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Tips For Composting On A Balcony

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Many people are starting to move away from using artificial fertilizers to fuel their garden. They’ve realized that they can fertilize their gardens much more cheaply by making their own compost. Homemade compost also has far more nutrients than the fertilizers normally sold at home improvement stores.

At the same time, many people have faced some challenges when making compost on their own. They have found that it is often spoiled by bugs and other vermin. Heavy rains can also ruin the quality of your compost. Fortunately, there are ways to eliminate these risks while composting: consider creating compost on one of your balconies.

Why Compost on a Balcony?

Many gardeners have started to use their balconies as a place to create compost. Many of these people live in urban areas and don’t have access to a garden to make compost in. You need to be more resourceful when you are trying to garden in the city and your balcony can be one of the best places to do it.

There are a couple of other benefits to using your balcony for composting. For example, you won’t need to worry about animals and other vermin getting into your compost pile.

What Do You Need?

You don’t need a lot of fancy equipment to start composting. You can get started with the following:

  • You will need something to hold onto the waste you intend to compost with. A medium-sized garbage can will do. You will be keeping it on your balcony so a stationary bin will serve best.
  • You will need a large bin for your kitchen that you will throw your waste in before moving it to your compost bin. You will need to make sure there are some holes to keep your compost pile from retaining water and provide proper ventilation.
  • You will need some soil, but it doesn’t have to be the same quality that you normally use for plants.
  • You need worms to facilitate the composting process. You would have plenty of worms available if you were storing your compost in a garden. However, you won’t have that option when you are doing your composting on a balcony. You will need to buy a handful of worms to add to the bin. Red worms tend to work best.

What Do You Put in Your Compost?

You will be collecting organic waste and storing it in your compost bin. There are a number of different things that you can use to generate your compost, but it can include:

  • Leaves
  • Egg shells
  • Coffee grounds
  • Vegetables and fruits you didn’t eat
  • Shredded newspapers
  • Grass clippings
  • Animal waste

There are many different composting strategies you can try. Some people create specific mixtures to ensure their compost gets all the necessary nutrients. In general, you will probably want to alternate between layers of plant material and soil to ensure your compost ferments evenly. You can try a number of different strategies, but the important thing is to get started.

You will need to be a little more careful when you are composting from a balcony. Compost can give off some unpleasant odors or risk drawing bugs to your home if you don’t do it properly. You may want to reduce the odors and risk of drawing critters to your house by mixing similar levels of kitchen waste with leaves and grass clippings.

Start Your Composting Today

Your balcony can be a great place to create your own compost pile when you don’t have a garden available. You may have to wait a few weeks or even a couple of months before your compost is ready to use. However, you should have some high quality fertilizer to add to your plants after it has finished.

About the Author: Kalen is a consumer advice columnist who writes about green living for http://www.stockpkg.com/.






Things To Consider Before Setting Up Your Home Garden

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Having home grown vegetables is a nice perk. Not only are they delicious, and you are able to know exactly how they were grown, growing your own vegetables can help you live healthier and help keep your pocketbook a little fuller.

The idea of having a garden is commendable, but there are some things to consider before you get started on your home vegetable garden. By thinking these things through ahead of time, you will be able to build, plant and grown a garden that fits perfectly in your lifestyle.

1. Location
The first thing to consider is do you have a location for a garden? Do you have an area that the sun hits for at least six to eight hours a day? How much space is this area? It all matters, especially when you figure out what fruits and vegetables you want to grow.

2. Harvest
Once you decide on the location of your home garden, now is the time to figure out what you will grow. If you are limited in space, potatoes, tomatoes and other large plants may not be your best bet, but smaller crops of peppers and strawberries may workout just perfectly. Would you rather have a dense supply of one to two plants or a small wide variety of plants with just one or two of each? You will also need to consider how you will plant your garden. If you have large plants in front of small plants, they may cast shadow and diminish the much needed sunlight for the smaller plants. There are also some plants that grow well near each other and vice versa – all things you should consider before planting.

3. Preparation
Before planting, it is a good idea to prep the soil and plan an irrigating system. Will you grow your fruits and vegetables organically? The richness of the soil will also help your plants. If you do not live in an area with good soil, you may have to purchase some. Either way, remember fruits and vegetables are best grown with a nutrient-rich soil and need plenty of water. Speaking of water – will you run a base line irrigation hose throughout your plants or simply run sprinklers? When planning your irrigation method, make sure you plan a way for the water to run off as well – plants do not do well if they are not drained properly.

4. Boarders
Adding a fence around your garden is a good idea to keep away critters who may want to harvest your garden before you are ready. By taking this extra precaution, you will be saving your hard work by keeping rabbits, raccoons and other animals out.

Now that you know what items you should consider before setting up your home garden, you can begin tackling these tasks and get your home prepped for a prosperous harvest come this summer. Happy growing!

Kathryn Thompson, health advocate and assistant to Susan Wright DVM who is the staff expert for Dog training Collars , devotes part of her time providing encouraging advice regarding life changes and healthy living that make a difference.

4 Grass Cutting Tips

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You can almost see the grass grow

Mowing the lawn can seem like a bit of a mystery the first time you attempt it. You’ve seen the neat pale and dark green lines that appear whenever someone mows a lawn on the telly, but whenever you attempt it in your own back garden you seem to get a weird, splotchy green mess.

Mowing the lawn is one of those skills that nobody ever really gets taught. They’re just expected to know how to do it instinctively. However, there are a few common sense tips you can use to make sure that your lawn comes out looking healthy, neat and tidy.

Overlapping

When you start mowing the lawn you should do so in a sort of zigzag pattern, going from one end of the lawn to the other, turning around and coming back alongside where you’ve just been. A lot of first time mowers assume this means that the mower should be travelling next to the freshly mown grass, but don’t cross onto it.

Instead you want to make sure that the lawnmower slightly overlaps the area you’ve just mown. To make this easier and more precise, make a mark on your lawnmower to show how far you want the overlap to go. This will be your “overlap marker”.

This is particularly important if your lawnmower isn’t a hover mower but one with wheels. If you take a second to think about it you’ll realise that running wheels up and down exactly the same path is going to wear tracks into the soil, which isn’t going to look good for the lawn as a whole.

Obstacles

For the easiest mowing results you want a completely flat, level and rectangular lawn with grass that is entirely uniform in length, but of course, lawns like that seldom exist outside of the gardener’s imagination.

There are a number of obstacles you’ll probably face while mowing the lawn. If you find that some of the grass is damp or longer than the rest you can get round it simply by slowing down a little. Just push the mower through the grass at a slightly slower speed and it shouldn’t present any problems.

A slightly trickier area is the bumps and high spots in the lawn. When you approach these it’s worth stopping to raise the height of your blades, otherwise you could end up with a slightly too close shave that leaves bald patches on your lawn, or worse, you could accidentally stop the blade. The same is true when you’re approaching slopes or shady areas.

Maintenance

Of course, it doesn’t matter one jot about your mowing technique if your tools are in poor condition. There are a number of maintenance steps you should take on a regular basis to ensure good mower performance.

If you have a cylinder mower and you find that the blade stutters regularly, or the lawn is coming out in a “ribbed” or “rippled” effect, it could be that the blades are blunt or the mower is under-powered   The same is true if the lawn starts to take on a frayed look, or a sort of silvery sheen.

Getting just the right look

Now you’ve got the basics sorted, you need to focus on getting the look of your lawn just the way you want it. There are a number of tricks to this. Firstly, if you’re using a cylinder mower, change the direction that you’re mowing at least once a month. This stops the grass being constantly pushed down in one direction.

If you want the famed “striped” look on a large lawn or one without a straight edge, the best place to start isn’t on one side of the lawn but straight down the middle. From there you can mow outwards on either side of the central strip.

Naturally it’s important that you have the right tools for the job, whether you buy lawnmowers online or from a store direct it’s worth spending time to make sure you have the right machine

Finally, when you get to the edges of the lawn, don’t worry about getting all the grass. A quick final cut once or twice around the edge of the lawn will give it a professional looking frame.

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Mark Bartram is Managing Director of Lawnmowers Direct, so he knows a thing or two about lawn maintenance.

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