Time to Go Green

When everything is changing to red and orange in the garden, it’s Time to Go Green

Autumn is the perfect time to set up a compost or start a worm farm.  The weather is warm enough that old organic matter still breaks down quickly, and you also have at hand an easy supply lots of the garden ingredients you need, like fallen leaves, lawn clippings and vegie scraps.  Composting is a simple enough process where what was living breaks down into humus – a soil-like substance that is nature’s answer to just about anything. 

To start, choose an area in the shade that is not difficult to access.  Making up a compost involves getting the correct ratio of carbon to nitrogen together so that your organic matter breaks down quickly and effectively.  Normally it 30:1 parts carbon to nitrogen, which simply means dry leaves, cuttings and pruning and so forth need to be combined with nitrogen rich material like leaf clippings and vegie scraps.

There are different methods, such as layering compost, anaerobic composting, fermenting, making compost teas, making hot composts and even reusing weeds to make into composts.  At Eden Gardens, we love our Hungry Bins and strongly recommend them.  They are a really well designed worm farm that quickly turns organic matter into nutrient rich worm poo and worm wee for your garden.  Our café recycles all its scraps into them and are worms are happy living down in the underground carpark, where temperatures are constant.  And plants LOVE being given a dose of vermicast – the fancy name for worm castings.  For them, it’s like a dose of super food and builds up their immune system, helping them stay healthy.

By: Meredith Kirton