NOW'S TIME TO CHECK COMPOST PILE.

Byline: JANE GATES GARDEN GATES

The second half of March is time to wrap up plans and start work in the garden.

Mixing annuals and perennials will give you areas of color that can shift throughout your garden as the year goes on. This is one reason it helps to plan your garden ahead of time.

You can synchronize colors or areas that play in your garden like the different instruments of an orchestra. Don't hesitate to seek professional help if you need some technical or artistic input.

Next month will bring serious soil care and planting so this is your last chance to save yourself the frustration, mistakes and expense that may come if you are unprepared.

For those of you into composting - and I highly recommend it if you can find the space - it's time to check out last year's compost heap.

If you didn't turn it in the winter months, there is probably a layer of nice dark brown usable compost on the bottom with lots of dry stuff on top. You can scoop out the usable compost and spread it over gardens to finish breaking down and prepare beds for spring planting. Leave the rest as a base to start the new pile. Or you can mix the two together, virtually putting most of the uncomposted material on the bottom where it can warm and stay moist to break down in the next couple of months.

If you have one of the prefabricated barrel composters, don't forget to give it an occasional turn. Turning the compost is the only way to get oxygen distributed throughout the heap. If the compost dries out, has too little oxygen, or falls below 40 degrees, the microbes and other little critters chewing all that refuse into gourmet garden goodies will stop work. Usually these creatures generate enough heat to keep the inside of your compost warm and active even during our cold winters.

Here are some thoughts on composting. Do not locate your compost heap too close to the house. Yes, you do want it close enough to be convenient or you'll be unlikely to use it regularly for daily kitchen scraps. On the other hand, if it is too close, you'll be attracting insects and rodents to your home.

I have never felt the need to add any commercial stimulators to my compost. Alternating green and brown garden materials with a dash of whatever would otherwise be rotting in my kitchen until trash day has always been a very efficient recipe.

Do not include any meat or meat-based products, though fish is good, in your compost heap. Meat will encourage disease, interrupt the plant breakdown cycle and attract undesirable wildlife. Your compost heap will also smell dreadful. Pet feces are also discouraged for the same reasons.

By composting, you'll drag your ``green'' barrel out for collection far less often, your kitchen will smell cleaner, and you won't have to haul in bags of expensive compost from the stores. The lean, hungry soil of this area will welcome all the well-rotted compost you can give it. Use it as a mulch to protect roots from heat and cold, and as a mix-in at planting time to welcome flowers and vegetables. It can't burn roots like plant foods, or fork root crops like manure.

Compost makes a handsome top-dressing between shrubs, and encourages aerating worms. It is the cheapest and safest way to recycle because it's exactly what nature does.