We all know that green’s offer bodybuilding proteins that are essential for microorganisms, eating their way through the organic materials. Materials that are nitrogen-rich are known as greens. They are known as greens because most of these materials are green in color. In today’s article we will be discussing some of the best foods that you could use in your compost to boost nitrogen, so let’s begin.
Kitchen scraps
You would find plenty of materials in your kitchen that is an excellent source of greens and you will be doing a major favor for the environment by adding them to your compost pile. You can also consider adding leftovers by instantly dumping them into your garbage. Let’s take a quick look at some of the food scraps that you can add;
- Cooked and raw vegetables
- Teabags and tea
- Green products- moldy or stale bread
- Shells from the shellfish
- Nutshells
- Fruit cores and rinds
- Fruit pits
- Eggshells
- Cut flowers
- Corncobs
- Sauces and condiments
- Used filters and coffee grounds
Shells from shellfish, nutshells, eggshells, and fruit pits take longer to decompose. This has always worked for me make sure to grind or crush them prior to adding these materials to the compost pile, it will definitely speed up the process.
Weed foliage
Weeds are definitely extremely annoying however if you have access to a healthy crop, it is an excellent nitrogen source. You can now return the nutrients to the garden, the place where they belong to, by composing all the weeds.
Vegetables, herbs, spent flowers, and trimmings of leafy plants
When the garden plants are done with producing for a particular season you can utilize them by chopping them into small pieces and add them to the compost. This will recycle all the nitrogen content. You can also utilize all the trimmings from the trees and shrubs.
Grass clippings
These clippings tend to get smelly and slimy if they are layered thickly or left in the pile. To avoid this, you must make sure that you mix them with all the brown materials and spread them out in order to dry out, you can leave them for a couple of hours prior to adding them to the heap.
Livestock manure
Turkey, sheep, llama, horse, goat, geese, duck, cow, and chicken manure is very safe to utilize with the compost. The manure holds nitrogen in lesser amounts. In addition to potassium and phosphorus these components are essential for your plants along with zinc, iron, and boron.
If you’re planning to use the manure directly in the garden, you must make sure that it is approximately 6 months old in order to be 100% safe. Manure that is fresh is smelly and also has nitrogen that is concentrated, this may pose as a risk as it could burn the roots of your plants and also cause harm to seedlings that are tender.
Always remember that juicy materials or materials from animals are high and rich in nitrogen in comparison to woody and dry materials that tend to have increased carbon instead of nitrogen. So, try and follow the few tips that I have mentioned in this article and add nitrogen-rich materials to your compost. A very easy way to go about it is allowing the grass clippings and fresh leaves to rest as they fall, allowing nitrogen to recycle back to the grass.
Well, that’s all for now and I do hope that this article has helped you. Thanks!