Gardeners Gold - Why Garden Shredders?

Gardeners are often seen carting away loads of garden refuse to dump sites. All household refuse ends up in the bin. If you think your household and garden rubbish are only fit for the landfill site, think again.

The fact is that a quarter of everything you throw away could be shredded and composted to make your garden flourish – saving you money and helping to preserve the environment! Most garden and kitchen scraps can be recycled into a useful soil conditioner, saving money on commercial products.

Garden shredders are used to create space, save time and money. They free the gardener of large volumes of cuttings and plant trimmings as the volume of the material is greatly reduced during shredding. The shredded material can then be turned into compost or mulch, hence less fertilizer needs to be purchased.

Mulching protects the valuable layer of humus from all weather conditions, preventing washing out due to heavy rain and providing insulation when it is hot or frosty. It reduces evaporation by a third. Mulching improves the soil structure. Micro-organisms slowly break down the plant trimmings used, to create new humus. Weed’ seeds are unable to sprout as they are shielded from the light.

Compost is the world’s oldest and most natural form of fertilizer. It can be produced in any garden. Compost returns lost nutrients and trace elements to the soil, and revitalizes soil life. If organic materials are shredded, mixed and aerated properly, they decompose into high-quality fertilizer. The better the composition - the mix of “green” nitrogenous material and “brown” plant trimmings containing carbon – the better the fertilizing qualities and therefore also the compost.

Materials that are ideal for composting are:

All organic, decomposable material from the garden and home such as green waste, harvesting leftovers, flowers, shrubs, grass cuttings, leaves, cuttings from trees, bushes and hedges, kitchen scraps(fruit and vegetable), tea, coffee, eggs, limited amounts of wood shavings or sawdust.

Not recommended for composting are:

Weeds with a lot of seeds or roots, diseased plants, paper and cardboard.

Totally unsuitable:

Metallic materials, glass, plastics.

Garden shredders are available in various sizes with electric motors or petrol engines. The branch diameter that can be handled differs in models.