Composting is easy to do at home and super beneficial for a home gardener and sustainable home.
Some benefits include: convenient use of food scraps, nutritious mulch for fertile soil, and easy physical activity to do at home.
All you need to do is choose a spot in your yard that gets light but not direct sunlight and is somewhat sheltered from the rain.
In this post, I will share the suggestions and tips we apply in our composting practice.
Nonetheless, there are numerous types of composting—entire books and websites are devoted to this art. This is inspirational because, generally, once you grasp the fundamentals of how plants decompose, you can create your own version of composting tailored to your needs.
Before meeting Brian, who constructed the lattice setup we currently use, I just dug a 1-foot-deep hole in my backyard and started layering food scraps with garden trimmings. I eventually discovered that there are city bylaws, so it's advisable to review them before starting this process!
LAYERING
For optimal compost break-down, we need to balance CARBON & NITROGEN.
Commonly referred to as a ratio of BROWN to GREEN.
The ratio is said to be optimal at 30:1 (C:N).
This is easily achieved with awareness, layering and stirring the compost pile.
Fresh plants are referred to as green because they have nitrogen when they are still alive. After a plant dies, the nitrogen content fades, and they turn brown, therefore instead bringing carbon to the mix.
Types of BROWN / CARBON- dried grass, dried leaves, wood chips, kraft paper, ash from fire pits or charcoal BBQs, pine needles.
Types of GREEN / NITROGEN- food scraps, eggshells, peels from veggies and fruits, stalks and grass clippings, weeds from the garden, coffee & tea grounds. We also put cleaned bones, animal food scraps, and birds/mice our cat hunted.
Now, I wrote above a ratio of 30:1; however, it is tough to keep things perfect all the time. If you drink coffee and eat veggies and fruits frequently, the supply of green is constant, whereas the supply of brown can be intermittent.
Think ahead
What do I mean by this? Well, brown is super easy to have in the fall—leaves are falling everywhere, garden cleanup is on the go, and a bunch of plants are at the end of their life cycle.
So generally, to ensure I always have a constant supply of brown to balance out my compost pile, I gather and keep as many leaf bags as I can in autumn and store them in my shed.
For example, I sweep up all the leaves from the local big trees and venture down my street to pick up leaf bags from people's driveways. I store the leaves in a dry place for use all year round.
We also began to call local arborists to dump wood chips on our property. These are awesome for mulching the surface of the garden, for moisture retention, and for adding into the compost pile to manage water levels.
MOISTURE / AIR
So, along with managing the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio, it is important to be aware of how moist the mix is and that it has adequate aeration. To do this, regular stirring/flipping and poking the pile is useful. I use a pitchfork and shovel. Additionally, if in a drought, you can spray your pile with a hose. If things get too dry, worm action will decrease.
BELOW: Pretty cool to think at one time there were full eggshells, fruits, and veggies in there...
HOW TO LAYER
I use a bowl underneath our sink to gather kitchen scraps, and when it's full, which takes about 5 days, we tend to the compost.
First, stir and poke the pile. With a fork, stab as deep as you can go at an angle and pull up to loosen the mix. Stir in the sides and separate the middle.
Depending on how damp the mix is, add a layer of leaves before your kitchen scraps.
Never leave kitchen scraps (or even wet grass) on the top layer, as this attracts wasps, rodents, smells, and general attention you don't want. Always top with a layer of brown and stir to contain the smell and keep the pile looking nice.
Wood chips are a nice way to separate compost that is sticking together and to balance moisture. I add these intermittently. Sawdust is also great for doing this (just be sure it's not from pressure-treated wood).
Charcoal and wood ash act as compost 'activators,' so I add these intermittently to keep things on pace.
Tips for getting things garden ready
To accelerate the use of my compost, I set up two bins in our backyard. I concentrate on adding fresh scraps to one side at a time. This allows me to stir and activate one side, making it ready for quicker use in my garden, while I add scraps to the other side. When I take out the finished compost, I switch sides.
The Final Steps
When I'm about a week away from adding compost to my garden, I start extracting the mix from my compost pile that's nearly ready.
Using a wheelbarrow or a separate pile on a tarp, I mix my compost with manure, topsoil, and amendments like bone meal, blood meal, algae powder, or fish emulsion. These are all nourishing natural fertilizers recommended by my farming mentors.
I don't use all these amendments at once; instead, I've learned to recognize signals from my plants to better understand when they are deficient and weary. Check our Google Photos for signs of discoloration, curling, and rot, as these are related to infection and nutrient deficiencies.
Activation & conclusion
If possible, I allow the extracted compost pile to aerate for approximately a week. This gives it time to settle before incorporating it into my garden. During this period, you can continue to stir the pile and/or spray it with water if there hasn't been any rain.
I've discovered that this method successfully accelerates my compost usage while maintaining soil pH and ensuring an even distribution of natural fertilizer throughout my entire garden.
Great indicators of a healthy compost pile: insects (especially worms), seeds from veggie & fruit scraps sprouting, heat/warmth rising/radiating from the pile.
Thanks for reading,
Samantha
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