Posted on August 30th,
2010
by John Kirchner
If you’re starting to dabble in gardening, or even if you’ve been a tried-and-true green thumb for some time now, perhaps you’ve been intrigued but unsure about the whole idea of composting. After all, you can just buy fertilizer at the store, so why spend all the time and energy composting?
Well, there’s more to it than just making your own garden fertilizer. The EPA says:
Did You Know That Compost Can…
- Suppress plant diseases and pests.
- Reduce or eliminate the need for chemical fertilizers.
- Promote higher yields of agricultural crops.
- Facilitate reforestation, wetlands restoration, and habitat revitalization efforts by amending contaminated, compacted, and marginal soils.
- Cost-effectively remediate soils contaminated by hazardous waste.
- Remove solids, oil, grease, and heavy metals from stormwater runoff.
- Capture and destroy 99.6 percent of industrial volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) in contaminated air.
- Provide cost savings of at least 50 percent over conventional soil, water, and air pollution remediation technologies, where applicable.
It’s not just about your garden; composting can be just plain good for the environment. But for many people, having the great garden soil additive is the big draw. So, courtesy of our friend P. Allen Smith, here are some great starter tips on composting for yourself:
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