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Why It's A Good Idea To Add Soap To Your Garden's Compost Pile
By WILL FORD
A healthy compost helps soil retain moisture, reduce erosion, and suppress plant diseases or pests, and adding soap can help your pile maintain a healthy decomposition.
Adding biodegradable soap to your compost heap can protect your pile from a number of issues. Its fats and oils work as surfactants to prevent mildew and control pests and odors.
As a result, you'll create a more pleasant environment for microbial activity to naturally break down the organic scraps you recycle in your garden.
Before you add soap to your compost, be sure to only use natural bar soaps that are marked as biodegradable. A few common examples are hemp seed oil, avocado oil, and beeswax.
If it fits these parameters, feel free to take the leftover sliver of soap from your shower, toss it into your compost heap, and wait about six months for it to decompose.
You can also buy soap explicitly for your compost pile. According to Ivory, its soap is over 99% pure and free of any dyes or perfumes that may negatively impact your compost heap.
If you add a brand new bar of soap to your pile, you can encourage it to break down more quickly by grating it with a cheese grater or cutting it into small strips.
The smaller pieces will be easier for the microorganisms to break down and can provide mildew-fighting benefits over a wider area.