Fun, new ideas for composting

The Complete Compost Gardening GuideBy Barbara Pleasant& Deborah L. MartinStorey Publishing 319 pp $29.95

Good, rich compost is worth its weight in gold to experienced gardeners. Its value lies in improving soil structure and invigorating its complex of nutrients and micro-organisms. It supports gardens that produce bountiful harvests, while at the same time recycles left-over organic material instead of sending it unused to landfills. The Complete Compost Gardening Guide is a treasure map to discovering that this often overlooked resource is within your reach.

Pleasant and Martin don't just cover the basics with information on setting up compost bins and establishing a good C/N, or carbon-to-nitrogen, ratio; they have created fun, new ideas for integrating composting into the gardening process, like using "Banner Batches', "Honey Holes' and "Layered Craters'.

With a sense of humor, sound facts, and a conversational style, topics from vermiculture to selecting plants as ”Perfect Matches“ for various composting methods are presented. There are wide-ranging discussions about not only composting, but many aspects of gardening. Almost every page contains a helpful idea, be it tool selection, worm reproduction, relative values of odd raw materials for compost, or seed-saving.

You'll also want to visit Pleasant's Web site, BarbaraPleasant.com, to see what's been happening lately in her garden. Enlightening and reader-friendly, this is one of the best gardening how-to selections I've seen recently. If you're one of the many folks returning to growing your own vegetables in your home garden, you'll find expert advice and encouragement here.

This story was originally published April 12, 2008 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Fun, new ideas for composting."