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Gardening with Ruud: Making the perfect compost

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Thu, 12 Mar 2020, 9:43PM
Photo / Getty Images

Gardening with Ruud: Making the perfect compost

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Thu, 12 Mar 2020, 9:43PM

Compost is ideally made from a certain mixture of C and N - Carbon and Nitrogen

The C:N ratio should be around 30:1 for the compost to be optimal in terms of rapid breakdown.

Too much C (twigs, branches, wood chips, dead leaves, paper napkins, bark bits, sawdust, etc) and the compost heap won’t decay.

Too much N (Grass clippings, food waste, vegies, fruit, coffee, weeds, Manures, etc) and the heap will go slimy and smelly & release ammonia.

Hydrogen sulphide is produced by anaerobic bacteria (absence of oxygen)

Freshly-made compost gets hot and for really good heat you need a large pile (not a small backyard bin)

It should smell kind-of sweet and have heaps of bugs in it too

LISTEN ABOVE AS RUUD KLEINPASTE SPEAKS TO JACK TAME

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