Composting. What is it? Well, basically, it's piling layers of kitchen scraps, grass clippings (if you have a yard), shredded paper, leaf mulch, coffee grounds, etc, and letting it rot until it turns into this utterly fabulous soil additive that your plants will love you for putting in the dirt in which they grow. In turn, you'll love your plants for growing extra healthy, and producing a lot of fruit, veggies, flowers and leaves. Circle of happy growing, and yes, that circle includes a big pile of rotting vegetable scraps. It's beautiful.
Composting is actually quite easy. Now, I borrowed several books from the library on composting to gain more knowledge on the subject, and I'm going to compress all that into, hopefully, a post that makes sense. One very important point that I gleaned from these compost compendiums is this: Composting can be as incredibly complicated and scientific as you want it to be. You can get into specific temperature and humidity points, different ratios of brown materials that provide the carbon (things like leaves and shredded paper) to green materials that provide the nitrogen (kitchen scraps and coffee grounds) based on what temperature you want your compost to be and so on and so forth. If you are super into science and biology and the like, that's awesome, keep it up and have as complicated and exact a compost pile as will make your heart happy. For you other folks who would like to reap the benefits of composting without much hassle: let's talk.
First, I want to point out that composting can be done anywhere. Live in a studio apartment? You bet your butt you can compost. Before we bought our house, Andrew and I lived in a medium sized apartment in the middle of the Salt Lake City metro area, and composted. Now, you won't be able to compost in any great amounts, but you will probably be container gardening, and that won't require as much compost anyway. All you need for small space composting is a 5 gallon food safe plastic bucket with a lid. Use a screwdriver, an ice pick or what have you, to poke multiple holes in the sides and lid to allow for air flow. Note: air flow is something that is very important for healthy compost. You'll need a trowel for turning your compost in the bucket.
Next, place some old newspaper in a shallow plastic container that your bucket can sit in (the plastic trays that go under garden pots work great for this, and they are very inexpensive.) Then, simply start layering brown and green materials, and keep stir in on a regular basis. Change the newspaper underneath the bucket as needed, as it will get wet.
Usually, if you want warm compost (which is the easiest way to get compost in a reasonable amount of time), you'll want about a ratio of 30:1 Carbon to Nitrogen. If you have too much nitrogen in your mix, i.e., just a pile of rotting kitchen scraps with nothing for the microorganisms to eat, you're going to end up with a reeking, leaking, slimy mess that won't do much for your plants. Having lots of carbon for the composting microorganisms to consume will insure that you end up with healthy, sweet-smelling, awesomesauce compost that will provide a ton of nutrients to your growing plants. Now, this ratio does not mean you need 30 buckets of leaves for every bucket of kitchen scraps you have. That ratio is simply the carbon to nitrogen.
I'm getting too science-y, aren't I? If you really want to get into specific carbon to nitrogen ratios of items commonly put in compost, this post is an excellent resource. Otherwise a good rule of thumb is for every shovel, trowel, or handful of green materials you put into your compost, add 2 shovels, trowels, or handfuls of brown materials. This is the ratio usually used because most of the time brown materials, such as hay, leaves and shredded paper, have a lot of 'fluff' or air that makes them less dense when piled together as opposed to a heavy pile of say, grapefruit peels. The thing you really want to focus on is keeping enough brown material for the composting microorganisms to eat, but not so much that you just have a pile of leaves or hay with some little bits of compost in them somewhere. Balance is everything.
How long your compost takes to be usable depends on how much you're composting, and how often you turn it. Cold compost means that you rarely turn it, and have a higher carbon to nitrogen ratio, and therefore the decomposition will take much longer, sometimes around a year! Hot compost is a more complicated and labor intensive, and don't we already have enough to do?
So, let's stick with warm compost. I try to turn my compost pile every three days. Every 3 days isn't a rule, but do try to turn it at least once a week. This keeps the brown material mixed evenly throughout, and helps with air flow as well. This method will result in ready to use compost in about 2-3 months, again, depending on how much compost you are working with.
I could go on at length about all the different containers you can use to compost, and you should research what would work best for your situation, but for today, I'm going to show you what I use.
When we dug up the seating area the former owners of our house had, we ended up with around 90 old cinder blocks. I found a great idea for building a 3 bin compost system out of cinder blocks while reading one of my library compost books. Now, unless you are planning on having a large amount of compost, a 3 bin system really isn't necessary. If you have a small garden, or container garden, a single bin will serve you just fine.
But I figured, I had the cinder blocks and had nothing better to do with them, and we will probably be trying to have a large amount of compost in the future, so I went ahead and built a 3 bin system. Before you ask, yes, they were heavy (thanks to my big brother for helping to carry them all, he's a beast), yes, my back hurt after, but it was free and it works awesome! This is what it looks like:
I also added a tarp to put over the middle section whenever it rains. While it is important to keep your compost pile somewhat damp, excessive rainwater can actually leach the nutrients out of the compost mixture and either carry them away in their little rivulets, or the nutrients can soak into the ground beneath the compost. In either case, your compost would be less nutritious for your garden soil, and that's something we want to avoid.
I want to also promote using cinder blocks as a material for building a compost system, because the holes in the blocks creates fantastic air flow for the compost. I had to stack mine so that every other layer was turned to allow airflow, but that is only because the cinder blocks I was working with were old and misshapen, so I had to tweak the design a little bit for them to actually stack without all falling over. With fresh new cinder blocks, I probably would have had all the holes facing so they could provide air flow.
Another handy tip for those of you who have a large compost pile, turning the compost can be tough using just a shovel. I acquired a three prong pitchfork, actually called a manure fork. This handy tool can be used to dig in your garden as well, so it's not a one-trick pony, but it really is the best thing for turning compost. The prongs make it easy to dig into the pile and aerate it.
But, you say, what if I don't have enough organic kitchen scraps to make a decent compost pile? Well, my first snarky remark would be that you should eat more fresh fruits and veggies. But, really, do. They're good for you and make for surprisingly affordable eating when prepared at home. But, if you live alone, or don't have time to cook much, it can be difficult to acquire enough green material to compost well. So here's some tips:
1. Go to Starbucks and ask for their used coffee grounds. Every Starbucks I've ever been (granted that's not that many, but I've been in them in several different states) will happily give you their grounds free of charge for composting.
2. Does your city have a fresh-pressed juice shop? Ask them for their fruit and veggie waste. Remember, kids, it never hurts to ask politely.
3. Local brewery in town? See if they'd be willing to give you some of their hops, wheat, or barley waste!
4. If you have friends and family who aren't interested in composting their own kitchen scraps, tell them you'll happily take it off their hands.
If you don't have a yard, and can not get your hands on dead leaves or grass clippings, all you really need is shredded paper. We all get enough junk mail and credit card offers in the mail to make a substantial amount of shredded paper. Invest in a good paper shredder, and you'll always be able to keep brown material for your compost on hand.
Another tip for your compost pile is to add activators to it. What are activators for? Activators give a compost pile a little nitrogen boost, so if you don't have enough green material, or you added too much brown material, activators can help. Sometimes cool weather can stagnant the composting process, so that would be another time activators come in handy. Basically, activators help to heat up your compost pile, thereby speeding up the decomposition.
What can you use as activators? Traditional activators are alfalfa meal, bone and blood meal (Note: I avoid these, because these meals come from animals likely raised in CAFOs or other concentrated animal lots where disease abounds, and I since won't eat meat produced by such places because of the likelihood of dangerous bacteria and because of ethics, and since the bones and blood of such animals is even more likely to be contaminated, why would I want to introduce that risk to my plants which I will be consuming fruits and veggies from?), cottonseed and soybean meal, and rabbit and chicken manure. So, if you raise rabbits or chickens, and feed them a good diet, you can chuck their manure right into your compost.
Okay, hold on. Where the hell am I supposed to come by cottonseed meal?! Yeah, that's exactly what I thought too. So I did some more reading. Here are two activators that are much easier to come by.
1. Remember Starbucks? Or maybe you make your coffee at home. Coffee grounds are an excellent activator. This country seems somewhat to run on coffee, so there are plenty of coffee grounds for the taking. If you use a single serve coffee maker at home with those weird little pod things, I really recommend getting one of the reusable pods. That way, you have much less waste, save a butt ton of money, can use whatever kind of coffee you want, and you can easily add your coffee grounds to the compost.
2. Okay, now don't freak out about this one. Urine. That's right, your pee. Urine is extremely high in nitrogen and therefore makes an excellent addition to compost. Everybody pees, you guys, there's no reason to be grossed out by it. If you're a male and you have a secluded back yard (please, no shocking the neighbors), or you have a compost bucket in your house, you can just go pee right on the pile, if you're hydrated. I recommend diluting the urine if you're dehydrated. Ladies, you can contribute as well, it's just like peeing in a cup at the doctor's office. I keep a wide mouth mason jar just for this purpose. An added bonus to this method is, again, everybody pees, so it's free! Also, this saves water, because instead of flushing a whole toilet bowl full of water every time you urinate, you're contributing to yummy, delicious, healthy food for microorganisms to eat, which will then nourish your fruit, vegetable or houseplants, and it helps keep a good amount of moisture in your compost. Hurray for you helping the environment, saving water and growing plants that release extremely important oxygen into the air simply all just by peeing a jar! Go you!
Note: if you pee in a jar to put on your compost, go pour it on right after you empty your bladder. Nobody needs to be having jars of pee sitting in their bathroom. That's nasty.
Also, no it is not potentially dangerous to put pee on compost. But on that note, here are some things which you should never put in the compost pile:
1. Excessively wet fruit or veggie waste (such as peels and such.) Let them dry out before you add them to the pile to avoid making your compost too soggy.
2. Wood ashes, lime or BBQ charcoal. These are either too alkaline and would raise the ideal pH levels of the compost, or they contain dangerous chemicals that could cause damage to your plants.
3. Meat, Grease, Bones or Skin. These will attract vermin, scavenger animals (think raccoons and possums), maggots (groooosssss), flies, etc, and they will produce some pretty atrocious odors.
4. Dairy products or fatty, greasy foods. These will destroy a lot of the good microorganisms in your compost and will also, like meat, attract pests and scavengers.
5. Cat, Dog or Human feces. Rabbit and chicken poop? Cool. If it's properly aged and from a healthy source, sometimes horse and cow manure. Anything else? No, no, no, no. Bad! Putting pet or human feces in compost can introduce a host of potentially extremely dangerous organisms and bacteria in your compost, and should be entirely avoided. Entirely. Can I make this more clear? NO! BAD!
6. Plastic, Metal or Glass. I shouldn't have to explain this one. They won't decompose. Period. Recycle these materials instead.
7. Any material heavily laden with pesticides, herbicides, poisons, etc. Duh.
8. Heavy cardboard. It will take far too long to decompose, often several years. You can use newspaper and corrugated cardboard, but make sure it has been shredded and soaked for a while first to make it easier to decompose.
I'm sure there are things that I'm forgetting or that I didn't cover. Please feel free to ask any questions and I'll do my best to answer them. Happy composting!
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