What's the Big Deal about Compost?

What's the Big Deal about Compost?

From "Ask a Pro", Comox Valley Echo, 3 April 2012

Question: What’s the big deal with compost and why is everyone raving about composting?

Answer: It helps your garden, municipality, planet and chequebook.

  • Compost is the ideal soil amendment. It returns essential nutrients to the soil. There are more life forms in a handful of good soil than humans on the planet. Those soil microbes need nutrients as they feed your plants. With compost, you don’t need to buy fertilizers or, horror, pesticides since it creates a natural balance of bugs.
  • Compost reduces watering needs by increasing the moisture holding ability of sandy soil and also improving drainage in soil with too much clay.
  • Depending whose reports you read, 25 to 50% of municipal waste filling up landfills is organic biomass (about 34% in the Valley). Surprisingly, that stuff does not compost in a landfill. What a waste of a precious resource!
Compost is magical. Backyard composting is arguable the single most effective activity individuals can do to help the environment. So composters, rave on!
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