The secret to a beautiful organic garden is tea, meaning compost tea.
Making great organic fertilizer is not beyond your kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. To make this great fertilizer you will need: a pair of old pantyhose, a bucket of kitty litter, and some compost.
How is it done, you ask? This tea is made just like any other tea and that’s where pantyhose comes in. Collect kitchen scraps and other yard trimmings, place them in a container and let the heat and water break down the material into a highly nutritious form.
How do you compost kitchen scraps for a great organic garden? Using a bucket for kitchen scraps. First, let me warn you that you don’t want to use leftover meat or fat. And this system works more frugally if you have a cat. But do not worry. Cats and kitty litter go hand in hand, but you don’t have to have a cat to use the bucket.
I have two 14 year old gray tabby cats at home. I like to use kitty litter that comes in a bucket with a secure lid. Tidy Cat makes a nice one. You can do whatever you want with cat litter: you can use it yourself in your own kitty litter box, put it in a zip lock bag and store it in the trunk of your car for a frosty day, or you can give it as a gift to a friend who has a kitten. Any of them will do. You just want the bucket.
Rinse your new scrap bin very well with soap and water and dry it. Now you are ready to start. Whenever you have leftovers that aren’t meat or fat, throw them in the bucket. They can be bread ends, vegetable skins, egg shells, or leftover pasta.
And, because the bucket you’ve selected has a secure lid, you shouldn’t smell any odor coming from it.
Now, there are many companies that will be happy to sell you a very expensive and very cute kitchen compost bin. I did not buy it. The cat litter bucket works much better and is larger so it will hold more. And you get a double TFG (The Frugal Gardener) – cat litter can be used by your favorite feline and you get a durable bucket.
Collect the messages for the notepad for as long as you want. I usually don’t empty my bucket for a few weeks. Watch out for your back – these buckets can get heavy over time. The next step on your path to organic gardening is a compost pile.
These batteries come in all shapes and sizes and yes, you can also buy some very expensive containers. One of the best piles I’ve ever had was in that first garden in New Jersey when all I did was take my leftovers and dump them in the dirt. I flipped it over every time I had a new load of kitchen scraps and grew a huge organic garden in that space.
It is true, you need to have space for this type of composting. This will not work if you live in an apartment. But I have a solution for that.
What is? Move! No, she was just kidding.
You can buy commercially prepared compost (not the most frugal thing, I’ll admit) or you can ask one of your fellow gardeners if they have a pile you can contribute to in exchange for some finished “gold”. If you have your own pile, you can choose to enclose it with any number of things: chicken wire, hay bales, or you can build a wooden container.
A cup of compost allows me to rotate without digging through the pile. It also allows heat to build up in the container, which is a critical element in breaking down kitchen scraps and yard waste into a beautiful black soil-like consistency.
These glasses are available at places like Gardener’s Supply Company. It’s okay. We have collected waste for compost, taken it in our bucket to the pile, and now we have fresh compost (it takes about two weeks in the sun for it to appear). This is where pantyhose come in.
Tie off the leg last, especially if there is a hole or run. You want to have as solid a pantyhose leg as possible.
Put a good amount of fabric on one leg of the old pantyhose making sure you have knotted it at the bottom end so it doesn’t fall to the floor. Don’t laugh, I did it once. I don’t know what I was thinking, I may have even been talking to a gardener friend at the time, but I was happily loading compost into the leg of my pantyhose and found that it had settled back into the ground.
Fortunately, it was in an area of the garden that needed some anyway. Once you have a full leg, close the top end, grab your bucket from the kitchen, rinse it out, and fill it with water.
Place the leg of the pantyhose in the water and let it sit. For the best effect, do it in full sun. Let the compost bin sit for two to three days. In the end, you will have some water that looks like strong tea. And you’ll be ready for an organic garden.
Tea not only provides nutrients to plants, but also makes them strong enough to resist many pests and diseases. Pour your compost tea into a watering can and water all your plants and vegetables with it.
You are now growing organically! Compost is also good for organic gardens in non-tea form as an additive to your garden soil. Anytime I’m planting a new container or creating a new raised bed, I make sure to mix a few together for great nutrients and vitamins.