MAY 2009 - Working Your Compost Heap

Jerry Brunetti, well-known organic advocate and popular speaker for ACRES, USA, made this statement at a compost workshop some years ago: "Almost complete mineralization occurs when compost is created," no matter the ingredients used. Think what that means: the process of composting takes raw materials and breaks them down into balanced nutrition for your soil -- that's amazing!

Last month you started collecting material for your compost heap -- kitchen scraps (DO include coffee filters, unwaxed paper plates, napkins, and paper towels; DON'T include bones, fat trimmed from meat, cooking oil or grease), newspaper, yard waste (such as shrub prunings, leaves, and grass clippings), and maybe even found a supply of farm manure such as horse, cow, rabbit, goat, sheep, llama, or poultry litter. I stockpile raked dry leaves in the fall, packing them tightly into contractor-sized trash bags. Along with spoiled hay or straw, leaves are great for adding carbon along with oxygen, due to the shape and texture of the material. Running leaves, newspaper and other dry materials through your chipper/shredder will greatly reduce the bulk of the heap and the smaller sized matter enables a quicker breakdown to occur. But at the same time, smaller particles pack down quicker, which reduces available oxygen to the micro-organisms doing all the work, so more frequent turning of the pile may be necessary to introduce more oxygen.

Within a few days of building the heap, on a cool morning you may see vapor or steam rising from it. That's the moment you shout, "Aha! It's working!" and grab your camera, take pictures, and run and tell all your family members and neighbors. No steam? Do what I do and push your fist into the middle of the pile--is it warm? Then it's heating up which means the bazillions of microorganisms are doing their job, breaking down all those substances into nutrient-rich soil food. Is the center of the heap cold and soggy? Get out the pitchfork--the pile is too wet, which means oxygen-deprived. If the heap is anerobic, or without oxygen, the critters that do the work die off and that means a stinky pile. To add oxygen, turn the pile with the fork moving the stuff at the top to the bottom, and the edges to the center. This will add the much-needed oxygen and dry out the dampest material.

Turn the pile as above whenever the heat is gone, dampen as needed, and it'll start cooking again. If pile-turning aerobic exercise isn't your cup of tea, you don't HAVE to stir it up. If you can wait about a year, through four seasons, you will have compost.

No ground space for a compost pile? Need only a little compost for a little garden? Don't fret -- you can make compost in a container. Compost containers in a myriad of sizes and shapes are available for purchase for almost any size garden - if money is no object. Years ago, my "back yard" was a 4'X4' concrete patio. I grew beans, cucumbers and tomatoes in old barrels that were cut in half. I also composted in a half-barrel. The most necessary requirement for a compost container is that it can drain - a half-barrel with a few holes drilled in the bottom was perfect. A thick layer of shredded newspaper and leaves went in first, followed by kitchen scraps that had been pureed in the blender (remember, the smaller the particles, the quicker the breakdown). A cup or two of rabbit manure and the weekly aquarium cleaning water supplied the necessary nitrogen and moisture. After a spring shower, I collected earthworms from the pavement, a little soil from the lawn and added them to the container. A lattice lid admitted air but prevented critters from digging. When the container was nearly full, I stopped adding materials and let the worms and soil microbes do their thing. Stirring the contents gently every two weeks resulted in fine textured compost (and lots of worms) in less than 8 weeks.

When you no longer recognize the heap's original ingredients, your compost is ready. Oh, you might see a few bits of twigs or the rough ends of cornstalks, but you won't see apple cores, egg shells, paper towels or tea bags. Add compost to your planting holes, potting mix, scatter in the furrow, spread over the garden bed or the whole garden before tilling, feed to your chickens, or make compost tea.

In a future column, we'll cover the fascinating world of compost tea and why chickens should be offered compost to eat.