Tag Archives: home improvement

Garden Compost

Build A Compost – Learn How

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Building a compost is not very difficult. The main thing that you will need is a lot of patience. It does not happen over night but it is worth the wait.

There are tumblers the can be used to speed up the process. Even the best tumbler takes about 3 – 4 weeks.

Just pick out an unused part of the yard, maybe out of sight even. A compost pile does not produce any odor, if it is done right. It can be a bit unsightly though.

After your spot is picked out then it is time to start composting. Start with a nice layer of sticks or some kind of course material. This will supply good aeration from the bottom of the pile.

The next layer start with green matter. There is really no good reason to start with green matter you can just as easily start with brown matter but you are going to alternate to produce layers.

Green matter items from your kitchen, fruit peels, vegetables, coffee grounds and there filters, nut shells. Just about any kitchen waste will qualify.

Brown matter is the items that will come from outside. Leaves, sawdust, wood chips, paper items (simple black and white print only), and sticks laying around in the yard.

After these two layers add another aeration layer. hay, sticks, straw or anything else course you can think of.

After the materials have been added put a little dampness on the pile. Not to much though think of a damp sponge.

You might add a handful of dirt every once in a while as dirt contains microbes that will help kick the compost process into gear.

Then after you build a compost stack you will just need to be patient. You will have rich compost to spread over your plants in no time.

When the items begin to begin to break down compost will be formed. But it does take a little while so you should be patient. Your garden plants will love compost fertilizer, it’s worth the wait. Click here for Free information on how to build a compost. Visit the Uber Article Directory to get a totally unique version of this article for reprint.

Landscaping

Many Types Of Buds

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Observing tree buds in Winter can he adventure. Each is a miracle of nature. Each has been packed with care – next Spring’s flowers and leaves in miniature meticulously folded and sealed. Each contains just enough oxygen and moisture to keep alive until the miracle of Spring unfolds them.

A mature elm may hold as many as six million buds, yet only a percentage will open. If squirrels eat some, if others freeze or arc damaged, nature has supplied enough to give a tree full foliage. Winter buds are a tree’s diadem. Some are as colorful as precious jewels. They come in many forms and unusual shapes. The architectural pattern of nature is in spirals and ovals.

Look closely and Winter buds become works of art. Some contain only flowers; some hold leaves, still others contain both flowers and leaves.

The flowering dogwood by your door has fat silver-gray shoe-button-like buds at the ends of twigs. These are next Spring’s flowers. Now observe the gray, slender and sharp buds along the twigs, arranged in spiral form. These hold next Spring’s leaves.

Their colors are kaleidoscopic. Buds of a shadbush are rich brown red, fringed with silver hairs. Sweet gum buds are highly polished mahogany red, broad at the base and tapering sharply. Buds of red maples are crimson tridents, and note how all maple buds arc grouped in threes at the end of each twig, with the tallest one in the center.

A willow bud is half an inch long, tapering gradually to a rounded tip. Pussy willow buds are blue-black mottled with red at the top; swamp willows have an orange hue, black willow buds are glossy, wine red.

White oak buds end in blunt ovals and are clustered at the tip of a twig. The horse chestnut boasts a big end bud, too. Cut one open and inside will be arranged overlapping groups of leaves, folded like a pleated dress, curved and pressed together.

All buds are arranged according to the spiral pattern of a tree and sealed with water-proof wax, or covered with fur-like hair. Apple buds seem woolly. Aspen and horse chestnut buds are coated with sticky resin. Those of a Balm of Gilead seem to have just come dripping from a glue pot.

Next Spring this wax will melt and each little leaf and flower petal will come marching out of the bud in geometric design, like a West Point cadet on parade. It’s adventure to get acquainted with these miracles in-the-making in Winter time.