Composting 101

BY MEREDETH BARZEN

Composting is one of those things that always sounds like such a good idea, but very few people actually want to put into practice. There are a lot of superficial obstacles: Will it smell? Will it rot through my lawn? Will it attract wild animals? Will I have to touch it? Don’t be scared: composting, when executed correctly, can be a remarkably cheap and easy way to turn your garbage into rich, nutritious, all-natural fertilizer. To get a killer compost pile going in your own yard, just follow these tips, taken from www.vegweb.com/composting.

—Start by deciding whether or not you want to use a bin to contain your compost. Binless piles work well enough, but can be messy and more labor-intensive. You can either build your own bin or buy one all ready to go from a number of retailers. Just Google “compost bins” to find stores (both online and on the street) who sell them.

—Remember at all times that composting relies entirely on tiny microbes eating your garbage and turning it into delicious plant food. With this in mind, try to create a nice dining environment for them. Make sure their restaurant isn’t too hot or too cold or too crowded. Above all, make sure it’s not too stuffy. Microbes breathe, and need air to do their work. To ensure that they get it, fluff your pile with a garden tool every once in a while to break up suffocating mats of grass clumps and wet leaves. If your pile looks especially oppressive, try folding in some hay or straw to keep the ventilation moving. Proper air circulation will also keep the smelly anaerobic microbes away.

—Keep your pile “as moist as a wrung-out sponge”, says the VegWeb site. As with most of composting, the Aristotelian mean is the goal: neither too wet (put a tarp over your pile to keep the rain out) nor too dry (water it). You get the idea.
—Don’t serve your microbes foods that would be hard on their stomach (chemically treated woods, diseased plants, human or pet wastes, meat, bones, fatty foods, or fresh weeds, for example). Grass, hay, kitchen wastes, leaves, straw, garden wastes, wood scraps and sawdust are all delicacies to the microbial palate. Also, try to serve a good mix of what the composting crowd calls “browns” (dry and dead plant materials such as straw, dry brown weeds, autumn leaves and wood chips or sawdust) and “greens” (fresh plant materials, kitchen fruit and vegetable scraps, green leaves, coffee grounds and tea bags and fresh horse manure). A balanced brown-to-green ratio will help every other aspect of your composting as well, and give you the best end product.

—Your compost is finished when it takes on a dark color and smells like soil. Also, you shouldn’t be able to recognize any vestige of its former ingredients.
—Go to vegweb.com/composting for more information, keep those microbes happy, and enjoy your free fertilizer! ||