DIY Composting: Making Your Own Black Gold
Once August is upon us, everything that’s getting planted at my house is in the ground and it’s time to spend a little time working on the compost pile to get it back in working order after a winter of neglect.
Lots of folks try to have one and most folks say they have one, but dumping your grass clippings behind the stone wall does not a compost pile make. For starters, I never put grass clippings in the compost pile as they may have pesticides and animal pathogens and with my mulching-mower I don’t have any to use.
Let's start with the obvious, the goal of a compost pile is to recycle your everyday wastes to create a rich, dark soil with a tight ecosystem that anything will grow in. Compost is made by combining tiny “microbes” (fungi, bacteria, etc.) with yard and kitchen wastes that you provide for them to eat. All this digesting gives off heat as a byproduct and if your pile is cool enough, worms, insects, and their relatives will help out the microbes. This combination will slowly make compost out of your yard and kitchen wastes under any conditions, but you can get it to work faster if you help the process along by balancing the food, air and water and mixing the whole mess up a few times.
The mixture needs air, as the best microbes are aerobic. If your pile smells like a wet dog shaking behind a rendering plant you’ve probably got anaerobic microbes at work (they don’t need air). They work a little slower but will get the job done.
The second important ingredient is water. But like everything, too much water is not a good thing. The microbes use the water to grow and spread through the mass, so you need to have it about as wet as a wrung-out sponge.
For food, use kitchen wastes (also called “green” stuff) and garden wastes (also called “brown” stuff). For the green stuff, any waste vegetables or fruits, peels or seeds go onto the pile. Eggshells and coffee grounds, including the paper filters are great for the earthworms. Stale cereal, breads and cooking grains are also great, but they have to be wet with water first before dumping into the pile. For the brown stuff, any clippings, deadheads, and other stuff from the garden goes straight into the pile. I usually throw in some dried leaves but only after running them through the chipper/shredder so they don’t mat down into a slimy mess and remove all the air.
Animal products, bones or fats do not ever go in the pile, as they tend to take a really long time to decompose and they also attract varmints which we’d rather not encourage.
A few things when you’re starting the pile for the first time:
mix in a few shovels of good garden soil from your property as a “starter” with the microbes in it to begin the process (don’t use potting soil as it’s been sterilized); an ideal size is about 9 cubic feet (1 cubic yard) as it has enough mass to generate the heat required for good digestion; add 2 cups of high-nitrogen fertilizer and 1 cup of lime in the spring to kick it up a notch.
Don’t put waste from “spite” plants or really vigorous plants into the pile.
You can purchase designer compost systems of rotating tubs and although I’ve never thought I'd use one I got a rotating barrel one a couple of years ago and have to admit they work very well. My big pile is made of some old metal posts and 3’ high chicken wire in a 3’ diameter circle, and works very well. The secret is to turn the pile ideally once a week or at least once every month. With the rotating barrels you just give them a few cranks and you’re done. Take a pitchfork and dig into the pile and turn it over until it looks right. My pile usually settles and needs more brown stuff, so I always coordinate the turning of the pile with pruning and weeding chores.
Although there are no hard and fast rules your compost is ready to use when it looks and smells like dark brown dirt that crumbles through your fingers. When it's ready or in mid-to-late summer side-dress your plants with the goodness and repeat process.
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