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Winston-Salem, NC 27105
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Community Gardening Tip for Garden Clean Up
Posted on 9/20/2011 by Mary Jac Brennan
September is the time to clean up the remains of your summer garden. Once you are finished harvesting from your garden, you can now harvest for your soil. Any leftover plant materials that are disease free can be composted and ‘recycled’ into nutrients for next year’s spring garden.
Gardeners have used compost for centuries. Composting is an efficient method of breaking down organic materials into an end product that is beneficial to soil and plants. Adding yard and garden wastes directly to the soil without first composting them has some undesirable effects. For example, if large quantities of uncomposted leaves are incorporated into the soil, the microbes that work to decompose the leaves will compete with plant roots for soil nitrogen. This competition can result in nitrogen deficiency and poor plant growth. Increased populations of the microbes can also deplete most of the organic matter in the soil, leaving the soil with less structure than before. When materials such as leaves and grass clippings are composted, however, a microbial process converts them to a more usable organic material. When mixed with soil, compost increases the organic matter content, improves the physical properties of the soil, and supplies essential nutrients, enhancing the soil’s ability to support plant growth. Compost can also be applied to the soil surface to conserve moisture, control weeds, reduce erosion, improve appearance, and keep the soil from gaining or losing heat too rapidly.
As you begin to do your fall garden chores, do your soil a favor and feed the compost bin with the remains of your summer garden. Not only are you recycling the way that nature does, but you are saving landfill space for our county! Following this tip will help you to be a sustainable community gardener.
