How do I make good gardening topsoil?

Gardening is best with good topsoil - a layer that can be up to 25cm deep. Biological activities that provide essential support for plants to grow occur mostly in this top layer. Plants also take up most of their nutrients and water here.

Topsoil is formed in nature from decayed plant and animal material in leaf litter. It is crumbly, spongy and rich in organic matter which helps soil hold onto water and nutrients. It also supports microbes that put nutrients in leaf litter back in soil.

You can emulate the leaf litter process and speed up the return of both nutrients and organic matter to garden soil by making compost from organic waste.

Compost quality varies. Its nutritional value depends largely on the ingredients in your waste composite - you get out what you put in!

Make compost from garden waste

Organic waste is sorted, by convention, as either rich in carbon or nitrogen. These nutrients need to be in balance for an optimal compost making process.

Typical garden wastes, such as shrub pruning, are carbon-rich. A garden composite is formed by layering these carbon-rich wastes alternately with nitrogen-rich wastes like lawn clippings, green weeds and coffee grounds, or a sprinkle of blood and bone. Use a ratio of 2 lots of carbon to one of nitrogen to obtain nutritional balance.

It is helpful to shred or chop garden waste into small pieces, and add water to wet the garden composite.

Regular mixing is a must to keep garden composites aerated at all times. Little or partial mixing is disruptive, causing abnormal production of acids and worse, bad smell.

You risk attracting rats and other pests to standard compost systems by adding kitchen scraps without safeguards. Take care to limit the type and amount to add. Aerate the scraps well to keep them from emitting smell that attract rats. Rat-proof your compost bin as a precaution. Remember to balance each addition of nitrogen-rich scraps with twice as much carbon-rich waste.

Make compost from kitchen scraps

Vegetable and fruit scraps typify nitrogen-rich wastes with high water content. This means they can break down fast especially in hot weather, causing them to ooze liquid and stink in rubbish bins.

Instead, let kitchen scraps break down fast in Bioverter - a novel compost system designed to aerate kitchen waste composites without mixing. With a controlled environment, it unlocks all the goodness for reuse through two outputs - compost juice and nutrient-dense compost.

Ensure your kitchen composite is balanced, so add carbon-rich waste to your scraps - the opposite to how you balance a garden composite. Unlike garden-focused systems like open-ended bins, Bioverter handles kitchen scraps as the main ingredient in your composite. You can add leafy plant matter and non-glossy paper as a thin carbon layer on top of kitchen scraps, to balance every composite.

Use companion compost systems

Although garden waste can vary in volume throughout the year, it can be gathered and stored until you are ready to make the next batch of compost. Standard compost systems are well suited to handling garden waste.

Kitchen scraps are generated routinely but can rot if held too long without adequate aeration. They need more attention than garden waste in garden-focused systems.

The good news is a scientifically engineered Bioverter without any work input from you, can turn kitchen composites continuously into high quality products. Simply put your scraps in Bioverter daily or a few days apart when you empty a kitchen caddy.

Improve your topsoil

Growing plants reduces your stock of nutrients and organic matter in topsoil. Reverse the drop in soil nutrition with compost made from garden waste.

Kitchen scraps are more nutritious than garden waste, so don’t pass them up. They can be made into soil superfood easily with Bioverter.

Using Bioverter alongside a standard compost system will enable you to reuse all your organic wastes. Produce compost to get a topsoil that’s great for gardening!