"Damaeus" wrote in message
...
First of all, this is my first year doing any type of serious gardening.
That said:

I was cutting the tops off strawberries this morning while thinking about
something I heard on a gardening show that plays on the radio here. A
lady called in, said she cut up banana peels into dime-sized pieces,
worked them into the soil around her roses, and the rose bushes took off
and made roses like crazy. So my question is: why can't I just take the
fresh strawberry scraps, chop them up a bit, then sprinkle them around the
tomatoes, the bell peppers, corn, and whatever else I have growing out
there? I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel here. I know why people
compost in a pile, but it seems like a lot of the nutrients from
composting would also wash directly into the soil where the compost pile
is located. Why not put a few things directly in the garden so the
growing plants get more of the nutrients?

That's quite legitimate and can be done as either trench composting or as I
do it in a number of spots in the garden. I've cut the bottom out of very
large plastic pots, drilled very large holes around the sides of the pots,
(so worms can go in and out at will) submerged the pots almost to the rim in
the garden and put a lid on them with either upside down pot plant saucer or
old chrome hub caps. I've started seom fo them off with mature compost and
compost worms and then thrown in kitchen scraps and I've also started others
off with soild and a mix of compost worms and earth worms.