THE COASTAL GARDENER:

Which plastic bin do you use?

If you’re a homeowner in coastal Orange County, I’ll bet a nickel that you recycle. You sort out your milk bottles, soda cans, soup cans and so on, to go to a recycling facility, to be remade into new products. Good for you: You’re doing the right thing!

Now consider this scenario. You buy colorful plastic bags of fertilizer to apply to your plants to make them grow. As soon as they grow you pay someone to come by and trim them back. These trimmings go into a big plastic bin with wheels that waits patiently by the side of your house. Once a week you roll this big plastic bin, full of trimmings and clippings, to the curb to be trucked away.

Somewhere, out of sight, your plant clippings are ground up, composted and turned into organic mulches and soil amendments, which are, in turn, put back into colorful plastic bags and trucked back to your local garden center. You buy these plastic bags, open them and spread their rich ingredients around the plants in your garden.

Whoa! Stand back for a minute; the scenario is almost comical. Why do you have this plastic bin on wheels? Why are you sending your clippings, leaves and trimmings away, only to buy them back later?

Compost may be at the center of all gardening. In order for just about any plant to grow properly you need to feed your soil and the invisible organisms living therein.

Almost all of the nutrients that a plant takes in are from its roots. A layer of compost on the ground provides the nutrients that nature had intended all along.

You already recycle your bottles, cans and newspapers. Why not compost your garden waste as well, or at least a portion of it? Your plants will thank you, and so will the planet.

Here are a few simple steps to get started. More assistance is available online or at your local garden center.

Choose a compost bin.

There are many types of bins used to hold compost materials. Being in an urban area, most of us will use a plastic, commercially made, square or round compost bin. Bins that turn, either round or tube-shaped, are increasingly popular. Each type has advantages and disadvantages, but almost all of them can be used to make great compost.

Select a location for your compost bin.

Choose a site that is level and well-drained. It should be easily accessible and convenient. Placing the bin over bare soil rather than concrete will ensure that worms and beneficial organisms can find their way into the compost.

Add composting materials.

Generally, composting ingredients can be divided into two categories: browns and greens. Browns include materials like dry leaves, bark, sawdust and straw. Even uncolored, uncoated newspaper and cardboard egg boxes can be added. Green materials are usually abundant and include grass clippings, spent flowers, vegetable waste, coffee grounds and plant trimmings.

What not to add to your compost.

Don’t add meat, bones, fatty food waste, dairy products, pet feces, persistent weeds or any chemically treated products to your compost bin. Vegetable fats and dairy products will slow down the composting process. Chemically treated or pressure-treated wood or sawdust, meat, animal fats or pet feces added to a compost bin may encourage disease or contamination.

Make great compost.

Finished compost can be made by simply dumping a blend of the above ingredients into the bin and keeping it moist. But much better compost can be made in a fraction of the time by starting as if you’re making a giant layer cake. Begin with a 4-inch layer of browns, such as dry leaves. Add a thin layer of garden soil or finished compost from a previous batch. Next, add a 4-inch layer of green material, like grass clippings or fresh plant trimmings. That’s the first layer. Keep alternating similar ingredients in layers until the bin is full.

Once the bin is nearly full, you should turn the pile every week or so (this is where a tumbler or round bin comes in handy). Keep the material moist, but not soggy. The more you turn the pile, the faster you will have finished compost.

Congratulations — your compost is ready to use.

It can take anywhere from two weeks to 12 months to produce compost. The time it takes depends on the materials and methods used. Shredding or cutting up the raw materials before you add them will speed things up considerably.

Maybe it’s time to replace one of the big plastic bins on wheels with a compost bin. Next week, when trash day arrives, you’ll have one less of them to roll out to the curb to be taken away.

ASK RON

Question: What is the most nontoxic, humane and effective way to eliminate gophers in our front lawn? Everyone tells us to use poisons, but we would prefer not to kill it and are afraid we might harm the rabbits from Buck Gully.

Debbie

Corona del Mar

Answer: That’s a challenge. There are a lot of battery-operated sonic devices that supposedly annoy the gophers and drive them away, but countless studies have proved them ineffective. Live traps are a possibility. The Havahart #0745 or #1025 trap will catch a gopher alive, but when relocated, there is considerable doubt about whether the highly territorial gopher would survive for long.

ASK RON your toughest gardening questions, and the expert nursery staff at Roger’s Gardens will come up with an answer. Please include your name, phone number and city, and limit queries to 30 words or fewer. E-mail stumpthegardener@rogersgardens.com, or write to Plant Talk at Roger’s Gardens, 2301 San Joaquin Hills Road, Corona del Mar, CA 92625.

RON VANDERHOFF is the Nursery Manager at Roger’s Gardens, Corona del Mar