"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands........" 1 Thessalonians 4:11

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Does reading your daily newspaper, with all of it's bad news,

shocking stories, 
 
and predictions of doom and gloom............


leave you feeling like this??
Do you feel like you just want to tear up the whole paper and not read it again until something good comes from it??

Well, you can do just that!!
That's right, after reading your daily horror story, simply shred or tear that paper up...............every page............into nice little shreds.

Take it all and mix it with  a wheel barrel full of leaves and weeds from the grounds.................

add a good amount of donations from your horse,

chickens or what ever other kind of barnyard friend you have................

work and look like this...........it's important to enjoy the process..............

and by the end of the season...........
you will look like this!!!
 
Now,  I hope I have cheered you up and taken you away from your daily dose of drama...........
here are some wonderful tips on composting and the benefits of working it into your garden grounds.
The first important ingredient for any good garden is good soil.
Building your soil from using organic matter for compost, instead of chemical methods, is a sure way of gaining garden success.
Chemical fertilizers quickly boost the soil activity but it is only a quick fix..........not to last.
Your plants will respond by having quick growth but as soon as they use up the fertilizer, their growth is over. So you have to keep buying expensive chemicals to add to the plant. In the long run, the chemical fertilizer reduces the soil's viability because it winds up killing the important microorganisms that live in the soil and make it healthy. When you feed the soil with organic matter, you are feeding the microorganisms as well.
Organic matter is stuff that once was alive.
Newspapers, cardboard, manure, straw, leaves, weeds from your grounds, potato peelings, vegetable peelings,  coffee grounds, and egg shells are all good ingredients for organic compost.
The 4 important ingredients for compost are:
Green material
Brown material
Air
Water
 
The best way to get compost to decay and to turn into a rich matter to add to your garden is by having a balance of
1 part green material
to
4 parts brown material.
A moist compost pile rots faster than a dry one. So sprinkle water onto  the pile........do not saturate.......
and then give the pile air by tossing or rotating it every week.
I often run my garden tiller over the pile............this adds dirt and really breaks up all of the various materials in the pile.
How about you?
Do you compost ?
Have you had wonderful results from doing so?
I would love to hear!
 
 


15 comments:

jennifer768 said...

Thanks for the great tips!I don't presently compost but have been wanting to give it a try.Hopefully this will be the year.Hugs,Jen

magnoliasntea said...

I hear you! That's why we don't take the paper or own a television. We are bad-news free unless we go looking for it on the internet. Usually we check the weather only.
Those are great gardening tips! We do compost, but not as much as we should. I plan to work on that more this year.
Have a great week!

lil red hen said...

We don't take a paper, but are saturated with news networks! Ugh!

We have an excellent source of organic matter but don't take advantage of it like we should. Our garden really needs it too! I do have a place where I put my kitchen scraps but have never had much luck with it.

Conni said...

Thanks for the information on composting! It's something I've never done before - but hope to try this year.

Bev C said...

Hello Kathleen,

I compost everything that was once living. I picked up a book from the library yesterday which was re-printed from war time in England called "How to gor food a wartime guide." by Doreen Wallace, it is a interesting read,things have certainly changed in gardening over the years.

Happy days.
Bev.xoxo

Nancy J said...

I get the news via TV, or online, and yes, we compost. BUT, somewhere along the line, I have missed a vital part of the whole process, as I, and my garden, do not resemble in any way the elegant lady with flowers galore. Love your post, super reading, it cheered me up so much. Greetings from Jean

Vickie said...

Hi Kathleen! Yes ma'am! We are gen-u-ine composters here at Sand Flat Farm! For about 3 years now! We don't take the paper, but I'm sure it would indeed wind up in the compost! Our pile has gotten bigger every year, and we've got some great stuff to add to part of the garden. It'd be nice to have enough for the whole garden - who knows? Maybe next year?

Michaele said...

Great post! I love your forward thinking attitude.

Elaine/Muddling Through said...

Very good post, Kathleen. I usually just let my chickens do the composting for me. I put all the ingredients you mentioned into their yard and let the have at it. Occasionally I go in with a garden fork and turn it over. (They think I am the best chicken ever.) I have very good neighbors who give me the leaves they have raked from their yards each year.

Lady Jane said...

New follower and love the name of your blog and enjoyed this post. I compost. We get the weekly paper and that is what gets ground up into compost. My roses love it!!! I use grass, leaves, coffee grounds, all my vegie and fruit leavings. I use a compost container but it doesnt give me enough so this year I will start one out back of the shed and will use the roto tiller to help things along. Love the horses laugh...

The Farmers Daughter said...

You made me Laugh Out Loud! Love this post! Thanks for the tips on composting, too. Just in time. I've been working on a little area for a summer garden. So, thanks for sharing!
Hugs from the Farmhouse,
Dru

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

We have done composting when we had a large veggie garden, but the past year, it has been greatly downsized, so now we are not doing it so much.

Connie said...

Cute and informative post, Kathleen! I do get tired of reading all the bad news that is in the newspapers. Love the picture with all the flowers. :)

Terry and Linda said...

You are working the ground already...lucky you!

Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com

A Colorful World said...

Awesome post! That newspaper is already manure, anyway! :-) I have composted everywhere we have lived, even when I didn't have a garden. It's like a compulsion. I can't put veggie waste and eggshells in the garbage disposal or trash can...I just CAN'T! :-)