5 Reasons Composting for Your Garden is a Good Idea

To make your garden more sustainable you should start your own compost. Here are 5 reasons composting for your garden is a good idea.

Raising your own backyard vegetable garden is a fantastic way to be sure your family is eating healthy and it will save you money on your weekly grocery bill. Whether your growing vegetables in the ground in your back yard or in raised container beds, there is one thing that you could be doing to improve the quality of your backyard garden… composting for your garden!

1. Improved Growth for Plants

One of the best results that you’ll see with composting is improved growth for the plants in your garden. Composting materials help push apart your garden soil, which in turn helps it breathe better. This also allows water to drain more freely through the soil helping the plants to retain more moisture and nutrients.

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2. Less Waste

It only makes sense that if you’re composting food scraps and biodegradable materials, you’ll be creating less waste. By adding your eggs shells and fruit peelings to your compost bowl and ultimately to your garden, the less materials you’ll have to add to your trash bins.

3. It’s Easy

Don’t let composting for gardens scare you because it really can be super easy to do yourself. There are two main types of composting – Hot and Cold. Hot composting is a little more involved as you do need a space outside, either a compost tumbler like this one or you can even use a wooden box like this to hold your materials. You’ll also have to perform regular turning of your materials. Although this type of composting is more involved, it’s still fairly easy.

If you’re not ready for hot composting and the time involved, cold composting is even easier… so easy that you can start today! One easy way to start is adding a large bowl on your kitchen counter where you’ll put your organic materials such as egg shells, banana peels, coffee grounds, and more. Once your bowl is full, you can add these materials right onto your garden soil.

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4. Organic Materials

There are so many items that you can compost that are often just tossed into the trash. Organic materials like banana peels, corn cobs, and nut shells make great additions to your composting bowl or pile. In fact, by adding compost in soil in your garden, you’re helping insure more organic materials are being returned to the soil which will definitely help your harvest.

5. Saves Money

The more you compost, the less you throw in the trash! But not only will you be saving money because of less trash, you’ll be buying less additives for your garden soil as well. Composting is great for your garden soil because it adds many nutrients that help your plants grow.

Learning to be sustainable should be on every gardener’s list and by composting for your garden your one step closer. When your home is sustainable, your footprint on the Earth is smaller, and much more eco-friendly. Composting doesn’t have to be overwhelming and there are so many benefits to adding food wastes and other materials that you might normally throw away, to your composting pile.

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