How is Muck Formed?
Muck is obtained after plants and other living organisms decay. It is a dark and moist substance, excellent as a fertilizer for plants around the house and for your garden soil. It can also be a good way to get rid of kitchen waste.
In nature, muck represents the outcome of leaves piling and decaying. Therefore, it is a natural and common process.
How you can make Muck in your own Garden
Required Materials
- Garden and kitchen garbage
- Dead leaves, wood chips, saw dust
Muck can be formed in your own garden. It is very easy to learn how to obtain muck.
You should remember the following points; it will pay off when you want to use muck as a fertilizer for your garden.
1. Muck is made of millions of microbes (fungi, bacteria) which digest garden garbage and kitchen garbage (coming from food). If the muck layer is moist, enough worms and insects will help microbes develop. These creatures need air, water, and food to survive.
2. Ideally, the muck layer you make in your garden should be as wet as a sponge full of water in order to meet specific needs of the microbes in it. If the muck is not wet enough, it will not be a suitable environment for the microbes' development and consequently it will not be very good from the qualitative point of view.
However, if you live in a humid climate, you must be careful to ensure that the muck layer is not very wet. In dry areas, the muck layer must be watered in order to keep its adequate composition.
3. There are two types of food which microbes in the muck may need:
Brown food, consisting of dead and dry plants like straw, dead seeds, autumn leaves, wood chips, or sawdust.
Green food, consisting of fresh plants, green seeds in the garden, fruit from the kitchen, wastes of vegetables in the garden, fresh horse compost, etc. Compared with the brown food, the green one contains more nitrogen. A mixture of green and brown food represents a nutritional balance for microbes.
Overall, if you consider these suggestions and make use of muck as a fertilizer, you can get a healthy crop, no matter what you grow in your garden.
