Good Compost, Good Soil

Good soil is on the forefront of every gardener’s mind. And I often get questions about fertilisers, PH-value, tilling, manure, digging depth and mulching.

But all you need in an Easy Urban Garden is your home-made “magical” growing medium and good compost.

Let me discuss all those elements with you.

Growing vegetables in an Easy Urban Garden means you leave the soil for what it is, as we garden in raised bed. And whether that is a bed directly placed on the ground, on low legs or on high legs, does not make a difference. An Easy Urban Garden is a no-dig garden.

So no more worries about your soil quality and no more digging, tilling or mulching needed.

But you do need something in your garden to grow veggies of course. Just a box is not enough. This is were the home-made growing medium comes in. This is the secret to successful, efficient, productive and easy gardening. But you have to get your hands dirty as you need to mix it yourself.

What do you need for this amazing soil mixture?

You need 1/3 sustainable peat moss or organic peat replacement, 1/3 coarse vermiculite (3–6 mm) and 1/3 good organic compost. A few quick words about peat replacement and vermiculite. Good peat replacement is coconut coir, but locally available peat replacement mixtures made out of coconut fibres and wood fibres are also good. Vermiculite is a natural nontoxic earth mineral widely available as byproduct of mica mining. By heat treatment this mineral pops up, almost like popcorn, and can hold a tremendous amount of water while still breathing. Vermiculite comes in different sizes, always look for coarse vermiculite to make your soil mixture.

Finally you need good compost and although good compost is easy to make it is surprisingly hard to buy. Proper compost requires the right mixture of (plant) material.

How to make good compost yourself.

To properly compost you need space, at least 90x90x90cm (3x3x3 feet), but ideally 120x120x120cm (4x4x4 feet). You need to mix, mash, moisten and move.

~ Mix: add as many different plant-based material as possible. important is that you dry the material when added in bulk like grass or leaves

~ Mash: chop your materials into fine pieces. Cut branches, chop trimmings and mow those leaves.

~ Moist: add water until not dry, not wet — just moist

~ Move: keep turning the pile towards the centre where all the action takes place. Do this at least every week. The more often you move things around the quicker the process.

Your compost is ready when all the material is turned into a dark fine crumble product, often also cold black gold.

What are good (plant) materials for a compost heap?

Straw, (salt) hay, leaves, grass clippings (dried), vegetable and fruit peels, shredded newspaper or cart board egg boxes, crushed eggshells, organic tea bags, garden produce (not effected by disease or pests) and stable or poultry manure. Every item should be less than 20% of the total compost volume.

In smaller amounts you can add shredded twigs, shredded bark, pine needles, hedge trimmings, wood shavings, sawdust, coffee grounds and peanut shells. Every item should be less than 10% of the total compost volume.

Do not add diseased or pest-laden materials, meat or bones, grease, whole eggs, cheese, seeds and fruit pits, cat or dog manure, bakery products, dairy products, kitchen scraps

But what if you live in town, have a terrace and can’t compost yourself in bulk like me. Well you could take a worm tower for the fun of recycling your kitchen scraps yourself and make your life a bit more circular. Just like I do. When it comes to compost for the garden, you will have to buy it though. And as said that can be harder than you might expect. Not every compost qualifies as good compost, not even the organic ones.

What should you look out for when buying compost.

First you should buy organic compost as you don’t want any hidden toxins, pesticides or other unknown stuff ending up in your garden, your vegetables and you.

Second, you should look out for compost made out of as many different material as possible. Read the label and look for the ‘ingredients’. When there isn’t listed anything, you can safely assume there aren’t many. The diversity of the ingredients is kind of a quality label for compost, so you can count on a producer of good compost wanting to label all the ingredients in there. Look for compost made out of woody material, trimmings, grass, leaves PLUS fruit and vegetable scraps. Especially those kitchen scraps are not often in commercially available compost.

What if you can’t find a compost listing all the above mentioned materials? Buy 1 bag of 3–4 different producers or brands and mix it yourself. That’s an easy way of making a compost as varied as possible for you and maybe even mix in your own worm tower compost (mainly made out of kitchen scraps).

So Easy Urban Gardening takes away all the soil questions and worries once you made your own mixture. And even better, this mix stays in your garden for years to come. Mine is in my garden for over 8 years now and the only thing I do is add a trowel of fresh compost after I harvested a square empty. And I absolutely have no intention to replace it for at least another 6 years.

If you like my bi-weekly article on gardening, you might want to check out my weekly live gardening show “Spilling the GREEN Beans” on YouTube too.