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COOKING COMPOST by Kathleen Pyle
Illustrations by Gary Palmer Country Gardens Magazine Summer 1997
If you garden, you already have what it takes to make your own compost. Four basic ingredients - air, water, carbon (brown materials), and nitrogen (green materials) - combine to make compost you can use to enrich your garden. At the Country Gardens test gardens, we built a bank of compost to turn or soil into rich humus. Here is how you can do the same.
COMPOST BINS To start, you need a place to put your compost. Loose compost piles will work, but they are messy and a lot of valuable materials may wash or blow away. A compost bin can be a large plastic garbage can, a frame constructed of 2x4s, a tiered structure or a plastic tumbler. If you make a wooden bin, pick a wood that is rot-resistant, such as cedar or redwood. For our test garden, we built a cedar bin with three compartments that allow us to shift the compost pile in stages. Composting containers should be at least 3x3x3 feet, to allow enough volume for heat to build up. Anything larger than 5 feet, however, may be too cumbersome to turn. Side ventilation and a covered container also are essential for successful composting. To increase ventilation, place your compost bin on a "cookie rack": Use a wooden pallet or a platform of sticks or thick, fibrous debris (we used cornstalks in ours). If a garbage can is your composter, poke a series of 1-inch holes around the circumference of the can near the bottom. A lid or tarp over the compost prevents it from being waterlogged by rain or snow.
LAYER GREEN AND BROWN Good compost cooks tell us that the best blended heaps contain brown and green layers in a 3:1 ratio. Brown materials, such as shredded leaves, chopped-up branches, wood chips, and straw, contribute carbon. Green materials, such as kitchen scraps (no meats or bones), grass clippings, and discarded plants and plant waste, as well as well-rotted and dried manure, supply nitrogen. To keep your compost pest and weed free, don't add weeds that have gone to seed or diseased plants. Although grass clippings are a good source of nitrogen, they can mat down in a compost pile and develop bad odors. To avoid that, mix them with lighter organic materials before tossing them in the bin. Build up the pile in layers, starting with a 6 to 8 inch layer of brown and green material topped with a 1 or 2 inch layer of garden loam. To provide the nitrogen needed for the microbes to break down the compost, add a topdressing of commercial fertilizer. |
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Use 1.5 to 2 pints of a complete-analysis fertilizer such as 12-12-12 or 10-6-4. Continue to layer until the pile is 3 to 5 feet high. To hasten decomposition, chop course materials before adding them to the bin.
AIR AND WATER To sustain the composting process, your bin needs air and water. A ventilated compost bin provides some air supply and additionally, when you stir, or aerate, a compost pile, you expose more material for the microbes to process and speed the breakdown process. It also prevents materials such as leaves from becoming matted and smelly. Using a pitchfork, turn the compost about once a week during the gardening season. Sprinkle water over the pile after turning or whenever you add a layer of dry materials. The pile should glisten and the contents should be as damp as a wrung-out sponge. Moisture accelerates the decomposition and creates the ideal humidity for hardworking microbes. Make the top of your compost heap concave in the center to prevent water runoff. A compost pile may become too wet - your clue is a rotten smell. Remedy this by shifting the pile and by adding more dry materials. Or toss in handfuls of shredded dry leaves every 6 to 8 inches in the pile.
'COLD' VS. 'HOT' COMPOSTING Experts create compost heaps that actually steam. Steam signals that the microbial activity is at its busiest. If you see steam or suspect that |
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