Compost

Today i walked up to the garden to empty my compost bucket. Only for the last five years, since i work in the gardens, i have been collecting my kitchen cuttings and brought them to the gardens compost areas. I love this process.

The benefits of compost include providing nutrients as fertilizer to the crop, acting as soil conditioner, increasing the humus or humic acids content of the soil, and introducing beneficial colonies of microbes in the soil, which help in suppressing pathogens. The natural interaction of the soil, plant roots and nutrient / microorganisms of compost improves the soil structure. An improved soil structure will increase the soil water retention ability and control soil erosion. Compost can be used for land and stream reclamation, wetland construction and landfill cover.

I know some schools still go to school gardens to teach the pupils something about plants, veggies and fruits. I hope one day composting will be an area where pupils learn the basic principles of. I hope one day composting will be completely normal and something you just do, wherever you live, in a big city or a small town or somewhere completely rural. It still stuns me i have lived for fifty years on this planet without knowing anything about this.