How to Recycle plant waste and rainwater to improve your garden and vegetable allotment plants

How to Recycle Vegetable Waste for Compost

& Rainwater for Plants in Your Garden and Allotment.

For the keen and environmentally friendly gardener a compost bin or heap is a must.

It saves any vegetative based waste being dumped at the tip in the countryside or at sea. More importantly it provides really good humus and nutrients for the garden flower and shrub borders as well as vegetable beds. When well rotted compost is spread as a mulch around plants on the flower beds or vegetable garden it improves plant vigour, growth and resistance to disease. This means that your vegetables will give you a bigger, better crop that has not been treated with unknown chemicals. Perennial and annual flowers will be in sufficient quality and quantity for cutting to put on the table as decoration. The soil quality is improved over time by helping to break down heavy clay or improving the moisture retention of light sandy soils.

Composting allows you to re-use all organic waste from your home and garden. The process works by the heat generated in the heap / bin that encourages worms and soil-based fungi to break down organic matter over a period of time and be change into great compost.

Do's

Add most green leaves, seed heads, vegetable waste, fruit etc.

It is advisable to cover the open type of heap. In very hot and dry weather to keep moisture in to help the rotting process. In winter it will also prevent too much rain from washing the nutrients out as well as helping to keep the heat in. An old tarpaulin, piece of pond liner, carpet or underlay, corrugated tin, ply etc. can all be used successfully.

Chop up or shred any vegetation or domestic green vegetable waste into small pieces.

Ensure that different materials are mixed together in the heap and not left in layers.

Mix grass cutting up with household vegetable waste, dead flowers, shredded paper, papier maché egg boxes. egg shells. banana skins etc. The mixing of lawn cuttings up with other garden waste allows the air, insects and worms to do their job in rotting the compost well ready for use.

General hedge trimmings and woodier stemmed plant waste can be mixed in, but don't forget to shred the contents first and ensure that they are well mixed to avoid large clumps of the same material.

There are a range of good natural plants that will help the compost to work harder and these include Comfrey, Nettle Leaves & Stems, Lovage which can all be added to your composter.

Do add an accelerant agent (such as Garotta) to help speed the rotting process if you want to. This can be added if required at intervals depending upon how much waste you create.

Don'ts

Don't put cooked or un-cooked meat, animal bones or dead animals in the compost. It does not rot down very well and may also attract vermin such as rats.

Do not put in the roots of vigorous perennial weeds such as docks, dandelion, convolvulus, ivy, nettle, horseradish etc as they will possibly re-grow.

Hard woody stems should not be put into the compost unless they are quite green and have been well shredded before hand.

Don't site the bin too far away from the kitchen or if you do, ensure that you have an easy clean hard surface path to it, so that access is easy all year round.

Do not leave grass cuttings in a blob on their own as they will just become a slimy smelly mass with little nutritional value later on.

Uses

Use the rich compost to help your garden plants thrive, grow well and improve the resistance to pests and disease.

When about to dig a vegetable plot lay compost into the first trench before filling with soil from the next row. Then do similar for each subsequent row's trench.

I have sometimes just spread compost across a border and lightly forked it in as I weed through an area between plants.

You can spread it as a mulch around shrubs.

Some people prefer to mix their own rotted compost with soil to make their own potting soil for seeds or other container grown plants.

My 92 year old father, who used to teach gardening swears by adding a bit of garotta regularly to his compost as it increases in size. It helps the green vegetable waste to rot down quicker for use on your veggie plot or flower borders over next winter.

The panel below offers a selection of composters and wormeries. There are a number of pages of similar goods to view and buy if you click on the pages link within the yellow box.

Wormeries

Buy one of the many proprietary systems and produce your own rich liquid plant feed along with highly concentrated fibrous compost.

Re-use all organic waste from your home and garden.

Chop up or shred any vegetation or domestic green vegetable waste into small pieces. Do not put in the roots of vigorous perennial weeds such as docks, dandelion, convolvulus, nettle, horseradish etc as they will possibly re-grow.

The liquid produced from your wormery must be well diluted with water. It makes a great feed for all types of plants from container grown shrubs and annuals to vegetable borders. Especially good in the greenhouse for tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, courgettes, peppers etc. We also use it in a very diluted solution when watering our house plants during their flowering and growing seasons. This helps them to thrive, flower well and be as disease free as possible.

To find more composting and recycling garden products have a look through the great items available from our associated suppliers that follow. By clicking on the button at the bottom of the box panel below that says "next" you will discover many more products that could help you to be a greener and more environmentally friendly gardener.

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