How to Build, Maintain, and Use a Compost System Secrets and Techniques You Need to Know to Grow the Best Vegetables - Softcover

Smith, Kelly

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1620230135 ISBN 13: 9781620230138

Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc., 2015

Synopsis

Some of the best fertilizer on the planet can be made with your very own garbage. Starting with something as simple as coffee grounds, old banana peels, bread crusts, and leftover meals, you can start creating a garden with your food waste using the age old secret of composting to build a healthy, happy garden.

This book provides a detailed outline of how anyone with a little extra space and a garden can start composting today. Topics include:

• All of the different ways that composting can be helpful, as well as the different reasons why people choose to compost
• Benefits to both you and your vegetables once you begin composting
• How decomposition works and what the ideal conditions are
• Which compostable materials are around you right now, from the coffee grounds in your coffee maker to the old fruit in your crisper

The different kinds of activators and how they get the process started as well as the different composting materials used by home gardeners and professional composters alike, dozens of which have been interviewed for this book. You will be walked through the process of recognizing and using the end product as effectively as possible. For anyone who has ever considered composting as a viable means by which to feed their gardens, this book is for you.

About this title

About the Author

Kelly Smith is an author, quilter, and container gardener. Her previous works include the book Open Your Heart with Quilting (Dreamtime, 2008), the magazine article Lets Play in Quilters Home magazine (Nov./Dec. 2008), and several quilt patterns for QuiltingWeekly. She is also the National Quilting Examiner for Examiner and writes about news and events of interest to quilters. In addition to non-fiction writing, Kelly writes short stories and novels, and maintains a blog at redheadedquilter.com. You can follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/quiltinredhead.

Review

I just finished reading How to Build, Maintain And Use A Compost System - By Kelly Smith. While I am not new to the concept of composting, having grown up in a family of farmers who actively composted, I found this book to be a thoroughly enjoyable read. This book will not only get you started in composting, but keep you going, and I highly recommend keeping it around as a reference guide. Though targeted at beginners, the book has something to offer everyone whether rank amateur or advanced expert. It goes through the whys, wherefores, and how to s of the most common, to the most advanced composting systems. Well researched and laid out, it progresses from the definition of composting, through the introduction of the individual composting systems and how to construct them, followed by more advanced sections on the inner workings of the individual systems and how to resolve problems that may sometimes crop up with them. The book is filled with helpful links and additional research material so that people may not only expand their knowledge, but connect with the wider community of composters from ecological warriors to those just looking to save money by composting for the enhancement of their own green spaces, or for the more ambitious make a profit by selling the fruits of their labour. I think my favourite part of the book though, are the case studies at the end of the chapters, most of which come from amateur composters. Composting gets a bad rap, from unsightly looks, to nasty smells, to being just too hard for the average individual to handle. These case studies show that composting can be done at any skill level, that it can be fun, and that problems can be resolved. It s all just a matter of perspective. Dirt is the foundation. It nourishes us all. If you take care to put the right things into it, then it will take care of you, that is what my boss, an organic farmer says about the soil he manages. Reading this book will not only help you to grow better vegetables, but provide you with the tools for enriching the soil, which will benefit us all. --Marie Johnson

Edition details

• Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1620230135
• ISBN 13: 9781620230138
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 288