For gardeners across the globe second week of the month of May is special in one sense. It is the “International Compost Awareness Week”. We are at the hinge of entering this second week now. Composting at home, composting yourself, making your own compost or in whatever terms you may take it but in the core it is about owning a responsibility by composting. Use of home generated waste adds to your garden and soil with many advantages. As a gardener it becomes our duty to spread awareness about composting this week.
Let us have a look at some of the statistics first. In the year 2006, a specific survey was conducted by “Statistics Canada” and this survey revealed some really interesting results. According to its findings, almost 98% of the residents of ‘Prince Edward Island’ are actively composting. In the ‘Nova Scotia’ this percentage was reported to be 95 percent.
There is just a reverse picture portrayed by another survey results. In ‘Portland, Oregon‘ efforts were made to popularize composting for almost ten years. A dedicated public awareness campaign was supplemented with the sale of more than 90,000 plastic composters. Despite all these efforts only 30% of the households started composting with their kitchen wastes. The Alameda County in California is normally considered as compost-crazy among the gardeners in the United States. Statistics indicate that almost 24% of the homeowners in this county are also active composters in their gardens.
Results of these statistics may be moderately satisfactory for many of us but then the question still remains unanswered as why many other gardeners do not find it appealing? Gardening experts, educators, and scientist’s world over are still working to find an answer to this question.
A recent study conducted in Scotland however makes attempts to understand the behavioral patterns among gardeners and homeowners. This study is titled as “Behavioral Determinants of Household Participation in a Home Composting Scheme“.
“It is all about the attitude“, revealed the findings of this study. Buzzwords like saving the environment, good gardening practices, and others would never motivate a person who is a non-composter to pick the tools up. Instead if the person is convinced somehow that to become a good person and human being composting is must, always works. You can easily hand over a compost bin to such a convinced person. “Converting a non-composter in to a composter takes only an attitude change“, says the study.
Some of the other studies conducted in past also emphasize on the importance of habits of the active composters. The active composters generally use almost 70% of their food waste in making compost. These people also actively do recycling or composting all of their yard waste as well.
It is an established fact that almost in every case once a person starts composting it never stops. According to the data collected through several studies nine out of every ten people who begin composting keep on continuing the habit even after ten years or more. Study results also demonstrate a specific pattern among the composters. It is very common among them to try out making two or more types of composts. One is a heap and another is an enclosed bin.
Let us all feel responsible and contribute in every possible way to help people, organizations, and communities to spread the awareness about composting.”The International Compost Awareness Week” is the best opportunity to begin with this task.
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The green technology is growing at a faster pace now day’s. Main objective of this newly oriented technology is to help homeowners and everyone else live in an environment friendly way with co-existence. Green technologies generally focus on to the development of new techniques that would help in reducing the damages caused to the environment.
Clay soil is not always bad for gardens. In fact in many cases it is the best option for various plants and their growth. But it depends more upon the type of clay present in the soil and the way it is managed. If you can understand the basic properties of clay then it would be easier for you to manage clayey soil as a fantastic growing medium.Simon Leake, an expert soil scientist has been working in this area since last twenty years and has developed few innovative techniques. Simon Leake has also devised specific tests for clay soils which would be immensely help for every gardener.
Trees, plants, flowers, weeds, cactus, and other objects have always been parts of everyone’s imagination and it is a very common curiosity as which particular tree is the biggest or the oldest. Here is a brief account of some of the interesting information pertaining to the plant world.
Rock pieces and pebbles are not new things for gardeners but how many of them know about their sources? Another big question is how many of the gardeners are aware that the rocks and pebbles may provide elegance to a garden but these are damaging our environments? How all this is related to energy costs?
If you have even a little concern for our environment then you would certainly agree with what I am going to explain in next few paragraphs. As a gardener we all love plants and this proves that we all care for our environment and our earth equally.Plants have two modes of planting i.e. garden surface planting and the pot planting. 
Topiary is although not a new art but has survived ages simply because it helps expressing a person’s power of imagination and ability to convert plants in to art pieces. It is also an expression of blending beauty, grandeur, and nature in to one object, the plant.
Orange tree looks great and smells fantastic. The orange tree generally fruits up to three or four times a year. This way you can have lovely tropics throughout the year in your home and garden both.
The month of May is a time when you can have your garden turned as a heaven on this earth for you. But if you do not care for small things you will certainly end up with wasteland and nothing else. Therefore the first thing you must know is to care for the weather forecasts and related trends. Do not rely solely on the gardening guides which are normally based on experiences of previous years. 
Parsley seeds are very small in size and because of this they create several problems while planting. As a gardener you might have encountered one or other type of difficulties at the time of sowing these seeds. Here is a smart way to do it. You just need to be a little careful and it will strike perfectly.
My name is Bill Stanley and I have been a home gardener for over 20 years. I enjoy sharing my gardening tips with friends and family, as well as the rest of the world!
