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Urban Gardening Gardening in the city: it helps the environment and beautifies your community. In the smallest corner of the largest city, there are opportunities for urban gardening. Don't let living in the concrete jungle stop you from getting in touch with nature and the natural environment. You don't have to have a green thumb to get started with container gardening, landscaping and urban gardening. Share your experiences with Urban Gardening, get tips and advice on how to get started!

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Old 06-20-2008, 04:23 PM   #1
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Practical Composting.

20 June 2008 Practical Composting. 20 June 2008 Practical Composting.

All garden waste is chopped into small pieces and placed in the composting bin.

A bin must be readily accessible, for placing waste into, and also for ease of removing, plus convenient for mixing. A block and a machete will suffice for chopping if the quantity doesn't warrant the expense of a chipper/shredder. The bin is rototilled for mixing purposes periodically. All vegetation is added until the Fall season, and left to brew until Spring, then put onto the garden beds. It takes a lot of vegetation to make any reasonable quantity of compost.

Most urban compost initiatives are about selling silly containers, rather than a practical aim. From my 0.4 acre of garden the compost quantity is about four cubic yards, for all practical purposes almost nothing.
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Old 07-11-2008, 07:44 AM   #2
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Durgan, what's the dog's name?
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Old 07-13-2008, 03:23 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by smgardener View Post
Durgan, what's the dog's name?
Neena. is the Pomeranian's name.
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Old 09-08-2008, 04:19 PM   #4
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I've just started composting at home. Over 2 months I've bought 2 bins (each 1cubic meter), the second one came after the first filled in about 5 weeks.

Only after 2 months with a lot of various materials added has it started to decompose nicely. It gets all of the household scraps (except for dairy and meat), newspaper, cardboard, egg cartons, lint from the washer and dryer, the cat's hairballs that are left all over the house, leaf litter, grass clippings, and a little soil and manure.

Turning the compost 3 times a week, getting plenty of air into the mix, and giving it adequate water has lead to proper "cooking". Another 6-8 weeks and a useful humus should be the result.

With a yard less than 50 sq.meters, the compost will spread nicely to enrich the soil, and help with water loss in the drought here.

I've had 2 issues-
1. Mosquitoes love the bins, each time I open the lid they attack me. Solution- cover the top of the organic mater with hessian cloth or an old piece of carpet.

2. Ants invaded both bins last week, there must have been millions of them. Solution- It was a result of the compost being too dry, and the warm, nutrient rich environment was perfect for them to start a colony. So a good watering of the compost drove them out and restarted the hot cooking of the compost.
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Old 11-21-2008, 04:38 PM   #5
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I've been putting a lot of eggshells in my compost... will this hurt anything?
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Old 11-24-2008, 03:12 PM   #6
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I think eggshells are fair game - they shouldn't hurt anything at all...
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Old 12-09-2008, 02:35 PM   #7
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I've been told to add coffee grounds to my compost. How much is too much? Is there such a thing as too much? I drink coffee every day and there are a lot of coffee grounds that I could be putting in there. But my compost pile isn't that big and I don't want to tip the happy balance.
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