Begin your outdoor pile with a six inch layer of straw and/or small sticks on the bottom of your compost enclosure to encourage air circulation. Then get to work on your nitrogen to carbon ratio. Hartman suggests equal parts food waste (nitrogen) and equal parts of everything else that can and should be composted. Here’s the list of everything else:

• Leaves, straw, grass clippings — don’t kid yourself, grass clippings sealed in a plastic bag bound for the landfill are an offense against nature. But in your compost pile, they add nitrogen and other nutrients that will make their way back into the soil.

• Coffee grounds — save some straight for your roses and other flowering shrubs.

• Paper products — coffee filters if you’re using the disposable kind; shredded cardboard; newspaper, or other non-glossy paper, paper towels, napkins, and non-wax-coated paper plates.

Compostable food (Photo: Ockra, dreamstime.com)

The Rodale Institute experts advise a mix of three-fourths “brown stuff” (basically everything listed above except the grass clippings and green leaves) to one-fourth moist “green stuff” (grass clippings predominantly). The exact proportions are not critical; you might have to experiment to find what works best with your composition.

You can add chicken or horse manure and activate the pile, kick up the nitrogen and add the heat to hasten decomposition. But, it’s not necessary. The manure shouldn’t smell because it’s aged – like fine wine. OK, not really like wine.

If you always cap off your pile with a dry layer it will help keep the smells down. Sometimes it’s as easy as throwing some dirt on top to help it decompose.

“You’re collecting organic matter and by the wonderful process of nature it will be broken down by microorganisms, bacteria, fungi,” Hartman says. “You’re starting this whole food web of life and you get what is called compost. It’s very nutrient rich, retains moisture and has organisms to resist disease in your plants.”

What Not To Compost

What you add is important. But it is also important, for safety, odor and efficiency reasons, to not sour the deal with the wrong sorts of additions. So do not add these to your compost pile:

• No meat, dairy or cooked foods. They can attract pests.

• No diseased plants, weeds or plants sprayed with pesticides.

• No dog, cat or human poop (ew!).

“Most gardeners are ready to deal with weeds here and there. And through the composting process it reduces disease in plants,” says Hartman, who pulls the weeds in his garden and leaves them in place to compost into the soil.

Chicken and cow manure is OK because those animals are herbivores. Vegetarian humans don’t count.

But pet lovers take heart, Hartman says you can compost dog and cat waste in the yard by digging a hole and capping it off with a foot of soil to avoid runoff. Don’t bury it near any food source such as your vegetable garden.

Don’t Rush It

Most home compost piles take between four and six months to create the crumbly black compost dirt. Your compost may take months to make, depending on how often you turn it and what you add.

Don’t worry if all your scraps don’t compost. Just separate them out and put them back in the bin when you remove finished compost.

Hartman is working on a two bin composting system. So when the first bin is full, he can move onto the next bin while waiting for the first bin to cook. You want a system where you can keep adding to it.

According to information from Rodale, the center of an active pile will be hot to the touch, and steam should be rising on cool mornings. Piles slow down or stop composting in the cold temperatures.

Hartman doesn’t recommend inside composting unless you use worms. He has a “Wriggly Wranch Worm Bin” made up of stackable trays that he keeps in the backyard, but this type of composting with worms, called vermiculture, can be done inside.

“It’s another great way to compost and you don’t need to add browns,” he said. The red worms, which can be found at garden stores or online, only need food scraps and newspaper for bedding. You add the scraps and the worms eat it rapidly to produce worm castings, also known as valuable, fertile compost. The worms can’t get too wet or too dry (just like regular compost piles), but they need moderate temperatures between 50 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Ultimately people need to get outside. Find neighbors with gardens. Collect your scraps in a bucket and … bring it down to the local composting garden. It really gets you into the cycle of life and how things change and how living the soil really is,” Hartman added.

And lastly, Hartman urges people to demand compost services from their cities or counties. San Francisco recently enacted the most comprehensive mandatory recycling and composting legislation in the nation.

“They need to start providing everyone with a place to put organic waste – responsibly,” he says.

Pages: 1 2

Tags: churnable composter, composting, indoor composters, Rodale Institute, worm composters

Monday, March 29th, 2010 | Food & Health, Home & Garden |