Garden Gold: Making Compost
Happy Monday, or happy whatever day you happen to be reading this! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and are looking forward to a fantastic week.
It’s October, which means that we are thoroughly nestled into fall in Washington state. And fall means we have more leaves than we can possibly do anything with. So, I’m going to be making a compost pile! A couple of them, probably, considering how many trees we have around the property.
Check out the whole process on my YouTube
The first step to composting is to pick a spot and build/buy your bin.
I like to have my pile in the garden, because it’s closest to where I’m going to spread it when it’s done. There are bins available to buy that can be started on a porch or deck, and there are even bins that can be kept in your kitchen if you’ve got limited space.
There are all sorts of methods that people will suggest, and none of them are wrong, it all depends on what ends up working best for you. If there is a garden center close to where you live, they will be able to answer questions about composting and different types of bins you can purchase to build your compost heap.
I just use four pallets stacked up in a square shape. You can get pallets for free from a lot of stores. Just call and ask. I had these ones lying around, but in the past, I’ve gotten them from a local building supply store. They don’t need to be pretty; they just need to stand and be solid enough to not collapse immediately.
The next step is to fill it up.
A successful compost heap has three main ingredients: carbon, nitrogen, and moisture. The terms carbon and nitrogen can be used interchangeably with brown and green materials, respectively.
There are several common options for both carbon and nitrogen materials that break down well into beautiful compost:
Carbon/brown materials
- Wood chips or clean wood ash
- Straw
- Dry leaves
- Shrub prunings
- Pine needles
- Newspaper, shredded paper or cardboard
- Corn cobs and stalks
- Coffee grounds
- Dryer lint.
Nitrogen/green materials
- Manure from chickens/cows/horses/pigs
- Flowers or flower cuttings
- Fruit and vegetable food scraps
- Grass clippings and green yard waste
- Seaweed and kelp
- Used tea bags and leaves.
You’re going to want to disperse the brown and green materials evenly throughout your pile to ensure that there is a good mixture to keep the pile active and breaking down into dirt. You can layer your materials; brown, then green, then brown, and so on. Another method you can use is to mix your brown and green materials together in the heap. One way to do this is to mow your yard without raking up the dead leaves. This mixes the brown and green together in the bag and all you have to do is dump it into the heap.
There are also ways to build a compost heap that don’t require turning of the material to aerate the pile, but it requires adding in layers of straw to allow airflow in the heap.
Sawdust, ash, and wood chips are high in carbon, so you don’t need a lot of any of these items. And you want to make sure there isn’t anything mixed in with them, like oil from a chainsaw.
There are a couple things that are recommended that you don’t use in compost heaps.
Meat and bones are generally on that list. They can compost, but they take a bit longer than other organic materials, and can attract pests. Most people don’t compost these because of those reasons. That said, there are composting bins specifically designed to handle these items. They will compost eventually in a traditional heap as well. You just have to be more patient with that heap.
It’s best to stay away from pet manure, especially if you’re going to be using the compost on food crops. It’s just not safe, because of the parasites and bacteria that can live in the poop. Livestock manure, like cow manure, is safe for composting because it doesn’t carry the same bacteria as dog or cat poop, and the parasites are generally non-transferable to humans.
It’s also good to avoid adding perennial weeds or diseased plants to the compost, because this can spread seeds or diseases to the areas you plan to spread your compost.
You’ve got a pile made, all that’s left is to wet the it.
Wetting your pile is as simple as turning on a hose and letting it run until you see water dripping out from under the lowest part of the pile. That indicates that it’s been wetted thoroughly.
Fun Facts!
Beer is a great ingredient to add to your compost if your heap is lacking in nitrogen (green materials) and moisture. Beer contains both nitrogen and yeast in it, which will help the other materials in your heap break down faster.
Urine is also high in nitrogen and can be added to a nitrogen-deficient compost heap. And since urine is sterile, it won’t add any unsavory parasites or bacteria to your compost.
You’ll just want to be careful not to over-saturate your heap with liquid, since this can kill the bacteria that breaks down the materials into dirt.
Now you can set it and forget it…for a while.
Most composting bins and piles need to be turned. There are a couple methods to build a heap that doesn’t require turning, but in general you’re going to need to get into your heap and turn it.
What type of bin you’re using, and how hot the pile gets, will determine how often you need to turn it. On average, you can expect to turn a traditional heap every two to four weeks, and with a composting bin every four to five weeks between turning.
So how do you know when your heap is ready to turn?
When the center of your compost pile reaches 160F, it’s time to turn it. When it gets to this temperature, the oxygen is getting used up faster than it can replenish. The purpose of turning the pile is to replenish that used oxygen and continue breaking the materials down into dirt. Just use a shovel or a pitchfork and dig the pile out so the stuff that was on the top is now at the bottom and vice versa.
A great tool to test the temperature is a compost thermometer.
Your compost is finished when it looks and smells like earth or dirt and the pile has cooled.
Simple as that. If it looks like dirt, it’s cooled off, and you can’t find any recognizable food, leaf, or plant chunks, then it’s ready to use.
I hope this guide helps in your composting conquests. I’d love to hear from you, so don’t be afraid to comment or email me.
Have a freaking awesome rest of your week, and I’ll catch you all next time!
-Alyx
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