Photo courtesy of Genna.Eve at Flickr.com.

One way to harness the power of composting without having to deal with compost piles is by spreading organic matter directly on your garden area as a mulch, and then allowing it to decay in place.

This process is called sheet composting, and is the method used when green manures are employed. On the downside, the process may cause short-term nitrogen loss; however, in the long term it results in higher levels of nitrogen, since less nitrogen is lost through the evaporation that typically occurs as a traditional compost pile heats up. Similarly, fewer nutrients are lost, and the application of fresh material offers a slower release of those nutrients.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 5:03 am and is filed under Gardening Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.