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How to Start Composting (LONG)
You asked for it, here it is, full directions on composting infused with my opinions and based on my ten years of composting. This is LONG. Composting is a good way to get rid of waste products. It is good for the environment. It will enhance your gardening for food prep.
Composting Basics
Composting is easy and good for the environment. Compost is a great ingredient for gardening. Compost can serve as a booster for soil or as a top covering mulch. It can also be used as one of the ingredients to use in a seed starting soil mix.
Is it hard to compost?
Some people have made composting seem way too complicated, or expensive. I don?t see how anyone could stretch the topic to have enough information to fill an entire book but books on composting do exist. I also know that one doesn?t have to buy expensive equipment to begin composting.
Composting Basics
What to put in the compost bin
You can compost any fruit or vegetable scraps. Bread or grains can be composted. Small amounts of paper can be composted, but shredding is advised or else the paper may mat and cause problems with moisture and delay decomposition. Grass clippings, small twigs, and tree leaves can be composted. Used coffee grounds and used teabags can be composted. Sawdust can also be composted. Hay and straw can be composted.
Do not compost dairy products, meats, shellfish, oils or fats. These can attract larger critters such as raccoons, opossums, coyotes or dogs, who may dig into the compost bin and make a mess. These ingredients can also hinder the decomposing process by going rancid and disrupting the decomposition process.
In an ideal situation fresh items, called green items, are layered alternatively with dead items, which are called brown items. For example, you could layer raked up tree leaves with vegetable and fruit scraps. However, this is not necessary. The fact of the matter is that large amounts of tree leaves will be had in the autumn but not in the rest of the year. Just throw your waste into the pile and let it decompose!
Grass/lawn clippings should be left on the ground to decompose there and return the nutrients to the lawn. However, if you don?t do this and have grass clippings, you can compost them. If you use too many grass clippings they can mat and block air and water circulation. I am guessing that this would only be an issue if you were a landscaper and you were trying to compost mainly grass clippings.
Adding small twigs and bush clippings can help create air pockets in your compost bin which can be beneficial and speed the decomposition process. They will have to be screened out later, which I do anyway.
Balance is something to consider in a compost bin. For example, loading up your compost bin with tons of sawdust will throw the pH level off. If you dump a huge pile of newspapers into the bin it won?t decompose. Use common sense and don?t overload the compost bin with tons of paper or sawdust.
For whatever reason, using lots of coffee grounds has not been problematic for me or others, from what I have read. In the past I have gathered used coffee grounds from the local Starbucks store. Coffee shops are usually happy to save the grounds for you if you ask. Some want advance notice that you will be coming. If you say you are coming, I advise keeping to that commitment. Other shops may tell you to drop in anytime and get what they have. A local grocery store also gave me bags of corn husks. The store had a garbage bin near the fresh corn on the cob, and some customers chose to shuck the corn at the store. I took home bags of silk and husks and composted them.
Moisture in the bin
A compost bin does need some moisture. If your bin appears very dry or if you are having a dry summer, feel free to sprinkle some water from your hose into it. If you are using a cover and your pile is too dry, take the cover off so that rain water can enter it.
Sunlight and the bin
Ideally the bin should be in the sun because the heat will speed the decomposition process. However, decomposing also will occur in the shade. Composting in the shade is better than not composting at all.
Types of bins to use
My grandmother has composted for years simply by throwing her scraps in a pile. I have always used a bin, since I live in a suburban area.
My first bin was a black plastic bin. Once I started vegetable gardening I needed a larger bin, so I started using a second bin (a wooden homemade bin). This summer my brother gave me his used compost tumbler. I now have more bins than I need!
You can purchase small black plastic bins which look tidy and have a neater appearance than other contraptions. These usually have a locking top. Using the locking top will help keep raccoons or other animals out of the bin. I have seen these in Costco in the spring for under $50. They can cost up to $100 if purchased at full retail price. Because they are large and heavy plastic, they can be expensive to ship, so if you want one I advise finding a local retail store to purchase it from.
Another method to contain the bin is the straw or hay bale method. You buy some bales and make a U shaped container with them. The bales act as the wall. The front is left open, if you want access for turning the pile (more on turning the pile later). If you don?t want to turn the pile you can make it a square shape and close off the front. You could start with one row high and build the walls higher as you need them. If the bales start to rot you can fork them in to the bin so they can decompose as well, and buy new bales for the walls.
If you are handy and want to make your own wooden bin, you can use 2x4?s to construct a bin to the size that you want. Do not use pressure treated wood if you are concerned about arsenic leaching into your compost! I have seen the largest recommended size to be 4x4x4 feet. If it is too large the water and sun won?t be able to get at it enough. After making a three sided frame, you can staple wire mesh inside it, to keep things from falling outside of it. My father made one of these for me. He made the front in a way that removable, stackable boards close it off at the height you want. As the pile gets larger, you make the front higher. Here is an image which is just like the one that I had my father build for me. I freehand copied the design from an advertisement that I saw in a gardening magazine. Lucky for me my father was able to build it without me buying the plans.
http://images.meredith.com/bhg/images/08/l_CTG504749_082205.jpg
I see online that some people are buying fence sections and making a bin out of those. This could get expensive depending on the cost of the fence sections that you have. If your fence is a solid barrier, air and moisture may not get in. I would advise using a fence that had free space in between.
Temperature of the pile
While the stuff is decomposing, it is termed ?cooking?. Maximum decomposition happens at some certain temperature which I don?t know or care about. Some people make composing very complicated, by measuring temperatures, etc. I don?t have time or energy for this.
Turning the pile
It is recommended for fast composting that a shovel be used to turn the pile periodically. I have seen recommendations ranging from turning it once a day to every other day to weekly. Basically you take a garden fork and move the stuff around. Turning the pile adds air and allows for moisture to move about. I don?t turn my piles as I am too lazy to do it. I basically add stuff to my compost bin and empty it once per year.
Tumbler Style Bins
The most expensive type of pre-made compost bin is the tumbler. There are a few different kinds of tumblers on the market. Basically they are barrel shaped, and lie in a horizontal position. You open a door to add the ingredients. You are to turn the barrel one notch per day on some models, and turn the crank one full cycle on other models. Advertisements sometimes say that finished compost can be had in just three weeks. I don?t know if this is true. I have not wanted to spend up to and over $300 for a compost bin! (Recently my brother gave me his compost tumbler, but I have not started using it yet.)
If it starts to smell
If your compost bins starts to smell it is probably not getting enough sun or it is too wet. You can turn the pile and see if that helps.
Adding Soil to the Compost Bin
It is always helpful to add soil to the compost bin. Natural bacteria that live in the soil help the stuff decompose faster. If you have spare soil, putting layers of soil on top of a smelly compost bin can help mask the smell.
Compost starter products
Some garden supply companies sell products which they claim will speed up the decomposition process. These are said to contain enzymes and naturally occurring bacteria that speed up the process. I have read that studies showed these to not make the materials decompose any faster. If you want your stuff to decompose faster, turn it at least a few times a week and add soil to it.
Emptying the bin and Screening the compost
Once per year I empty my bin. Sometimes I wait until it is full, though and empty it once every 18 months.
I had my father make me a screen using scrap wood and wire mesh/hardware cloth. The screen fits over the top of the wheelbarrow. It is sized to fit the wheelbarrow perfectly so it does not move about. The wood hangs down over the sides, locking it in place. I shovel onto the top, shovelfuls of compost. Wearing thick gloves, I move the composted material over the screen. The fully composed material falls through and into the wheelbarrow and it is toted to the desired location and used.
Any small twigs or sticks are removed and thrown into the woods. Partially decomposed matter is returned to the compost bin.
What finished compost is like
Finished compost is dark brown or black colored. It has a wonderful fresh, clean smell. It does not smell like garbage or rotting food! People call finished compost ?black gold?.
How to use finished compost
When I was gardening I would use the compost at the beginning of the gardening season as a top dressing in my garden. Studies show that using compost as a top mulch actually helps deter pests and keeps the garden healthier than any other kind of mulch product. The last I knew no one understood all the reasons why but this is what the research showed.
I also put any leftover compost into a large garbage bin and move it into my garden shed. This was helpful in the late winter when I then used the finished compost as an ingredient to make my soil blocks, which I used to germinate seeds in, to grow my own seedlings. Keeping the sifted compost in a bin in the shed kept it from freezing solid.
Now that I am not gardening very much, I still compost my food scraps and raked up leaves. This actually keeps my trash from smelling very badly. It is not so bad to take the garbage out because there is no food in it. I use the compost on the containers of herbs that I grow on my deck. I also use it as a top dressing for my shrubs. I also sprinkle it on my lawn in a thin layer as a light top dressing fertilizer.
Gathering food scraps to compost
Here are some ways that you can gather stuff in your kitchen to compost. You can put a bucket under your sink, in your cabinet. You can use anything from a pail to a small bucket with a lid on it. This is what my relatives do. One relative drapes a rag/dishtowel over the top, while another uses a lid.
I was given a plastic compost gathering bin once with a charcoal filter in the top. That one was too small, holding about 1 gallon of material. I didn?t like it because the container was too small and the charcoal filter would get food smashed into it which was disgusting and not easy to clean. I also was too lazy to change the filter.
Later we bought a lovely ceramic compost holder that was to stand on the top of the kitchen counter. It had a lid. That worked great until we dropped the lid on the driveway and it broke. Later the handle broke off, and lastly, we dropped the container itself and that smashed. I think I paid about $25 for it. It really did look nice, though.
Right now I am using a decorative ceramic plant pot which is intended to house a houseplant. This holds about two gallons worth of stuff. It does not have a lid. If I don?t want to look at what it in it, I place a dinner plate on top (it fits perfectly). This was purchased for $10 at T.J. Maxx a few years ago for a houseplant. I had since given up keeping houseplants and it was sitting, unused in my basement. I don?t know why I had not thought of this earlier.
The goal in my house is to dump out the contents every few days, when it is full. It usually does not smell by that point in time. It is much more pleasant to empty the contents if you have not let it get full of mold and mildew, at which point it can smell. I am too lazy to empty the contents daily!
Trust me, composting is not difficult unless you make it difficult.
I hope this has helped you!
ChristineMM
my blog: www.thethinkingmother.blogspot.com
Composting Basics
Composting is easy and good for the environment. Compost is a great ingredient for gardening. Compost can serve as a booster for soil or as a top covering mulch. It can also be used as one of the ingredients to use in a seed starting soil mix.
Is it hard to compost?
Some people have made composting seem way too complicated, or expensive. I don?t see how anyone could stretch the topic to have enough information to fill an entire book but books on composting do exist. I also know that one doesn?t have to buy expensive equipment to begin composting.
Composting Basics
What to put in the compost bin
You can compost any fruit or vegetable scraps. Bread or grains can be composted. Small amounts of paper can be composted, but shredding is advised or else the paper may mat and cause problems with moisture and delay decomposition. Grass clippings, small twigs, and tree leaves can be composted. Used coffee grounds and used teabags can be composted. Sawdust can also be composted. Hay and straw can be composted.
Do not compost dairy products, meats, shellfish, oils or fats. These can attract larger critters such as raccoons, opossums, coyotes or dogs, who may dig into the compost bin and make a mess. These ingredients can also hinder the decomposing process by going rancid and disrupting the decomposition process.
In an ideal situation fresh items, called green items, are layered alternatively with dead items, which are called brown items. For example, you could layer raked up tree leaves with vegetable and fruit scraps. However, this is not necessary. The fact of the matter is that large amounts of tree leaves will be had in the autumn but not in the rest of the year. Just throw your waste into the pile and let it decompose!
Grass/lawn clippings should be left on the ground to decompose there and return the nutrients to the lawn. However, if you don?t do this and have grass clippings, you can compost them. If you use too many grass clippings they can mat and block air and water circulation. I am guessing that this would only be an issue if you were a landscaper and you were trying to compost mainly grass clippings.
Adding small twigs and bush clippings can help create air pockets in your compost bin which can be beneficial and speed the decomposition process. They will have to be screened out later, which I do anyway.
Balance is something to consider in a compost bin. For example, loading up your compost bin with tons of sawdust will throw the pH level off. If you dump a huge pile of newspapers into the bin it won?t decompose. Use common sense and don?t overload the compost bin with tons of paper or sawdust.
For whatever reason, using lots of coffee grounds has not been problematic for me or others, from what I have read. In the past I have gathered used coffee grounds from the local Starbucks store. Coffee shops are usually happy to save the grounds for you if you ask. Some want advance notice that you will be coming. If you say you are coming, I advise keeping to that commitment. Other shops may tell you to drop in anytime and get what they have. A local grocery store also gave me bags of corn husks. The store had a garbage bin near the fresh corn on the cob, and some customers chose to shuck the corn at the store. I took home bags of silk and husks and composted them.
Moisture in the bin
A compost bin does need some moisture. If your bin appears very dry or if you are having a dry summer, feel free to sprinkle some water from your hose into it. If you are using a cover and your pile is too dry, take the cover off so that rain water can enter it.
Sunlight and the bin
Ideally the bin should be in the sun because the heat will speed the decomposition process. However, decomposing also will occur in the shade. Composting in the shade is better than not composting at all.
Types of bins to use
My grandmother has composted for years simply by throwing her scraps in a pile. I have always used a bin, since I live in a suburban area.
My first bin was a black plastic bin. Once I started vegetable gardening I needed a larger bin, so I started using a second bin (a wooden homemade bin). This summer my brother gave me his used compost tumbler. I now have more bins than I need!
You can purchase small black plastic bins which look tidy and have a neater appearance than other contraptions. These usually have a locking top. Using the locking top will help keep raccoons or other animals out of the bin. I have seen these in Costco in the spring for under $50. They can cost up to $100 if purchased at full retail price. Because they are large and heavy plastic, they can be expensive to ship, so if you want one I advise finding a local retail store to purchase it from.
Another method to contain the bin is the straw or hay bale method. You buy some bales and make a U shaped container with them. The bales act as the wall. The front is left open, if you want access for turning the pile (more on turning the pile later). If you don?t want to turn the pile you can make it a square shape and close off the front. You could start with one row high and build the walls higher as you need them. If the bales start to rot you can fork them in to the bin so they can decompose as well, and buy new bales for the walls.
If you are handy and want to make your own wooden bin, you can use 2x4?s to construct a bin to the size that you want. Do not use pressure treated wood if you are concerned about arsenic leaching into your compost! I have seen the largest recommended size to be 4x4x4 feet. If it is too large the water and sun won?t be able to get at it enough. After making a three sided frame, you can staple wire mesh inside it, to keep things from falling outside of it. My father made one of these for me. He made the front in a way that removable, stackable boards close it off at the height you want. As the pile gets larger, you make the front higher. Here is an image which is just like the one that I had my father build for me. I freehand copied the design from an advertisement that I saw in a gardening magazine. Lucky for me my father was able to build it without me buying the plans.
http://images.meredith.com/bhg/images/08/l_CTG504749_082205.jpg
I see online that some people are buying fence sections and making a bin out of those. This could get expensive depending on the cost of the fence sections that you have. If your fence is a solid barrier, air and moisture may not get in. I would advise using a fence that had free space in between.
Temperature of the pile
While the stuff is decomposing, it is termed ?cooking?. Maximum decomposition happens at some certain temperature which I don?t know or care about. Some people make composing very complicated, by measuring temperatures, etc. I don?t have time or energy for this.
Turning the pile
It is recommended for fast composting that a shovel be used to turn the pile periodically. I have seen recommendations ranging from turning it once a day to every other day to weekly. Basically you take a garden fork and move the stuff around. Turning the pile adds air and allows for moisture to move about. I don?t turn my piles as I am too lazy to do it. I basically add stuff to my compost bin and empty it once per year.
Tumbler Style Bins
The most expensive type of pre-made compost bin is the tumbler. There are a few different kinds of tumblers on the market. Basically they are barrel shaped, and lie in a horizontal position. You open a door to add the ingredients. You are to turn the barrel one notch per day on some models, and turn the crank one full cycle on other models. Advertisements sometimes say that finished compost can be had in just three weeks. I don?t know if this is true. I have not wanted to spend up to and over $300 for a compost bin! (Recently my brother gave me his compost tumbler, but I have not started using it yet.)
If it starts to smell
If your compost bins starts to smell it is probably not getting enough sun or it is too wet. You can turn the pile and see if that helps.
Adding Soil to the Compost Bin
It is always helpful to add soil to the compost bin. Natural bacteria that live in the soil help the stuff decompose faster. If you have spare soil, putting layers of soil on top of a smelly compost bin can help mask the smell.
Compost starter products
Some garden supply companies sell products which they claim will speed up the decomposition process. These are said to contain enzymes and naturally occurring bacteria that speed up the process. I have read that studies showed these to not make the materials decompose any faster. If you want your stuff to decompose faster, turn it at least a few times a week and add soil to it.
Emptying the bin and Screening the compost
Once per year I empty my bin. Sometimes I wait until it is full, though and empty it once every 18 months.
I had my father make me a screen using scrap wood and wire mesh/hardware cloth. The screen fits over the top of the wheelbarrow. It is sized to fit the wheelbarrow perfectly so it does not move about. The wood hangs down over the sides, locking it in place. I shovel onto the top, shovelfuls of compost. Wearing thick gloves, I move the composted material over the screen. The fully composed material falls through and into the wheelbarrow and it is toted to the desired location and used.
Any small twigs or sticks are removed and thrown into the woods. Partially decomposed matter is returned to the compost bin.
What finished compost is like
Finished compost is dark brown or black colored. It has a wonderful fresh, clean smell. It does not smell like garbage or rotting food! People call finished compost ?black gold?.
How to use finished compost
When I was gardening I would use the compost at the beginning of the gardening season as a top dressing in my garden. Studies show that using compost as a top mulch actually helps deter pests and keeps the garden healthier than any other kind of mulch product. The last I knew no one understood all the reasons why but this is what the research showed.
I also put any leftover compost into a large garbage bin and move it into my garden shed. This was helpful in the late winter when I then used the finished compost as an ingredient to make my soil blocks, which I used to germinate seeds in, to grow my own seedlings. Keeping the sifted compost in a bin in the shed kept it from freezing solid.
Now that I am not gardening very much, I still compost my food scraps and raked up leaves. This actually keeps my trash from smelling very badly. It is not so bad to take the garbage out because there is no food in it. I use the compost on the containers of herbs that I grow on my deck. I also use it as a top dressing for my shrubs. I also sprinkle it on my lawn in a thin layer as a light top dressing fertilizer.
Gathering food scraps to compost
Here are some ways that you can gather stuff in your kitchen to compost. You can put a bucket under your sink, in your cabinet. You can use anything from a pail to a small bucket with a lid on it. This is what my relatives do. One relative drapes a rag/dishtowel over the top, while another uses a lid.
I was given a plastic compost gathering bin once with a charcoal filter in the top. That one was too small, holding about 1 gallon of material. I didn?t like it because the container was too small and the charcoal filter would get food smashed into it which was disgusting and not easy to clean. I also was too lazy to change the filter.
Later we bought a lovely ceramic compost holder that was to stand on the top of the kitchen counter. It had a lid. That worked great until we dropped the lid on the driveway and it broke. Later the handle broke off, and lastly, we dropped the container itself and that smashed. I think I paid about $25 for it. It really did look nice, though.
Right now I am using a decorative ceramic plant pot which is intended to house a houseplant. This holds about two gallons worth of stuff. It does not have a lid. If I don?t want to look at what it in it, I place a dinner plate on top (it fits perfectly). This was purchased for $10 at T.J. Maxx a few years ago for a houseplant. I had since given up keeping houseplants and it was sitting, unused in my basement. I don?t know why I had not thought of this earlier.
The goal in my house is to dump out the contents every few days, when it is full. It usually does not smell by that point in time. It is much more pleasant to empty the contents if you have not let it get full of mold and mildew, at which point it can smell. I am too lazy to empty the contents daily!
Trust me, composting is not difficult unless you make it difficult.
I hope this has helped you!
ChristineMM
my blog: www.thethinkingmother.blogspot.com
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