How to Turn Waste into Gold. Practical Manual for Home Composting of Kitchen and Garden Waste

This book is a comprehensive manual for recycling household and garden waste. It illustrates all the techniques for obtaining an excellent fertilizer and soil conditioner for free.

A family of 3-4 people with an ordinary sized vegetable garden can produce 5 quintals of organic waste every year from which 2 quintals of compost can be easily obtained, equal to ten 50 liter bags of garden soil. This reduces the costs for the purchase of fertilizers to practically zero. Furthermore, many local administrations offer discounts and concessions to those who produce their own compost. This book is a comprehensive manual for recycling household and garden waste. The book illustrates all the techniques to obtain free an excellent fertilizer and soil amendment. The text is enriched by cards, tables and images that guide the reader in the production of compost both in the garden and on the balcony of the house, even with a self-built composter.

For millions of years, on Earth, an enormous mass of organic substance has been "dying". In our gardens, as in the parks and forests of the planet, all species of plants and insects, as well as higher animals, renew their presence according to the cycles of nature. If we consider the number of leaves on a tree or the amount of grass on the expanse of a lawn, we can imagine the mass of organic material that ends up on the ground where it decomposes more or less quickly.

Yet, this enormous level of decaying matter causes no pollution. It is enough to enter a wood in winter and stir up the mantle of dead leaves under the trees: no smell of putrefaction will arise, if anything, an even pleasant smell for nature lovers.

Digging under the leaves, after a few centimeters you come across a dark colored soil, rich in humus. It is the well-known forest land, highly sought after for many crops. Forest earth is a precious product of nature's work.

If, on the other hand, we think of our kitchen waste, which we put in the bin, we immediately notice the difference: in fact, after a while they putrefy and give off a disgusting smell.

The difference between the work done by nature in the forest and that done by us in the dustbin lies in the fact that the forest is a living organism: the waste that falls on the ground finds billions of fungi, bacteria, nematodes, worms and insects ready to work to transform waste into humus. All these agents of nature, with the supply of oxygen, cause a positive transformation.

Home composting, the subject of this book, illustrates the techniques necessary to ensure that even the waste from our kitchen and our garden is removed from putrefaction and transformed into humus.

Dettagli