rehabilitate our soil in this most natural of ways.