As a Southeast Texas arborist with tree, land clearing and mulch Houston services, we like to see more weekend gardening enthusiasts get even greener. Because composting is an easy green project that any person can undertake, here the arborist shares the elementals on how make a composter that may help you produce the best Texas compost available, simply from the green waste of your kitchen and back yard.
How to construct a compost pile.
The easiest way to make a composter is super easy. A compost pile should be built on good soil and a drainage system made of a layer of limbs in an out of the way corner of your back yard. At the center situate a PVC pipe with lots of holes drilled up and back down it. This can be handy for aeration as the compost pile grows.
Layer it!
Make successive layers of the following:
- Build successive layers of leaves and other green waste. Southeast Texas compost is typically made up of oak leaves, pine needles, and yard clippings. Oak leaves rot nicely, while pine needles lend an acidity that is adored by azaleas and other native shrubbery. You may also add the egg shells, coffee grounds, and banana peels in the green debris layer – when it comes to decomposition, it’s all good!–but with two exceptions: Do not add weeds with seed heads, and do not add animal products like animal fat and meat scraps. Those two items are definite no-nos for the compost pile.
- Cover each layer with some soil. Adding manure makes it better. Sprinkle each layer with the manure or organic fertilizer (if using store-bought, make sure to use the kind that does not contain a weed killer)
- Keep the pile moist. In winter, cover with plastic to stop erosion and exposure to excessive rainfall. Wiggle the PVC pipe occassionally to keep things loose.
Turn It!
After the pile is built, turn it with a pitchfork. This can aerate and mix the compost and keep the bacterial process from overheating.
When the leaves and green waste have rotten into a dark brown soil mix, with bits of leaves still identifiable, it is prepared for your garden. Speckle it around your flower beds and shrubbery. Use it on your plant garden. It creates an organic and healthy soil addition that will favor the growth of all your plants. Then, while your neighbors admire your yard, you can tell them that the best Texas compost around is made in your own backyard, then share with them how they can make a composter of their own.
As an arborist, as we mulch Houston green waste and natural materials from development and construction sites, we are impacted by how promptly nature wants to renew itself, and composting, as it is a chemical breaksown process into a nutrient-rich food substance, is the prime demonstration of how nature returns all old things into resources for new growth. Considering that, sharing composting data is a beautiful thing!
Katherine Parker submits info articles for Southeast Texas, LLC. Here the arborist addresses do-it-yourself Texas compost with instructions on how to make a composter of your very own.