Composting Made Easy
Can you believe people have written entire books on making compost? I actually find that very hard to believe, but put enough fill in anything and it can look real.
So, you don't want to compost because - it's dirty, smelly, time consuming, space consuming? Did I miss anything?
Done right, it's none of the above. And there are several ways to make compost, so you can find a way that suits you completely.
Apartment-posting
If you're like my sister and live in an apartment in an area that doesn't recycle anything, your garbage bags start getting big and numerous. You could cut down on the amount of stuff you throw out a couple of ways.
Worms - I'm not big into worm farms. People tire of them, and rather than give them away or destroy them, they get released into 'the wild'. The only problem with this is they eat too much too quickly and are rapidly destroying our forest floors. But, you can make a small bin out of a rubbermade container and feed the little guys all of your vegetable materials and newspaper. Use what's left for your houseplants or give to a neighbor. Either way works.
5 gallon bucket - put an ad on Craig's List or find a local community garden to offer your vegetable material to them for composting. They'll take it with a glad heart! A couple times a week, or once a week - whichever works best for you, and you're finished with it!
Home Composting
If you're lucky enough to live where you can compost outside, GREAT! You're options are far more plentiful. You can do either listed above as well as a few other ways.
Hot Composting
This is where you make a little effort once every week or two. You mix grass clippings, weeds, leaves, veggie scraps from the kitchen all together and literally let it cook. Given the right moisture content, which is about that of a rung out sponge, it'll get up to 140 degrees with little effort. You turn it at least every two weeks to give it oxygen - just stir it up - and it'll get hot all over again. This can be ready in as little as a month, but I usually just keep adding to the pile and let it cook all summer. It depends on how quickly you need the compost.
Cold Composting
This is where you add all of the same stuff as in Hot Composting, but don't bother turning it. It'll take longer for this to be ready, a full year, but is far easier to maintain. Build it and forget it. Take the top of the pile to start the new pile the next spring and use all of the bottom material in your flower beds, vegetable garden, container plants, etc.
Trench Composting
Yes, it's as easy as it sounds. Dig a trench - you decide the length - about 10"-12" deep. Fill the trench with your composting material, and cover it with the soil as you go. You can also do this as holes, if you don't have room for a trench. You do this right in your flower beds - plant right on top of the trench! - your vegetable gardens (put the trench or holes in the paths), or right in your lawn (the holes)
Blender Composting
If you have very little room in your yard for a pile, combine the Trench method with this method and the space saved will be phenomenal. Put your vegetable scraps in the blender, add just enough water to cover, and blend it until it's a slurry mush. Pour into the whole, cover and it's gone.
Tips
Hot compost does best when it's in 1 cubic yard piles. 3'x3'x3'. This is why I keep adding to the pile. As it breaks down, it gets smaller. So, I keep adding to it to maintain the proper size. By fall, you've been able to add all of your material from the summer and it will now become a cold compost pile, working more slowly, but just as well. Keep adding to it all winter and use the top few inches to start your pile in the spring.
Cold compost has no size limits. It can be as big or small as you wish. But, it does take a full year for it to fully break down everything, including seeds. So you must be patient with it.
Do NOT add anything with protein in it - milk, cheese, or meat. This will attract wildlife you'd rather not have and will smell horribly.
The smaller the pieces of material to be composted, the faster it will compost. If you place an entire head of lettuce in a compost pile, you'll still be able to recognize it as that head of lettuce up to a month later. But if you chop it or put it in the blender, you won't recognize it within a week. That is ideal!
Compost should look like dirt, but not feel like dirt. It'll be a rich brown with nothing that looks like grass, leaves, vegetable scraps and whatever else you put in. It'll be slightly damp, but won't cake or clump, and won't have that musty smell dirt so often has. It'll smell slightly sweet, but not like yeast.
Add it to anything you want to have grow well. Considering it's what nature has used from the beginning of time, it can't be bad!
Best of all - it's FREE. And doesn't go in the landfill! It's hard to beat that combination.
Links to More Information
From the EPA
From Cornell
From Farm Aid
Composting 101
So, you don't want to compost because - it's dirty, smelly, time consuming, space consuming? Did I miss anything?
Done right, it's none of the above. And there are several ways to make compost, so you can find a way that suits you completely.
Apartment-posting
If you're like my sister and live in an apartment in an area that doesn't recycle anything, your garbage bags start getting big and numerous. You could cut down on the amount of stuff you throw out a couple of ways.
Worms - I'm not big into worm farms. People tire of them, and rather than give them away or destroy them, they get released into 'the wild'. The only problem with this is they eat too much too quickly and are rapidly destroying our forest floors. But, you can make a small bin out of a rubbermade container and feed the little guys all of your vegetable materials and newspaper. Use what's left for your houseplants or give to a neighbor. Either way works.
5 gallon bucket - put an ad on Craig's List or find a local community garden to offer your vegetable material to them for composting. They'll take it with a glad heart! A couple times a week, or once a week - whichever works best for you, and you're finished with it!
Home Composting
If you're lucky enough to live where you can compost outside, GREAT! You're options are far more plentiful. You can do either listed above as well as a few other ways.
Hot Composting
This is where you make a little effort once every week or two. You mix grass clippings, weeds, leaves, veggie scraps from the kitchen all together and literally let it cook. Given the right moisture content, which is about that of a rung out sponge, it'll get up to 140 degrees with little effort. You turn it at least every two weeks to give it oxygen - just stir it up - and it'll get hot all over again. This can be ready in as little as a month, but I usually just keep adding to the pile and let it cook all summer. It depends on how quickly you need the compost.
Cold Composting
This is where you add all of the same stuff as in Hot Composting, but don't bother turning it. It'll take longer for this to be ready, a full year, but is far easier to maintain. Build it and forget it. Take the top of the pile to start the new pile the next spring and use all of the bottom material in your flower beds, vegetable garden, container plants, etc.
Trench Composting
Yes, it's as easy as it sounds. Dig a trench - you decide the length - about 10"-12" deep. Fill the trench with your composting material, and cover it with the soil as you go. You can also do this as holes, if you don't have room for a trench. You do this right in your flower beds - plant right on top of the trench! - your vegetable gardens (put the trench or holes in the paths), or right in your lawn (the holes)
Blender Composting
If you have very little room in your yard for a pile, combine the Trench method with this method and the space saved will be phenomenal. Put your vegetable scraps in the blender, add just enough water to cover, and blend it until it's a slurry mush. Pour into the whole, cover and it's gone.
Tips
Hot compost does best when it's in 1 cubic yard piles. 3'x3'x3'. This is why I keep adding to the pile. As it breaks down, it gets smaller. So, I keep adding to it to maintain the proper size. By fall, you've been able to add all of your material from the summer and it will now become a cold compost pile, working more slowly, but just as well. Keep adding to it all winter and use the top few inches to start your pile in the spring.
Cold compost has no size limits. It can be as big or small as you wish. But, it does take a full year for it to fully break down everything, including seeds. So you must be patient with it.
Do NOT add anything with protein in it - milk, cheese, or meat. This will attract wildlife you'd rather not have and will smell horribly.
The smaller the pieces of material to be composted, the faster it will compost. If you place an entire head of lettuce in a compost pile, you'll still be able to recognize it as that head of lettuce up to a month later. But if you chop it or put it in the blender, you won't recognize it within a week. That is ideal!
Compost should look like dirt, but not feel like dirt. It'll be a rich brown with nothing that looks like grass, leaves, vegetable scraps and whatever else you put in. It'll be slightly damp, but won't cake or clump, and won't have that musty smell dirt so often has. It'll smell slightly sweet, but not like yeast.
Add it to anything you want to have grow well. Considering it's what nature has used from the beginning of time, it can't be bad!
Best of all - it's FREE. And doesn't go in the landfill! It's hard to beat that combination.
Links to More Information
From the EPA
From Cornell
From Farm Aid
Composting 101
posted by Leslie at
9:02 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home