The Complete Compost Gardening Guide
Banner Batches, Grow Heaps, Comforter Compost, and Other Amazing Techniques for Saving Time and Money, and Producing the Most Flavorful, Nutritious Vegetables Ever
Published on 13. February 2008
320 pages
978-1-60342-183-6 (ISBN)
Description
Develop mature compost right in your garden. Barbara Pleasant and Deborah Martin explain their six-way compost gardening system in this informative guide that will have you rethinking how you create and use your compost. With your plants and compost living together from the beginning, your garden will become a nourishing and organic environment that encourages growth and sustainability. You'll also find that the enriched soil requires less tending, weeding, and mulching, so you can do less back-breaking work for the same lush, beautiful results.
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Barbara Pleasant | Deborah L. Martin
The Complete Compost Gardening Guide
Banner Batches, Grow Heaps, Comforter Compost, and Other Amazing Techniques for Saving Time and Money, and Producing the Most Flavorful, Nutritious Vegetables Ever
Book
02/2008
Storey Publishing LLC
€24.00
Shipment within 3-4 weeks
Persons
A long-time compost enthusiast, Deb Martin enjoys trying new and different ways to transform organic materials into rich, soil-building goodness for the garden. From the busy binful of worms in her basement to the pallet-framed yard waste heap out back, she always has something rotten going on! A garden writer and editor for many years, Deb has contributed to numerous books and magazines, including Organic Life, Pennsylvania Gardener, and GROW: The Magazine of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and is co-author of The Complete Compost Gardening Guide.
Barbara Pleasant has written about organic gardening and self-sufficient living for more than 30 years. Her books include Starter Vegetable Gardens, The Complete Compost Gardening Guide, The Complete Houseplant Survival Manual, The Gardener's Bug Book, The Gardener's Weed Book, and The Gardener's Guide to Plant Diseases.
Content
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Part 1: Getting Started with Compost Gardening
- 1 Gardening in Garbage
- Seeing Is Believing
- Who Owns Compost?
- Why Compost?
- Can You Have Too Much?
- Secrets from the Rhizosphere
- Bold Bacteria
- Fantastic Fungi
- Health Food for Soil
- Composting Fast, Composting Slow
- Getting Intense
- 2 Tools for the Composter's Garden
- The Composter's Tool Shed
- Five Foundation Tools for Your Composter's Garden
- Tools for Transporting Materials
- Tools For Cutting and Chopping
- Maintaining and Monitoring Tools
- Evaluating Your Compost
- Knowing Your Needs
- 3 Materials for the Composter's Garden
- Getting to Know Compostable Materials
- Importing Solutions, Not Problems
- Balancing Browns and Greens
- Composting Your Way to a Better Garden
- Gathering the Goods: Start in the Kitchen
- Turning Garden Refuse into Garden Rewards
- Composting Ailing Plants and Weeds
- Leaves and Pine Straw
- Composting Grass Clippings
- Composting Manure
- Hay and Straw
- Paper and Cardboard to Compost
- Wood Chips and Sawdust
- Purchasing Compost
- Compost Activators
- Odds and Ends for the Composter's Garden
- What Not to Use
- Adventures in Composting
- Part 2: Compost Gardening Techniques
- 4 Banner Batches
- Making Compost in Piles, Heaps, Bins, and Pens
- Making Fast Banner Batches
- Working with Slow Banner Batches
- Resourceful Compost Enclosures
- Curing Finished Compost
- 5 Comforter Compost and Grow Heaps
- Working with Comforter Compost
- Managing Moisture
- Getting Started with Grow Heaps
- Grand Finales for Comforter Compost and Grow Heaps
- 6 Composting Underground in Craters, Trenches, and Holes
- The Compost Problem Solver
- Secrets of the Subsoil
- Working with Layered Craters
- Pretty Pits-of-Plenty
- Working with Treasure Troughs
- Hardworking Honey Holes
- Digging into Compost Gardening Methods
- 7 Catch-and-Release Vermicompost
- Vermicompost Basics
- The Who's Who of Garden Earthworms
- Getting Started in Catch-and-Release Vermicompost
- Fostering Worm-Colonized Compost Heaps
- Keeping Worms in Indoor Bins
- Caring for Captive Worms
- Harvesting Finished Vermicompost
- Sifting and Storing Vermicompost
- Best Uses for Vermicompost
- Staying Focused on the Big Picture
- 8 Making the Most of Your Compost
- The Whys and Hows of Compost Screening
- Getting Rid of Unwanted Seeds
- Is Compost Your Cup of Tea?
- Using Compost to Make Special Soils
- Making Special Soils
- Rejuvenating Designer Dirt
- Composting in Wild Company
- Do Animals Make Compost?
- Hosting Garden Allies
- Part 3: Plants for the Composter's Garden
- How Plants Interact with Compost
- The Legume Family
- The Tomato Family
- The Cucumber Family
- Compost Fodder Crops
- Appendix
- Glossary
- A
- B
- C
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- R
- S
- T
- V
- W
- Further Reading from Compost Gardeners
- Compost Gardening Resources
- Hardiness Zone Map
- Acknowledgments
- Index
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- Y
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