Best compost for garlic is the next guide for how to grow garlic.
Food and other organic waste can be composted for a variety of environmental benefits, including improved soil health, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient recycling, and drought mitigation.
Compost is an essential component of successful gardening, as we’re sure you already know.
Compost aids in the fine-tuning of specific nutrient and moisture balances required by specific plants.
It goes without saying, then, that we require a diverse range of composts….and there are many!
For more information on the advantages of various ready-made composts, see our buyer’s guide below.
SUMMARY
WHAT IS COMPOSTING AND HOW DOES IT WORK?
Composting is the natural process of turning organic matter like leaves and food scraps into a beneficial fertilizer that can benefit both soil and plants.
Composting simply accelerates the decomposition process by providing an optimal habitat for bacteria, fungi, and other decomposing organisms (such as worms, sowbugs, and nematodes) to work in.
Compost is the decomposed stuff that looks like fertile garden soil after it has decomposed. Compost, often known as “black gold” by farmers, is nutrient-rich and can be utilized in gardening, horticulture, and agriculture.
Organic waste can be processed in a variety of ways, including large-scale composting facilities, community composting systems, and anaerobic digesters.
This article focuses mostly on home composting, which is an excellent way to keep organic waste out of the landfill while also producing a beneficial soil amendment for your own use.
BEST COMPOST FOR GARLIC
Different bases are used for various forms of compost, also known as “black gold.”
The nutritional value and moisture-holding value of chicken dung, cow feces, fish poop, crab shells, and natural peat are all different.
Buying compost from a store is significantly faster and easier than preparing a variety of various types of compost yourself.
The key to finding the best bagged compost is to do your homework…
and The Bovees Compost Critics have done just that for you!!
1. Charlie’s Compost – Best Organic Compost To Buy
Charlie’s Compost, billed as a natural fertilizer and amendment, is created on the company’s farm in Calhoun, Kentucky, and is prepared from recycled chicken dung and locally sourced organic debris.
Charlie’s Compost is a proud member of the US Composting Council and is certified organic by the state of Kentucky. It’s formulated to boost your soil’s bioactivity and nutritional content.
Charlie’s Compost is all-natural, safe, and suitable for use in the production of organic fruits, plants, and vegetable gardens, according to this organic certification.
Because of the high concentration of this formula, you only need a tiny amount to fertilize even the most deficient soils.
Its main constituent, vegetarian and antibiotic-free chicken manure, boosts soil water holding capacity and beneficial biota.
Furthermore, chicken manure offers plants with far more critical nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium than other types of compost, such as cow, horse, or steer manure.
While using Charlie’s Compost in your garden, simply distribute it on the surface and work it in with a plow, rotary tiller, shovel, spading fork, or similar equipment when the soil is fresh or any age.
Because it not only treats soil deficiency, but also the microbes and organic matter essential for long-term soil health, Charlie’s Organic Compost is a far better alternative than synthetic fertilizer.
Pros:
- Made with chicken manure and organic debris collected locally
- The state of Kentucky has certified the product as organic.
- Organic fertilizer is a much better option than synthetic fertilizer.
- Antibiotic-free and vegetarian
Cons:
- If applied in excessive quantities, it has the potential to burn certain plants.
2. Michigan Peat 5240 Garden Magic Compost and Manure
Michigan Peat has long been a household name in the lawn care industry, with a diverse range of residential and commercial grower products.
Garden Magic Compost and Manure is another hit from the Michigan Peat Hangar, and is ideal for vegetable gardens, nursery planting, and top dressing lawns and planting beds.
It’s an odorless, all-natural peat blend derived from partially decaying plants and mosses in acidic, waterlogged bogs.
Reed-sedge peat is a type of peat that comes in a brown to reddish tint and is utilized in the Michigan Peat compost.
Cattails, grasses, reeds, and sedges are some of the plant materials used to make this peat. It has a 65 percent water holding capacity and over 90% organic matter content.
Pros:
- Wide range of applications
- All-natural mix
- No odors
- Moisture-rich and fibrous by nature
- Consistency was checked during the screening process.
Cons:
- Prices have a tendency to fluctuate a lot.
BENEFITS OF COMPOST
Composting has a number of advantages, one of which is that it reduces the waste stream.
Composting is a wonderful technique to recycle the organic waste that we produce at home. Food scraps and garden debris account for more than a quarter of what we discard.
Food waste is not only bad for the environment, but it’s also expensive to process. In 2019, the average cost of landfilling municipal solid waste in the US was roughly $55 per ton.
We spent billions of dollars on waste management in 2017, when the United States generated more than 267 million tons of municipal waste and sent two-thirds of it to landfills and incinerators.
Composting at home helps us to divert garbage from landfills and transform it into something useful for our gardens.
Landfill Methane Emissions are Reduced
When organic matter decomposes, it usually happens through aerobic decomposition, which means it’s broken down by microbes that need oxygen to function.
When biodegradable waste is dumped in a landfill, it is buried behind a mountain of rubbish, cutting off the decomposers’ oxygen source.
The trash is subsequently broken down by organisms that can survive without free-flowing oxygen in anaerobic decomposition. Biogas is produced as a by-product of anaerobic decomposition.
This biogas is roughly half methane and half carbon dioxide, both of which are significant greenhouse gases, with methane trapping heat in the atmosphere 28 to 36 times more effectively than CO2 over a century.
Although most modern landfills include methane capture systems, they do not capture all of the gas; landfills constitute the United States’ third-largest source of human-generated methane emissions.
Only around 6% of food waste is composted since our solid waste infrastructure was built around landfilling. States, towns, and individual businesses and vendors, on the other hand, can lead zero-waste initiatives to boost composting and recycling rates and prevent garbage from being generated in the first place.
There have been several composting success stories across the country, with San Francisco being one of the most noteworthy.
San Francisco started a large-scale composting program in 1996, and by 2000, it had diverted 50% of its waste from landfills.
Since 2012, San Francisco has diverted more than 80% of waste from landfills by boosting its goals over time.
This translates to a reduction in carbon emissions of almost 90,000 metric tons per year, which is similar to the yearly greenhouse gas emissions from 20,000 passenger vehicles.
Improves the health of the soil and reduces erosion
Compost is a critical component in the improvement of large-scale agricultural systems. Garden vegetables require three basic nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, which are all found in compost.
It also contains traces of calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc, among other vital elements. Composting provides an organic alternative to synthetic fertilizers, which include toxic chemicals.
Compost has been demonstrated in studies to improve soil water retention capacity, productivity, and resiliency.
Water is conserved.
Agriculture consumes a significant amount of water in the United States, accounting for over 80% of total water consumption.
Irrigation systems are successful, but they are costly and time-consuming to manage for farmers. Furthermore, access to water is becoming increasingly challenging across the country.
What role does compost play in this? According to research, adding organic matter to soil improves its water-holding capacity.
In fact, every 1% increase in soil organic matter increases the capacity of the soil to hold 20,000 gallons of water per acre. Farmers that utilize compost to promote healthy soil use less water and still produce larger yields than those who farm with deteriorated soil.
Personal Food Waste is Reduced
A shocking amount of food is thrown away by consumers. The average American family of four wastes around $150 worth of food each month, up 50% since the 1970s.
Fruits and vegetables were the type of edible food most wasted by households, according to NRDC research in three U.S. cities.
According to a 2016 analysis in The Guardian, American retailers and consumers throw away roughly 60 million tons of produce each year, totaling $160 billion.
Because the greatest way to reduce the negative effects of food waste is to prevent it from happening in the first place, NRDC uses its Save the Food campaign and other tools to educate people on how to shop for, cook, and store food in a waste-free manner.
Even if we do everything we can to reduce food waste, there will always be food scraps that cannot be eaten (e.g., a banana peel).
Composting is an excellent approach to recycle waste rather than throwing it away.
Composting at Home: Different Types
Composting can be done both inside and outside, and it can be as complex or as simple as you choose.
The best approach to compost at home is determined by a number of factors:
• Where you live/space availability
• The amount of organic waste you generate
• How much organic trash do you generate (kitchen and/or yard waste)?
• How much time you have to devote to the composting process
There are two types of backyard composting: cold (also known as passive composting) and hot (also known as active composting) (also called active composting).
Cold composting takes the longest to break down organic matter, but it also requires the least amount of effort and upkeep.
Anything organic eventually decomposes; cold composting is simply letting Mother Nature do her thing with minimum assistance from you. You don’t have to bother about the proportions of the compost ingredients, aeration, or moisture levels.
If you have little organic waste to compost and don’t have a lot of time to devote to the process, and you’re not in a rush for finished compost, cold composting is the ideal option.
However, depending on the type of cold technique you choose, getting usable compost can take anywhere from one to two years.
Furthermore, a cold composting process is unlikely to reach a high enough temperature during decomposition to kill pathogens, so depending on what you put in the pile, there may be some harmful pathogenic bacteria, fungi, protozoa, worms, and other parasites, as well as weed seeds, in your finished product.
Cold composting is primarily anaerobic, which means that microorganisms that thrive in an oxygen-depleted environment break down your waste. Cold piles may be smellier or wetter than hot piles, in addition to taking longer to decompose.
Hot composting is a speedier, yet more controlled, method of composting. To decompose organic waste, this approach necessitates careful monitoring of carbon and nitrogen ratios.
To attract species that thrive in an oxygen-rich environment, the appropriate balance of air and water is also required.
In ideal circumstances, the final compost product might be ready in four to twelve weeks. If properly managed, the pile’s high temperature will kill most weeds, plant diseases, insecticides, and herbicides, as well as any bug larvae or eggs.
