Compost Tips

Garden Tips from Jan McNeilan

This month we found Jan in her garden dealing with her compost. Most people think that composting is a difficult chore. Actually, all Jan did was pile her yard debris in a pile and left it. A year later she has returned to uncover the pile to expose some really rich mulch. She simply screens it and applies it as a top dressing to her garden.

Now if you are looking for more compost or to speed up the process you can take the time to turn your debris piles or add other nutrients to jump start the process, but the action of breaking down takes place with out a lot of help from humans. Adding any organic material will help your garden perform better. We also talked about soil temperatures. Right now, even with all this sun, the ground temperatures are pretty cold.

Jan had a thermometer in her soil to show us that the ground temps were still in the 40's. For most of your garden plants you will only get them to grow if the soil temps are much higher. You can check the back of your seed packets or the OSU extension (http://extension.oregonstate.edu/gardening/) website for more information on the correct planting times for your favorite veggies.

(Originally aired on GardenTime TV. See the GardenTime web site for more videos and information about the show)