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Compost

  
     
  Why Compost?
  • Reduce waste and save our planet.
  • Rich, inexpensive, safe fertilizer for yard and garden.
  
  Compost is a way to recycle organic waste material into a useful product.  Compost material improves soil (aeration, texture, absorption), stimulates roots to grow strong and healthy.  Compost is a place for microorganisms, worms, bacteria, fungi, insects and other "yard workers" who will help create a perfect fertilizer to keep the soil in a healthy balance of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus.  These microbes need carbon for energy and nitrogen for protein.

What can be composted?

  • Food (nitrogen-rich materials)
    • egg shells - crush them first
    • coffee grounds
    • tea bags
    • fruit and vegetable peels and scraps
  • Yard
    • green or wet (nitrogen-rich materials)
      • leaves
      • fresh grass clippings
      • cow dung (if you happen to have some in your yard!) as well as sheep, bat, ducks, pigs, goats, pigeons or any other vegetarian animal
      • sea weed (but rinse it off first)
    • brown or dry (carbon-rich materials)
      • wood chips
      • dry leaves
      • straw
      • hay
      • dry grass (leave the fresh grass trimmings out for a day before adding them)
      • saw dust
      • hair
      • cardboard

Compost 101:

  • Mix it up, baby 1 - compost needs turning to keep the temperature cooking and to aerate.
     
  • Mix it up, baby 2 - compost needs a mix of foods and yard scraps, a mix of dry and wet scraps; compost must have a balance of carbon- and nitrogen-rich materials.  Ideal balance is 25:1.
     
  • Mix it up, baby 3 - compost (and the microbes that do all the work) needs aerating and circulation so turn baby turn
     
  • Compost will work better on smaller pieces so crush it up and cut it up before adding it to the compost pile.
     
  • Scatter each addition instead of clumping it together.
     
  • Location, location, location!  - put compost pile in a convenient location for easy access from the kitchen for feeding kitchen scraps.  And make it discreet (especially if you have close neighbors!)
     
  • Ideal size of a compost pile is 3 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet.

Potential problems:

  1. compost is too dry - it will sit there forever and is a fire hazard.  Add moist kitchen scraps and mix.  It should always be moist like a damp kitchen sponge.
  2. compost is too wet - smelly and soggy.  Add some dry leaves and mix it up.
  3. compost has visitors - bugs are good, rodents are bad.  Keep a lid on it and don't include meat, dairy or fats and you'll avoid this problem.  See the "Best you don't add" list below.
  4. compost is going down  slow - too much of any one item will cause this so mix up your compost with a variety of organic material and mix it up, literally.
  5. compost has bugs - that's good!  The heat (and boy does it get HOT) in the compost heap will kill plant diseases and seeds and is a great breeding ground for bacteria, fungi, microorganisms and others that will turn that into delicious nutritious plant food.
  6. compost is smelly - smells like food gone bad! - add some brown, dry, carbon-rich materials; or maybe it needs some turning and oxygen.
  7. compost is smelly - smells like cleaning products on overdrive - add some brown, dry, carbon-rich materials because there is probably not enough carbon.  Add shredded newspaper to help get it going!
  8. compost is too much work, I'm not doing this for my garden but just to reduce waste and do my part to help the environment - okay, stop turning, you are a passive composter, stand up and be proud!  Scatter the chopped items in layers of dry and wet and don't clump anything together.  Keep the compost pile neatly encased with a fence or concrete blocks.  The pile will shrink on it's own but will take a couple years to completely dissolve.  Or you may just want to get a disintegrator instead of composting.  That will disintegrate the kitchen scraps in a deep hole but you can't use it for mulch.
  9. compost is too much work, but I want to do what I can to decrease the waste in landfills - try a compost tumbler!  or a disintegrator instead!
  10. compost is not hot and nothing is happening - mix it up, baby 1, 2 and 3.  If it seems dry, add some water.  Cover it to let it steam.

Don't add to the compost heap:

  • meat
  • dairy - milk, cheese, yogurt
  • fish
  • bones
  • whole eggs (but egg shells are good!)
  • fat, oils and grease
  • high fat foods (like doughnuts - those aren't even fit for plant consumption!)
  • peanut butter (but peanut shells are okay!)
  • ashes from coal (but you can add ashes from wood!)
  • charcoal
  • lawn scraps treated with chemicals
  • strong weeds - most will be killed in the high 140+ temperatures
  • dog or cat poop (people poop too, even vegetarians, do I need to say it?)
  • diseased plants

 

  
  Use it!

Deep brown, crumbly, and smelling like earth, Humus compost is powerful mulch and fertilizer for your plants or garden to thrive.  Spread it on the soil surface or work it into the surface 6 inches.

You can use the compost to feed the organic garden you’ve created!  And since you’re using only organic food scraps and chemical-free lawn scraps, the compost is a chemical free nutrient rich bounty for those plants!  Try an herb garden or maybe plant a few of your favorite fruits or vegetables.  Children are more apt to try things that they grow themselves.  It’s easy – and you are making a difference

 

  
 

Composting is an easy way to use well, things you would normally add to a landfill.  It’s rather simple and there are quite a few gadgets out there to make our lives easier.  We started the old fashion way – with a big wooden box on the side of our yard.  We added fruit and vegetables.  We had to turn it over to mix it.  It was messy and well, we looked for an easier way.  We found online and now we add eggshells, fruit skins and cores, vegetable pieces, leftover food, coffee grounds, tea bags, just about anything organic.  Of course you can add dry leaves and yard clippings too.  The unit cooks everything down quite quickly because of the heat encased in it. 

 
     
     
     
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