Composting
Compost is a mixture of decaying organic matter such as leaves and manure used as a fertilizer. When you
gather a pile of vegetable and household material, maintain the proper degree of moisture, and turn your
pile regularly, waste is eventually reduced to a wealth of compost or earthlike substance that forms a
beneficial nutrient rich growing environment for plant roots.
Mulch is a protective ground covering used around plantings. Mulch is spread or left on the ground to
reduce evaporation, prevent erosion, maintain even soil temperature, control weeds, enrich the soil, and
keep fruit such as strawberries clean. Mulch can be made from paper, sawdust, or compost. Compost makes
handy mulch around closely spaced vegetables and flower plantings because it does not damage the stems.
When you have an abundance of compost, you can afford to be generous with it as a mulch.
Composting is a naturally occurring process that is the ultimate in recycling. Nature recycles leaves, animal
manure, and other animal products through naturally occurring bacteria. In a forest, leaves not eaten by
insects or large animals, decompose over time providing food for smaller critters, worms, and microscopic
organisms. The earthen forest floor is a fertile combination of minerals, organic particles, and live
organisms that support trees, flowers and other growing things. Slow decomposition or composting is
virtually going on all the time.
Compost protects plants from diseases, insects, and pests while enhancing the soil's ability to retain water
and air which are both essential to plant health and growth. Over time, compost amended soil darkens and
warms up more quickly in the spring and thus extends the growing season. Unlike soluble chemical
fertilizers, compost releases its nutrients slowly as plants need them. Sixty eight percent of the two hundred
million tons of mixed residential garbage each year consists of landfilled organic material such as yard,
food, paper, and wood wastes.
Composting efficiency is improved when the organic material mixture, the right amount moisture, and
active microorganisms are correctly combined. Anyone who gardens or any family that eats meals at home
has a daily supply of organic material suitable for composting. The microorganisms are everywhere. They
are in most of our soils, manures, or in purchased activators. Moisture is available from natural rains to the
common garden hose. When the materials, moisture, and microorganisms meet at the same place
decomposition is sure to occur.
Gathering the materials in a pile or a container or a pile actually assists the process. This consolidation
helps maintain moisture levels and promotes the materials' decomposition through heat buildup, which
assists the microorganisms in rapid reproduction and speeds up decomposition. Occasional turning or
mixing of the material mass also speeds up the process providing a fresh food supply for the beneficial
microorganisms performing the decomposition. It also allows air to become entrained in the decomposing
mass and keeps the process aerobic and orderless.
When adding significant amounts of new material to an already decomposing pile or container,
decomposition may slow or stall. To help minimize this affect, add a proportional amount of organism rich
topsoil or animal manure. You can also decide on a pile or container size, manage it through decomposition
for two to four weeks, and start a second or a third pile or container for new material.
Three piles or containers are the minimum necessary for a perpetual supply during the growing season.
More may be required for a year round supply when colder weather slows decomposition but when the
material supply may still be abundant. The first pile or container is managed with moisture and air
entrainment mixing to decompose while new material is added to the second pile or container. As this
second pile or container reaches its limit of material, it should begin the process of managing the moisture
and air entrainment. All further new material should be placed in a new third pile or container. By this time
the decomposition of the first pile or container is complete and is ready for draw down and use indoors and
outdoors. Once draw down is complete, this becomes pile or container three, ready to receive new material.
Pile or container two becomes one and is ready for draw down. Pile or container three becomes two and is
managed as the active decomposing pile or container. The rotation continues perpetually.
Odors
The odor of compost should be earthlike or like good woods soil. Any bad smell is a sign that the materials
are unbalanced or that decomposition has stalled. A strong ammonia smell may indicate too much grass.
Adding some dry high carbon materials will correct this odor. The smell of spoiled food means meat or
dairy scraps are present and need to be removed.
If maintenance of the compost material regarding temperature and aeration turning is allowed to
deteriorate, the material decaying process to compost may turn from an aerobic (oxygen rich) to an
anaerobic (oxygen lean) process. This will create an unpleasant order. Aeration turning, temperature
control watering, and possibly re-inoculation may be necessary to return the process to aerobic and
eliminate any unpleasant orders.
Insect and Rodent Concerns
Other kitchen wastes should be covered or turned under so as not to invite dogs, pests, house mice, rats,
snakes or provide breeding grounds for flies, mosquitoes and other undesirable insects.
Various types of containers are available in catalogs and garden supply stores.
Waste materials, food products, and vegetation when composted, can provide a rewarding rich constant
supply of all natural fertilizer that will give you a healthy soil, hearty plants, abundant vegetables, disease
resistant plants, and spectacular large flowers.
What You Can Compost
Kitchen Scraps
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Coffee Grounds
Egg Shells
Food Scraps Except Meat and Dairy Products
Forgotten rotting fruits and vegetables at the back of your refrigerator
Tea Bags
Vegetable and Fruit Peels
Yard Wastes (Except If Treated With Pesticides)
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Agricultural and Animal Manures
Dead Flowers and Plants
Grass Clippings
Leaves
Shrub, Hedge, and Plant Prunings
Weeds
Woody Trimmings
Yard Trimmings
Household Wastes
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Most Ashes Except Coal Ash and Charcoal
Household Plant Trimmings
Pet Cage Droppings from Healthy Birds, Hamsters, etc.
Pet or Human Hair
Sawdust and Wood Shavings except Pressure Treated
Shredded Black and White Newspapers - No Colored Paper, Magazines, or Catalogs
Wilted Cut Flowers Except If Treated With Pesticides
What You Can Use Compost For
With an unlimited supply of nutrient rich compost your garden will flourish. Well-finished compost can be
used at any time, in any season, and in any amount. There is no such thing as too much compost.
Custom-blended potting soil, a mixture of compost with topsoil will give your houseplants a boost.
Store it in plastic containers or bags for use in starting garden plants, herbs, and flowers indoors.
Begin building a healthy garden soil by spreading one to four inches evenly over the top of your garden in
the autumn and/or spring, then thoroughly till it into the top four or more inches of soil. This will ready the
soil for spring plantings by establishing a good humus level, a soil mineral balance, and provide the needed
nutrients for plants. In addition to its nutrient benefits, this will make fine sandy soil richer and fuller and
make hard clay soil more airy while improving its drainage. This improved soil helps plants develop
stronger root systems, have a healthier growing season, and become more disease resistant. Supplement
your original compost application by side dressing the heavy feeding crops such as broccoli, corn, squash,
and tomatoes with a half-inch layer of compost or a blended organic fertilizer each month of the growing
season. The soil will look visibly darker and will be looser-textured. The compost-amended soils will also
have higher available nutrient levels
At mid-season, mix compost with soil as a side dressing along vegetable rows or around flowering plants.
To establish perennial plantings, you want to condition the soil and increase fertility without uprooting the
plants. Work compost into the top four inches of soil. Even deep-rooted plants will respond. Since compost
contains natural antibiotics, it will also help ward off plant diseases.
Use compost as a mulch by spreading about a three to four inch layer of compost around your growing
plants, trees, scrubs, perennials, fruit trees, and berries to smother weeds, retain valuable moisture in the
soil, stabilize soil temperatures, and feed growing plants all season long as it slowly works its way into the
soil.
You can top dress an established lawn with up to a half of an inch of compost, use it as a potting soil for
house plants, or as a rich supplement to your seed starting medium. Some nutrients in compost are water
soluble, so you can make "compost tea", a sort of black liquor inoculant, for seedlings, house plants, and
other delicate plants. These "compost teas" allow a more readily bio-available nutrient rich natural plant
food.
Homemade compost under your control is natural, safe, and worry free.
What Are the Basic Elements of Compost?
Compost decomposes to a blend of all its components where the desired final ingredients include both
carbon and nitrogen. The best carbon to nitrogen ratio of thirty to one makes superior compost.
What Materials Contain the Basic Elements of Compost?
Carbon Sources
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Shredded Newspapers
Dead Leaves
Sawdust
Straw
Old Vines
Corn Stalks
Nitrogen Sources
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Fresh Grass Clippings
Coffee Grounds
Overripe Garden Vegetables
Fruit Wastes
Alfalfa
Clover
Chicken Manure
All Green Plant Materials
How To Start Composting
If you plan a large compost volume, open composting may be the least expensive in time and costs.
If you plan smaller volumes, catalogs and local garden stores can supply a variety of containers.
If you have less leisure time and still wish to compost, tumbling containers are available in several sizes for
a less labor-intensive approach.
After choosing your method and/or container, begin compiling yard, kitchen, and household wastes in a
pile or container.
Apply an inoculant or activator obtained from your garden supply store following the instructions supplied
with the inoculant.
The inoculant or activator contains beneficial microorganisms that start and promote an aerobic
decomposition process that is also free from unpleasant odors.
Animal manures such as chicken and cow can be used as an inoculant or in addition to the inoculant.
Soil may also be added to enhance the final product.
Water the pile and insert a stainless steel gardener's dial thermometer capable of reading up to 220 ºF.
Decomposition will begin almost immediately as evidenced by a rise in temperature from the exothermic
decomposition process.
It is important to keep the temperature under control by frequent turning and watering of the pile (daily if
necessary).
Turn the pile with a pitchfork and water it to control temperature in the 150 ºF to 160 ºF temperature range.
Higher temperatures may sterilize the material and destroy the valuable microorganisms.
Not allowing the temperature to rise beyond this range will keep the decomposition process from going
anaerobic or oxygen deficient.
If this occurs, the pile will begin to off gas an unpleasant odor.
Turning and watering the pile as temperature dictates introduces oxygen and controls temperature and
keeps the decomposition process aerobic or oxygen rich and odorless.
The compost will develop in a few weeks and can be used immediately starting from the bottom of the pile.
Once compost is formed, do not allow rainwater to wash the valuable nutrients into the soil beneath the pile
More composting materials can be added at any time but this will lengthen the composting process time.
Try a Garden Dedicated Compost Pile
Purchase six foot wire fence stakes at your local garden supply store. You will need six feet above the
ground anchor wedge on the stake. Purchase four or six inch square by six foot tall construction wire.
Assemble the stakes in a circle in the center of your garden before planting. Align the wire retaining clips
on the outside of the circle of stakes. The space between stakes should be about two feet. Begin with six,
but purchase more or less stakes to suit the size of the pile you are about to start. Anchor the construction
wire to the outside retaining clips of the stakes to form an open-air cylinder with no top and the earth as the
bottom. Between any two stakes create a door by removing the top three feet of construction wire and
replace it with chicken wire that is easily removed when needed. Use this door to add material as the pile
decomposes and depletes itself into your garden as it self fertilizes it. Assemble your compost material in
the cylindrical wire open-air container. Add an inoculant available from garden supply stores and a little
soil and/or animal manure. Use a thermometer to monitor the temperature and water sparingly for the first
three weeks to manage temperature only. Before or during the three weeks create shallow moderately
trenches radiating and pitches slightly away from the cylindrical compost pile. Plant your vegetables, fruits,
or flowers in the center of these trenches. After three weeks, leave the thermometer in place and add
material and manure as necessary to keep the cylinder full. Attach a garden hose to the top of the compost
pile without a nozzle or with a heavy wide spread flow nozzle. Leave the hose in place. On a daily basis,
flow water through the compost pile for as long as thirty minutes. A black nutrient rich liquor will drain
from the bottom of the pile into the trenches. Do not water your planting except through the pile. Flood the
trenches daily with the liquor. This liquor may also be used as an inoculant for this and other compost piles
or containers. If material begins to escape the cylinder, add a course of chicken wire to contain the material
within the confines of the wire cylinder.
Unlike other compost piles or containers, the purpose is to use the compost to produce a rapid and
concentrated nutrient rich liquid fertilizer. The wire garden compost cylinder is designed for short-lived
plantings that can make rapid use of natural nutrient enhancements during the short growing season.
Rainwater assists in this same nutrient transfer process which occurs at a natural and much slower rate
when compost is placed around outlying plantings. This is a year round nutrient enhancement for the
outlying plants.
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