How to Compost for a Perennial Garden

Video Transcript

"Now, previously we talked about compost. Compost is one of those terms where you can buy some of these very large plastic tumblers where people put all their scraps in it and tumble them once a week. You can actually have very elaborate ways of making compost. Here being in western Mass, I have the area where we simply just have 2 bins. I have a bin where I put all of the vegetable scraps. Anything from apple peels to squash. No meats, no dairy products. I put it in here and then I actually put as you can see, some weed clippings. They sell different products in the store as far as how to make it. To be honest with you, all you need is dirt. When I weed the gardens, I'll take this and throw it right on top of my compost scraps at the bottom. As you can see, it's got a little bit of everything. This works. It usually takes about a year to a year and half to make a good compost. Over here, this product has actually been used. This is about 2 years old. It doesn't look like much, but it's nice and black, and as you can see it's very rich. Sometimes there's a few things in here that don't decompose all the time. I found corn husks in here sometimes. As a whole, this works itself to be one of the better things you can put in your garden. If you're not able to make your own compost, they actually sell it in stores. It's basically called compost. It's the same type of thing. It's nice and loose, it's dark. Sometimes you can get them at different agriculture schools. They spend lots of time making it. We have a local school that actually makes this from cow manure scraps and they sell it. It's a good way for the students to learn and it's a good thing for us to use. This is where my compost came from that I have in another large pile. Between the 2, my own compost, and the compost that I actually get, I think it's a good foundation for gardening. Every year I put them in my gardens and they seem to work just well."