Container Gardening And Similar Gardening Methods

By Author: Chris Adama
Total Articles: 1124
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In my days of youthful indiscretions I thought I could improve life on Earth by civilizing high school youth through engendering in them an understanding of history. I confess I almost completely failed and gave up teaching after a few years. However, I personally learned a great deal about history and the telling of history. I read many old journals, diaries, and travel accounts. From some of these documents I gained little while other accounts introduced me to unique individuals who assisted me in understanding their era.

It seems that what differentiates good from bad reporting is how frank and honest the reporter is about their own personal opinions, prejudices, and outlooks. The more open and direct the reporter, the better the reader can discount inevitable distortions and get a picture of what might really have been there. The more the reporter attempts to be objective by hiding their viewpoints, the less valuable their information.

That is why before discussing those manufactured aids to composting that can make a consumer of you, I want to inform you that I am a frugal person who shuns unnecessary ...
... expenditure. I maintain what seems to me to be a perfect justification for my stinginess: I prefer relative unemployment.
Whenever I want to buy something it has become my habit first to ask myself if the desired object could possibly bring me as much pleasure as knowing that I don't have to get up and go to work the next morning. Usually I decide to save the money so I do not have to earn more. En extremis, I repeat the old Yankee marching chant like a mantra: Make do! Wear it out! When it is gone, do without! Bum, Bum! Bum bi Dum! Bum bi di Dum, Bum bi Dum!

So I do not own a shredder/grinder when patience will take its place. I do not buy or make composting containers when a country life style and not conforming to the neatness standards of others makes bins or tumblers unnecessary. However, I do grudgingly accept that others live differently. Let me warn you that my descriptions of composting aids and accessories are probably a little jaundiced. I am doing my best to be fair.

Visual appeal is the primary benefit of making compost in a container. To a tidy, northern European sense of order, any composting structure will be far neater than the raw beauty of a naked heap. Composting container designs may offer additional advantages but no single structure will do everything possible.

With an enclosure, it may be possible to heat up a pile smaller than 1' x 4' x 4' because the walls and sometimes the top of the container may be insulating. This is a great advantage to someone with a postage stamp backyard that treasures every square foot. Similarly, wrapping the heap retards moisture loss. Some structures shut out vermin.

On the other hand, structures can make it more difficult to make compost. Using a prefabricated bin can prevent a person from readily turning the heap and can almost force a person to also buy some sort of shredder/chipper to first reduce the size of the material. Also, viewed as a depreciating economic asset with a limited life span, many composting aids cost as much or more money as the value of all the material they can ever turn out. Financial cost relates to ecological cost, so spending money on short-lived plastic or easily rusted metal may negate any environmental benefit gained from recycling yard wastes.
The author Chris Adams is the manager of the container gardening and organic gardening resource website where you can a free copy of a 'container gardening secrets ebook' and other gardening supplies and resources at really low prices.