Soil Amendments From Rubbish Removal – Free, Non-toxic, and Effective!

Soil Amendments From Rubbish Removal – Free, Non-toxic, and Effective!

If you have a garden, don’t spend your hard earned money on soil amendments! Instead, use your own rubbish removal to amend your soil as needed and turn the rest of your kitchen waste removal into compost!

You can buy DIY soil testing kits that will help you test the pH of your soil. A pH of 7.0 is neutral. Soils with a pH higher than 7.0 are alkaline and soils with a pH lower than 7.0 are acidic. You can also have your soil professionally tested to obtain a much more detailed analysis, including a complete nutrient profile and any signs of contamination. This will help you know what rubbish removal to use to amend your soil. The Forestry Commission offers soil tests at very modest fees. The European Union ranked the results from these labs the best in Europe.

Different plants prefer different pH. For example, rhododendrons, camellias, bilberries, and blueberries will only thrive in highly acidic soils (pH of 4-6). Tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsley, and zucchini prefer slightly acidic soils (pH of just below 7.0). On the other hand, irises, crocuses, geraniums, kale, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, and cucumber prefer slightly alkaline soils (pH of just above 7.0). Once you know the pH of your soil, you can use your rubbish removal to amend the soil for the particular plant(s) you’re wanting to grow. It’s a little science magic in the garden!

You can use the interactive Soilscapes website to help you determine the type of soil, particle wise, you have in your area. Soil particles range in size from large (sandy) to fine (clay) and the composition varies greatly between areas. While sandy soils drain well, often too well, clay soils retain moisture, often two much moisture. Ideally, for most purposes, you’ll want  soil to be a healthy mixture of both so it drains but not too fast.

The Soilscapes’ online tool was developed by Cranfield University and funded by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA). You’ll have fun playing with this amazing soil tool. Here’s the URL:

http://www.landis.org.uk/soilscapes/

Okay, let’s look at some specific ways to amend your soil using totally free household waste removal:

Used Coffee Grounds

If you want to make neutral or slightly alkaline soils more acidic, mixing used coffee grounds with your soil to a depth of about six to eight inches can usually achieve this. Use up to thirty-five percent coffee grounds in your mixture, depending on how far you need to move the pH toward acidic.

How acidic are coffee grounds? It depends on the coffee, but in a famous example, Sunset Magazine sent coffee grounds from Starbucks to a professional lab for analysis. The pH came back 6.2. These grounds also had bioavailable copper, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium. Not only does copper help plants photosynthesize, vegetables will uptake the copper into their tissues so you and your family will get this valuable trace mineral. Magnesium is another mineral we all need more of and it makes flowers bloom more beautifully and intensifies their color.

Used coffee grounds is something most households have in plentiful supply on a daily basis! If not, you can always ask your friends, neighbors, restaurants, or favorite coffeeshop to save some used coffee grounds for you. In doing so, you’ll be saving them from ending up in the landfill.

Wood Ashes

If you burn wood, then you have a good supply of wood ash. Instead of liming, you can use this ash rescued from your rubbish removal to make your soil more alkaline. If your soil is too acidic (lower than a pH of about 6.5), using your wood ashes is a good and free way to get the pH closer to neutral, or even slightly alkaline. Keep in mind, it takes two to three times more ash than it takes lime to achieve the same result.

Wood ashes will also add more potassium to your soil. Ash is between three and ten percent potassium, depending on the type of wood you are burning. Ash from hardwoods contain more potassium than ash from softwoods. Strawberries love potassium. If you add more potassium to your tomatoes, they’ll be redder and you’ll get more lycopene, an antioxidant known to fight cancer.

Be careful to NOT use ashes from charcoal or coal as they contain toxins you don’t want to add to your soil. The same goes for presto logs.

Eggshells

Instead of liming your soil, use eggshells from your kitchen rubbish removal to increase the pH, i.e. make it more alkaline! You can grind them into a powder in the food processor or by hand. Before you do this, however, dry them out in the sun or in a very low temperature oven to kill any Salmonella that make be lurking on them.

All members of the nightshade family of plants, including tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant love calcium enriched soil from eggshell powder! You can also leave some bigger fragments of ragged eggshells mixed in with the powder to deter slugs. On the other hand, eggshells ATTRACT worms into your soil which is a huge bonus. The worms need the calcium grit to help them digest their food (your soil is their food by the way!) and what they shoot out the other end will help fertilize your plants.

Nut Shells and Peanut Shells

If your soil has too much clay and isn’t draining well, add nut shells and peanut shells! These will create pockets of air in your soil, allowing it to drain better. Luckily, nut shells and peanut shells take a long time to break down so this amendment will last a long time. The one exception to this is walnut shells because they contain a toxin called juglone that is harmful to most plants. It’s also harmful to digging dogs and cats so be careful with walnut shells.

Share Your Soil Amendments

If you have other soil amendments from rubbish removal, please share them on Clearabee’s Facebook page or send them via tweet! Clearabee, an on demand rubbish removal company, is always looking for new ways to divert waste removal from landfills!

Share