Making organic gardening compost is a way to turn kitchen waste products into a valuable resource for your garden.
Why?
Organic gardening compost provides many requirements for the organic gardener. So much so that it’s tempting to argue that no organic gardener should ever be without his own organic compost pile. Making your own compost isn’t just a gardening issue. It has implications for the conservation of valuable energy, reducing pollution, protecting the environment, feeding your family, reducing waste and many other ‘green’ ideals.
Often, valuable organic gardening compost can be made from household kitchen waste that would otherwise end up in landfill sites. Burying valuable raw composting materials like this in a landfill space is both wasteful and environmentally unacceptable. Making your own compost is just a simple step you can take to make a valuable product from waste and an equally valuable contribution to your local environment.
It’s easy to build a compost, but to build the best product requires both knowledge and skill. Composting is a process of decomposition involving bacteria, fungi, nematodes, worms and many other organisms that work on organic matter and break it down. This normally happens slowly in a natural environment. Compost makers are used to speed up that natural process to quickly make usable compost in large quantities (wherever possible) for your garden.
By making and using compost, you can add nutrients and structure to your soil. Compost improves water holding capacity. It encourages the formation of beneficial soil-borne organisms and it also makes soil nutrients more available to your plants. Organic gardening compost is useful when starting and planting seeds and young trees. It’s helpful for general soil improvement and it improves the growth of flowers and vegetables, perennials, shrubs, soft fruit, fruit trees and lawns. You can use it as mulch and for potting plants and seedlings.
But how do you get started?
How?
Build your compost so that it has contact with the soil or mix some soil with the compost material added. The organisms in the soil contact the compost pile and enter into the process. A well built compost pile doesn’t attract pests, nor smell particularly.
Compost bins are helpful to contain the materials, but not at all necessary. Prepare an area for accumulation of the raw materials for the compost pile preferably with easy access to the rest of your garden. Wooden compost bins help in keeping your raw material confined and if you can have three or four bins ‘brewing’ at the same time.
What goes in the compost bin? The supply of compost materials is almost limitless. Anything that is biodegradable and contains things usable and available to microorganisms can be composted. The ideal carbon to nitrogen ratio (C/N) for stimulating the composting organisms is 25:1 – 30:1. Finished compost is 14:1 – 20:1.
High carbon materials are usually dry and bulky. Examples are hay, straw, autumn leaves, sawdust and pine needles. The C/N ratio varies from 500:1 for sawdust to 12:1 for alfalfa hay. High nitrogen materials include animal manures, grass clippings, table scraps, fish waste, seaweed, general garden waste, weeds, etc. Other useful additives can bolster the micro-nutrients of the finished compost. Examples are limestone, phosphates, sand, and bonfire ash.
We are trying to start and maintain a controlled aerobic fermentation process when we build compost. Generally, if we mix roughly one part of high carbon materials and two parts of high nitrogen materials, the C/N ratio will be about right. In living topsoil, only about half the total volume of the soil is solid. The remainder is air and water. Our organic gardening compost should be like that too. So the particle size of our material is best fairly fine. Grind or chip very coarse materials like tough vegetable stalks and twigs if you can. If you can’t, don’t worry about it, it’ll just take longer. Particle size can be from dust-like up to 1/2 inch in size.
The pile should be moist to the touch, but not so wet that you can squeeze water out by hand. Layer in the materials alternating high carbon materials with high nitrogen materials in the ratio as shown above. Add 5 – 10 percent garden soil throughout the pile. Layers can be 6 inches deep or so.
Build compost piles well and microorganisms grow rapidly and temperature will quickly climb. Temperatures can spike up to 170F over a few days or weeks. The temperature will then drop off but remain elevated for a few days or up to several weeks or even months. Turning the pile can speed or slow the reactions especially if the mix is less than ideal. If the mix is right, the pile need not be turned or it may need turning only once.
Do not worry, even if conditions are far from ideal you’ll still get usable compost. Remember, this is a natural process. If the compost pile doesn’t heat up much, it will just take longer to decompose and the quality may be slightly inferior. Maybe weed seeds will still be viable but, it will still do the soil good!
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