Make Your Own Compost to Build Better Soils

Posted on Tuesday, September 7, 2021 · Leave a Comment 

Most gardeners do some composting. Some folks compost anything that once was part of a living plant, often mixing it with barnyard waste; they turn and aerate their piles and make terrific compost in record time. Others are lazy composters who just throw kitchen scraps or weeds in a pile and let it slowly decompose over time, allowing it to gradually decompose. I’m a lazy composter. I have do much to do in the garden to take the temperature of my compost pile (though I have, actually) or check it weekly for moisture content – let alone turning it regularly.  

 

Good compost is worth its weight in gold

Let’s look at the basics: organic matter – leaves, weeds, moldy broccoli or cow manure – is digested by bacteria and fungi. These microorganisms exist in amazing numbers in biologically active soil or compost. But for them to multiply and breakdown organic matter they need a good supply of materials containing lots of carbon and a little bit of nitrogen. Both are needed to build cell walls of the little critters and the proteins and oils in their bodies.

 

Scientists tell us that by weight, your compost pile should be 25 or 30 pounds of material containing carbon for one pound of nitrogen. Carbon-containing materials include dry grass or leaves, straw – and in general, brown materials. Nitrogen-containing things are also referred to as “green” materials – fresh grass clippings, weeds and household kitchen waste. Just to confuse you, all manures – which are brown – are also full of nitrogen.

 

We keep a 55-gallon drum of dry leaves next to our compost bin. We fill it in the fall and pack down the leaves to get in as many as possible. Each time we empty our 5-gallon bucket of kitchen scraps into the bin, we take some leaves and add them on top. This adds carbon to the pile, and helps a little to keep flies from finding the goodies. These leaves are certainly is not in the ratio of carbon to nitrogen we need for the fastest composting, but it helps. We count on the kitchen scraps to have some carbon, too.

 

For weeds, we just pile them up and let them decompose over time. We suffer from an infestation of goutweed, a noxious invasive. We try to keep any goutweed out of piles that will eventually be used for compost as even a scrap of root can start a new place for it to grow. Other invasives we do not have – but would separate if we had them include Japanese knotweed and black swallow wort. In fact, anything invasive should not go in any compost pile you hope to use later.

 

What else should stay out of compost piles? Meat scraps, oils and fat, dog and cat feces. Shredded newspapers and office paper can be used in compost piles – they are carbon-based, and their inks now are made from soy products. Shiny color inserts and magazines I avoid using. If you add shredded paper to your compost pile, mix it in well – thick layers will not decompose easily.

 

What about weed seeds in compost causing problems when you use your homemade compost? Ideally, if you are doing everything right, your compost pile will heat up enough for a few days to kill the weed seeds. That means curing it for three days at 140 degrees F. I ‘ve done experiments using annual grass seed and a soil thermometer, and found that even day or two at 135 will kill those seeds. Weed seeds may be tougher, of course. And it is tough to get an entire compost pile hot at the same time.

 

So how do you get your compost to heat up? You need to layer green (Nitrogen-containing) and brown (Carbon-based) materials. The key is the nitrogen layer. Fresh grass cuttings are high in nitrogen and easily collected with a bagger. Mix them in your compost pile, and it will heat up. Poultry manure, or any manure is also high in nitrogen and will heat up your pile if mixed in. Compost thermometers look like meat thermometers with a longer probe, and are sold at garden centers or on-line.

 

Moisture level is important for making compost. The pile should be neither dry nor soggy. A handful should feel about as moist as a squeezed-out sponge. I place tree branches underneath a new compost pile to help with drainage. Never put a pile where a roof dumps water.

 

Your compost should be well aerated. You want aerobic decomposition. So some gardeners turn and fluff their compost regularly, which will help with that.

 

I add compost to the planting holes for my tomatoes and kale, and work some in for everything, in fact. Why? Because even though I have great soil, compost gets oxidized, breaks down, and gets used up. Plants extract minerals from it. Beneficial bacteria and fungi use it to build their bodies. I try to keep my soil fluffy – roots do better in soil that is loose and aerated – and compost helps me to create that most desirable of soils: a nice loam.

 

Even though I make compost, I also buy it by the truckload. It is available from farms, garden centers and others. Ask for hot-processed, aged compost to avoid weeds.

 

There are no poor gardeners, just poor soil. Add compost, and perhaps a little organic fertilizer and you will have a “green thumb.” It takes time to make compost and build soils, which is why you should start now!

 

You may reach Henry at henry.homeyer@comcast.net or PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 93746. He is the author of 4 gardening books.

 

 

 

Filed under Article · Tagged with composting, how to build a compost bin

Composting

Most of us have our own insecurities. We might be insecure about some aspect of our looks, or how we did in school, or perhaps about our athletic abilities. For gardeners, our compost piles are often a source of mild angst. We think we should be able to make compost that looks and smells like the black rich soil in just three months. Some go to great lengths: turning their compost piles and adding grass clippings or manure to get their compost piles to heat up. Yet most of us never have a “textbook perfect pile”. I say, “So what?” I buy it by the truckload as I can’t make enough with kitchen scraps – and it’s not convenient to dig it out from under a pile of freshly pulled weeds.

That being said, all of us should have a compost pile, or more than one. Compost piles keep food scraps out of the waste stream, and weeds eventually break down and turn to that magical dark compost. But I say 2 or 3 years is a reasonable time to let a pile slowly digest its contents. In fact, I recently harvested some black gold from a pile I had made and abandoned about 20 years ago. I used it as soil for a new planting of hostas, and they seem very pleased it.

I have a dog, Daphne, a corgi that is quite a rascal. She loves to eat anything, and will roll in almost anything – the stinkier the better. I always need to have a way to keep her out of the compost pile that I use for kitchen scraps, and recently built a new one using pallets I got for free. Wood pallets are generally available – everything these days is shipped on them.

Finished compost bin

I decided to make a compost bin with a low profile – Daffy is short and not much of a jumper. I used a reciprocating saw to cut the pallets down to a more manageable size – instead of building a bin that is 4 feet tall, I only needed one half that height.

I placed one full-sized pallet on the ground and arranged four shortened pallets around it. The bottom pallet keeps the pile from sitting in collected water or on soggy soil in rainy times. Compost does not want to be soggy. I connected the four sides using building wire – either 14-2 or 12-2 wire is fine, or nylon rope would work. I just twisted the wire around the vertical corner pieces. When done, I put landscape fabric on the bottom to keep material from falling through between the slats.

What will go in that new compost pile? I’ll toss in vegetable by-products like carrot tops and moldy broccoli. Old flower arrangements. Any organic matter that can break down with time: stale bread, tea bags, egg shells, and peanut shells and corn husks will go in mine. But no meat products, vegetable oil, dog poop or kitty litter – the latter two could carry diseases or parasites.

Detail of corner connection

According to the experts, most of what goes in a compost pile should be carbon-based: brown leaves and dried grass or weeds, for example. A little nitrogen-rich material should also be added – things like fresh cut green grass, cow or chicken manure, fresh vegetable scraps. The ideal ratio is 30 parts brown matter to 1 part green matter. But our kitchen waste is generally high in green matter, low in brown matter, so it doesn’t break down as well as it should. In addition to the kitchen compost, I have separate piles for garden waste and these are easier to get “cooking” and breaking down the organic matter.

What can you do to improve the balance in your kitchen compost? Rake up some dry lawn clippings and put a layer in the compost bin before adding a bucket of kitchen scraps. Or if you have a leaf pile, occasionally add some to the bin. You could even buy a bale of hay to layer into your compost bin. You are trying to encourage microorganisms to break down the vegetable material, and they need lots of carbon and only a little nitrogen to build their little bodies and reproduce.

A compost pile needs oxygen in order to encourage aerobic bacteria, which are the good ones. Anaerobic bacteria thrive in a low-oxygen environment and are the ones that produce foul odors. The smell of rotten eggs, for example, can be produced in a compost pile that is wet and compacted and doesn’t have a good carbon-nitrogen ratio. If yours smells bad, fluff it up and layer in some hay or dry leaves.

Daphne and the new compost bin

There are plastic compost bins available and even rotating compost bins. Those are great for urban gardeners – they do a great job of keeping out skunks and raccoons. But they are relatively expensive and do not necessarily make compost any faster than the simple bin described above.

If you really want fast action, you’ll need to have multiple bins and turn the fermenting compost from one to another, adding carbon or nitrogen as needed. A compost pile that is working well heats up past 130 degrees, killing most seeds. But, as I said in my first book, you may need to quit your day job to tend a compost pile that works perfectly. I’d rather spend my time weeding – or goofing off.

Henry Homeyer will not be answering questions this week. His web site is www.Gardening-guy.com. He is the author of 4 gardening books.

Copyright © 2014 Henry Homeyer

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