Corn cobs, tea bags, avocado shells, packaging peanuts, yard clippings, used paper towels
Like the plants compost fortifies, the practice of backyard composting grows and grows. Composting reduces waste, saves money and produces valuable “black gold” that gardeners can use as mulch or soil amendment.
Compost enthusiasts claim that compost feeds plants better than chemical fertilizer, reduces diseases better than chemical herbicides, and can decrease water bills by up to 40 percent.
Composting turns trash to treasure. It’s as simple as that. And the process need not be complicated or labor intensive, either, nor smelly nor messy. To the contrary, compost is simple. Compost happens. Compost takes us back to our roots.
You don’t need expensive equipment for composting. Though commercial bins are available, homemade varieties work just as well and can make use of recycled materials like wood palates or cinder blocks.
A metaphor for healthful living, compost helps us establish a relationship with our environment.
Red wiggler worms--just one of many creatures in the ecosystem of a compost bin.
Compost reduces water bills
Green thumb green-minded environmentalists in areas with dense soil know that composting serves a particularly important role in the regional landscape. When soil is too dense, water and oxygen can’t get to the roots. Compost opens up the soil and has the added ability to hold 100 percent of its weight in water. That means less watering and lower water bills.
Compost reduces our landfills
Composters drastically reduce their trash collectors’ loads, too. According to Denver Recycles, composting reduces what individuals send to the landfills by more than 255 pounds per year per person.
Composting diverts organic wastes from landfills and recycles these wastes into an almost miraculous soil amendment. Every time you crack an egg or cut the ends off a bunch of broccoli or asparagus, every time you empty the coffee grinds or wring out a tea bag, you can add to your compost pile. Every time you gather yard waste--leaves, grass clippings, plant trimmings--you can add to your compost. You can add dryer lint, paper towels, pet or human hair, the inside cardboard rolls of toilet paper or paper towels, cloth, rope, peanut hulls--just about anything organic that doesn’t contain fat or bones.
Black gold
Composting is garden alchemy with a certain magic to transforming waste into something useful. Compost is complete when materials are broken down enough that individual elements cannot be recognized. Ideal compost appears dark in color, feels crumbly in texture--something like coffee grounds--and smells like the floor of a forest.
The finished product can be used in a number of ways around the lawn and garden. Compost provides all the major and minor trace elements, including a slow release of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. The Ph neutralizes alkaline soil.
How to use compost
Compost makes ideal top dressing for flowers, vegetables, herbs, shrubs, trees and lawns. In spring, add 1/2" to 1" and cultivate into the soil. After aerating lawns in spring and autumn, sprinkle compost by hand over the lawn, allowing compost to settle into the holes left by the aerator. Around midsummer, add compost around plants and shrubs that appear stressed. Lightly hoe the compost into the soil around the plants.
Inside, houseplants benefit from compost added to potting soil. For your containers, try mixing 1/3 compost to 2/3 potting soil.
Topdress plants with compost several times each growing season.
Worms break down garbage; worm castings add nutrients to compost. Photo by Quincy Benton
The remains of the day: Composting specifics
Greens and browns make black gold--at least on the color wheel that governs composting.
Once you’ve decided upon a composting bin and set it up—preferably on a permeable rather than hard surface, you’ll want to monitor what’s going into the bin.
Follow these guidelines to create your own black gold:
* Create a balance of "greens"--materials high in nitrogen--and "browns"--materials high in carbon.
* Greens include fruits and peels, green leaves, human or pet hair, moldy food, weeds without mature seeds, non-meat food scraps, coffee grounds.
* Browns include autumn leaves, cardboard cores from toilet paper and paper towels, coffee filters, corn cobs, cotton or wool rags, cotton string, rope, dryer lint, eggshells, grain hulls, dried grass clippings, shredded paper, paper towels, tissues, peanut hulls, sawdust, rope, vacuum cleaner sweepings. Browns include some materials that appear green--broccoli and sunflower stalks, for example--but fall into the brown category because of their rough texture.
* Avoid too many citrus peels; they can kill the red wiggler worms.
* Avoid diseased plants or plants treated with chemicals. If grass clippings are collected for composting, to prevent them from matting, allow them to dry a day or so before adding them to the pile.
* Add a handful of dirt to introduce friendly bacteria when you add material to your compost bin.
* For the most efficient results, chop greens and browns into pieces measuring 1 to 2 inches. Chop materials when still green and succulent; when plant material dries out, chopping is more difficult.
* Do not add meat, bones, fats, cheeses, cat or dog feces to compost piles. These materials smell, draw flies and can attract vermin.
* Water the pile until it’s the consistency of a wrung out sponge. Keep the pile evenly moist as more layers are added.
* Cover the pile to prevent drying. Direct sunlight slows the decomposition.
* To speed up the composting process, turn the pile once a week to add air to the materials.
Troubleshooting the compost pile typically uncovers a few basic problems: using the wrong materials or the wrong ratio or size of materials, watering the pile too much or too little or not turning the pile regularly. Most compost pile problems are easily rectified.
With chopped layers, regular turning and adequate moisture, "black gold" compost can be ready in as soon as two months.
Experts don’t insist upon commercial compost starters or compost boosters. Instead, they advocate adding fresh plant material, such as spent annuals, vegetables needing thinning, or weeds that have not yet gone to seed. Keep a bit of soil on the roots to introduce helpful bacteria to the pile.
If selecting a commercial bin, look for one that’s easy to load and unload, easy to turn, is made at least in part from recycled materials and has replacement parts available.
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