With the wonderful not freezing weather that we have been having so far this March, I decided to start tackling my spring to-do list. One item was to turn our compost. Above in a picture taken on March 10th, you can see the compost pile before. There are so many ways to do composting that there are whole books on the subject. Ours is fairly simple: welded wire fencing was formed into a circle with its ends bent onto itself to hold its shape and staked to the ground for added support.
Compost needs to be turned over every once in awhile to keep it working right. I don't know all the details, but I do know part of it has to do with air. Compost needs moisture, air, carbon and nitrogen (its more like 1 part nitrogen to 20 parts carbon). Bacteria does most of the work after that.
The nice thing about the welded wire fencing compost bin design is that when your ready to turn the compost you simply unbend the wire, peel it off the compost pile and relocate it directly next to it on the ground. I read that if your compost pile is on bare ground its a good idea to loosen up the soil that will be directly under it. This is supposed to encourage the visitation of earthworms who will help in the breakdown of all that organic matter.
This is the after picture.
I took my garden fork and started working from the top down being conscious of mixing in plenty of carbon in the form of dried up leaves from last fall (which we conveniently piled nearby). I stopped forking when I reached a dark layer of rich looking earth.
There is a way to test if compost is ready for the garden (as I understand if its not completely decomposed it can be harmful to your vegetables). One of my books suggests taking some of the compost and putting it in a mason jar for a few days. After that time, if its smells bad- its not ready; if it smells like dirt- your good to go. I haven't performed this test yet, but this stuff looks pretty ready to me. It has been over a year now since we started this particular pile so some of it has to be ready for sure.
If you garden and don't compost- its highly recommended. One thing your garden soil can never get enough of is organic matter. Composting is one of the best ways to produce your own rich source of organic matter. Keep a container on your counter top and toss in all your kitchen scraps, pretty much anything can go as long as 'it was once alive', as my boyfriend states. Empty as needed. Even if you don't garden composting reduces your garbage production and makes it less stinky too. Above as an example we have a variety of vegetable scraps, tea bags, a wax paper cupcake wrapper, and prunings off of the houseplants, but other things that are great are egg shells, nut shells, coffee grinds, hair or fur. From the yard you can add your grass clippings, weeds, leaves just to name a few.
Its not usually recommended to put anything meat-like in compost... but the logic mostly seems to be because it can attract unwelcome critters to the area. However it can't be harmful as I will attempt to argue.
Recently I read Harvest: A Year in the Life of an Organic Farm by Nicola Smith where livestock which died of whatever natural causes would be conveyored out to a massive compost pile outside the barn. This compost was then eventually used in the soil for their crops. This stuck out in my mind... because a farm was able to successfully compost whole animals! My boyfriend has even read of gardeners who will actually use road kill as an add in for their backyard compost. Given all this, I think a few scraps of meat off your dinner plate will be just fine.
One compost no-no I always read about is pet waste. A cat or dogs' excretion can harbor harmful bacteria that is not good for humans to be exposed to... so you certainly do not want your future food growing in it.
In short composting is super easy, its great for your garden and keeps some really great stuff out of the landfill.
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