Making Compost

All You Want to Know About Composting . . . And More!

A multitude of organisms feed on the bodies of dead plants and animals. Many such organisms are bacteria; the bacteria recycle organic material. In addition to shredding woody wastes and crumbling shell and bone, such bacteria reduce the complex molecules of leaf and meat to simpler molecules—molecules that plants can feed on. In this way, bacteria manufacture fertilizer. A compost heap provides a purpose-built structure to facilitate this.

Making a compost heap

Pile organic material into a heap. The heap retains moisture and concentrates bacteria within it. First, air-breathing (aerobic) bacteria attack the heap. They soon exhaust the available oxygen, however. This makes life impossible for them. Then non-air-breathing (anaerobic) bacteria take over.

Anaerobic decay and acid
Anaerobic decay is less efficient than aerobic decay. Anaerobic decay is slower; and can cease before it's complete. Aerobic decay is therefore preferable to anaerobic decay. Unfortunately, acids inhibit aerobic decay. Accordingly, one must provide one's compost heap with air, and discourage the development of (or neutralise) any acids within it.

Air and acid
You can provide air within your compost heap by tossing and turning it, by stabbing deep holes in it with a garden fork, or by including within it layers of coarse, loosely packed materials (straw, fibrous weeds, etc.). You can counter acidity by adding any mild alkali. Such alkalis include powdered lime, crushed egg shells, calcified seaweed, wood ash, and dolomite flour.

Carbon and Nitrogen
All organisms require carbon. It is the building block of life. The cellulose within the dead plants in your compost heap provides carbon. Plants also require nitrogen. Hence fertilisers comprise nitrates—compounds that contain nitrogen. A successful compost heap requires nitrates.

Common and cheap (or free) sources of nitrates include the following:
• urine, diluted 1:3, with water
• fresh dung
• fresh young stinging nettles
• seaweed
• dried blood
• sewage sludge
• fish-meal
Add one (or a combination) of the above to your compost heap.

Heat
Aerobic bacteria generate heat.
In addition to sustaining life within the heap, the heat destroys weed seeds (by cooking them). You can enhanced this by enclosing and covering the heap—this prevents heat and moisture loss; it also protects the heap from rain.

Eventually, aerobic activity within the heap passes its peak, and the temperature falls. Anaerobic bacteria and worms thereafter complete the decomposition.

Summary: the four basics
Air, acidity, carbon and nitrogen, and warmth are the cornerstones of successful composting. Cater for these, and you will make a successful compost heap.

Carefully constituted and arranged, garden and kitchen waste can become usable compost within a few months—sometimes as few as two. But any heap of rotting vegetable matter will yield compost of some sort, though it may take a year for it to do so.

Getting Started

Site and general considerations

Site your compost heap in a shady place, out of direct sunlight. Remember to allow room for easy access, tossing, and turning. If you plan to construct a seriously scientific heap, you need to store the components separately until you have enough material of each type; obviously, you need space to do this.

The size of your garden and the state of your soil, together with the relative size of your vegetable patch, will probably influence your choice of system. A two-heap system is workable only in a fairly large garden. The more complex layered systems call for a wide variety of materials.

If you need to store compost, ensure you keep it covered.

Compost develops naturally. Following these directions just accelerates the process.

Step 1: Obtain a bin or an area in your yard that is approximately one cubic yard (3' x 3 'x 3'). Size is important for temperature. Very small piles cannot hold enough heat for effective microbial activity, and very large piles (more than 5 feet cubed) do not allow for enough air to reach microbes in the centre of the pile.

Step 2: Mix two parts brown (dry leaves, small twigs, straw, etc.) with one part green (grass clippings, kitchen scraps, etc.). This 2:1 ratio provides the best mix of carbon (brown materials) to nitrogen (green materials).

Step 3: Chop or break any twigs and large pieces of fruit and vegetable waste. Materials break down more quickly with increased surface area.

Step 4: Keep the pile moist. Water your compost to keep it moist, like a wrung-out sponge.

Step 5: Keep turning it. Compost needs air. Turning the compost helps it break down, and prevents it smelling unpleasant.

Step 6: When ready, use finished compost to feed your garden, flowers, potted plants, and lawn. When it is ready, compost should look and smell like rich soil.

Using compost

You can use compost as the rich, dark soil that it is, to cultivate exotic plants in flowerpots, to grow greedy vegetables in trenches or raised beds, or to raise anything else that requires good, nourishing earth. It can be a moisture-retaining and nutrient rich mulch for permanent plantings; it can be an annual top-dressing to replace nutrients harvested from the vegetable patch. Compost also improves the texture of soil.

Because good compost releases its nutrients most readily in the warm, moist conditions that also favour plant growth, once on the ground it can do nothing but good. Practically the only time you could "waste" compost is during a warn autumn. On growing crops, its nutrients are used as they're released, and in winter it can be a duvet to keep worms active.

Flowers and vegetables
Work half an inch of mature compost into the top six inches of the soil. Use a garden fork or rototiller. Ensure that soil isn't sodden with water. Excess water can result in an "adobe effect" when the soil dries; this adversely affects the plants.

Perennials
Use compost as mulch to gradually improve the soil. Apply it an inch or so deep, between the plants.

Seedlings or potted flowers
Use 20% mature compost in the soil mix (if the mix you purchased doesn't already contain compost or worm castings).

Lawns
Sprinkle 1/8 to 1/4 inch of fine compost evenly across the grass to improve the lawn's ability to use fertilizers more efficiently. If you fertilize your lawn, consider using one of the natural products based on recycled dried poultry wastes (often listed as DPW on the ingredient list) rather than synthetic chemicals.

Trees and shrubs
Spread uncomposted wood chips, grass clippings, and leaves around plantings. Ensure that woody wastes are shredded or chipped up.

Indoor plants
Add small handfuls to the surface of the soil inside the pots. It will break down over time and provide nutrients as it decomposes.

Compost tea
Ailing plants can get a boost from "tea" made from a shovelful of finished compost soaked in a 5 gallon bucket of water for a week.  Drain off the liquid and dilute one part tea with two parts water, and water indoor or outdoor plants.

What shouldn't go in compost
Don't include bones, meat, eggs (egg shells are okay), cheese and other dairy products, or oils. Exclude dog and cat excrement from compost.

Bad smells
Compost should not create a bad odour if you take care of it properly. Don't overload the system. Always bury the food waste by pulling aside some of the bedding, dumping the waste, and covering it up with the bedding. Bury successive loads in different locations in the bin.

Healthy compost smells like soil. If your compost smells bad, it needs more air. Aerate your compost by regularly turning the pile. Worms in a 16" x 19" x 12" bin can process 2–3 pounds of garbage a week. The capacity of a 20" x 24" x 12" bin is up to 5 pounds of garbage per week.

Table of C:N ratios for compost materials (Materials are mixed in heap to give equal C:N ratios)
	C	N
Urine		****
Dried blood		****
Fishmeal		***
Poultry manure		***
Cow manure (neat)		***
Lawn mowings		**
Comfrey		**
Poniace		**
Hops		**
Tomato haulms	*	**
Pig manure		**
Farmyard manure	**	***
Seaweed		**
Legume tops		**
Pea and bean haulm		**
Horse manure (with straw)	*	**
Peat	*	*
Oat straw	**	*
Garden weeds	**	*
Newspaper	**
Wheat straw	***
Woody stems	***
Sawdust	****

Heaps and bins

The heap
A heap won't heat up properly unless it's big. You must cover a small heap with straw, earth, or tarpaulin to retain warmth, gases, and moisture, and to repel cold and excessive rain.

Home-made bins

You can build a "passive" container might from pallets; you can build an "active" one from straw or hay bales. Both active and passive containers facilitate ventilation, moisture retention, and insulation. Remember that bales will eventually become part of the compost.

Proprietary bins

There is a variety of proprietary compost bins on the market. Some may be better than home-made bins in deterring vermin. Against this, contact with the soil is believed to be biodynamically essential.

Conical bin
Turning the compost, at least once, improves it. A lightweight container shaped like a giant flowerpot makes turning easier.

Kitto's method
This is the three-bin method, developed by Dick Kitto.
Store the compost materials in the first bay as and when they become available. When enough variety has accumulated, arrange it in layers in the central bay, like a large club sandwich, and watered well (with urine if available, or adding accelerator if not). After a couple of weeks, slice this heap vertically, and toss the slices lightly into the third bin, moistened again, and leave to ripen.

Critical balance
The most common reason for failure in an artificially constructed compost heap is a lack of balance. Carbon and nitrogen should balance; so should wet and dry, animal and vegetable, and coarse and fine. The oxygen supply must be adequate, and the moisture level must be set against chilling, suffocating damp.

Urine—liquid gold
Fresh urine, watered on to the compost directly or via a watering can, balances high carbon materials such as straw perfectly. A bale of hay or straw used as a urinal in the garden transforms itself into excellent compost within a few months.
The principle of the composting urinal is taken a stage farther by the composting toilet .

The two heap system
In a large garden, it is worth setting up two compost heaps: one a fast system for making "safe" compost to feed edible vegetables, the other for processing difficult things such as pet litter, woody waste, and other materials which break down slowly or may he unsuitable for edible crops. You can use the "slow" heap to feed trees (including fruit trees) and non-edible plants.

Composting sewage
Septic tank sludge isn't compost, but it makes good fertilizer, provided you can get it out. The real "sludge" is dark and relatively odourless and settles on the bottom after most of the decomposition is complete. It can be pumped directly into shallow trenches and covered with soil.

In a one-tank system (cess pit) or the first tank of a two-tank system, the sludge lies deep beneath a floating crust of nearly raw sewage. If you're determined enough, and take sensible precautions, this crust can be combined with straw to make proper compost:

First, lay a bed of straw (or dried bracken) in a deep, tall bin. Then. wearing rubber gloves, skim off the crust with improvised equipment and transfer it in a watertight barrow to a prepared bed. Add the crust–sludge in blobs and cover with 9 in. (20 cm) more straw before adding more on top. Continue until no more crust–sludge remains; then top off with straw. Clean the barrow and all tools; leave them in the sun to complete the cleansing.

After 3–6 months, turn the heap and add urine if it's too dry. After a year, it will be suitable for composting non-edible crops.

Leaf mould
When they shed their leaves, deciduous trees first suck them dry so as to salvage as much goodness as they can. Fallen leaves therefore contain little in the way of nutrients, but they make good soil conditioner. Use them as they are in magic mounds, add to compost, or apply as mulch and let the worms dig them in.

Alternatively, store leaves in a plastic bin liner, stabbed here and there with a garden fork, or in a chicken wire bin, and leave them to rot down into fibrous humus. This makes a good mulch or potting medium, but you need to add some rich. nourishing compost to feed seedlings.

Generally speaking, evergreen leaves should be kept apart and rotted down separately. They take longer to decompose and can contain aromatics that inhibit the activities of micro-organisms.

Observe local trees. Work out the relative merits and rate of decomposition of their fallen leaves.

How to build a Compost Bin

A compost bin can be a simple construction. You can take four wood pallets, often available free from shipping companies, and stand them on edge to form a square. The pallets are then nailed or lashed together to form an instant compost bin.

The instructions here are for a very simple, but adequate, compost bin. You can build a bin using recycled or scrap lumber. The plan below can be embellished by adding a second cross-piece on the front, and a lid on top to keep the rain from over-watering the compost.

Anyone can build a compost bin, it's a very simple carpentry job. Try to avoid using treated lumber for your compost bin.

Materials

• 7 lengths of 2 x 6 lumber, each cut to 3'. Your lumberyard will make the cuts for you. Get exterior wood, like Western Red Cedar. Rough, unplaned wood is fine. The wood does not need to be treated with preservatives - untreated lumber will last many years.

• Four lengths of 2 x 2 lumber (or 4 x 4 ), each cut to 4' lengths.

• Galvanized common nails, 2 3/4" long. 28 nails.

Assembly

• Sharpen one end of each 2 x 2 to act as stakes. A hatchet works best - it doesn't have to be pretty. This will keep your bin in place.

• Nail the 3' boards to the 2 x 2's as shown. Leave space between the boards to help aerate the pile. Pre-drilling the nail holes will make nailing easier and prevent the wood from splitting.

• Set bin in place and drive the corners down into the ground with a sledge or heavy hammer.

Your compost bin is ready to use.

If you have the space in your garden, it's great to have a double bin, or two bins side by side. When the pile is high, you can "turn" it by shoveling it into the second bin. Then use the empty first bin to start a new pile while the other pile finishes off.

Wormpost

Not only do worms ventilate and fertilize the soil; they also improve its water-retentive properties. They also protect growing seedlings. Equally useful, worms manufacture excellent compost.

Dustbin wormery
Make a few modifications to a plastic dustbin. First use a heated skewer to make a band of small holes (for drainage) 3–6 in. (7–15 cm) from the base of the bin, and another ring of holes (for ventilation) in the lid.

Inside the bin, lay a mixture of sand and gravel 6 in. (15 cm) deep and place some wooden slats on top. Add water until it seeps from the drainage holes. On top of the boards, add a good layer of damp peat; follow this with a load of chopped household waste, mixed with shredded paper, not more than 6 in. (15 cm) deep. Add worms (see below). Finally, add a sprinkling of calcified seaweed (or crushed dried egg shells) on the surface.

Introducing the worms
The worms to use are the ones that normally live in compost; these are often called brandling or manure worms (local names vary). The Latin name is Eisenia roetida.

These small worms can cope with the richly nitrogenous waste that comes from the kitchen. Place them on top of the peat, underneath the garbage.

As they make themselves at home, dragging the waste down into the peat to eat, add more scraps on top. Go easy at first, until the worms have begun to multiply. Remember to add more calcified seaweed (or egg shells) for each bin (15 cm) of garbage.

The end product
After about 6 months, the bin should be full of dark, sweet compost, and heaving with worms. When emptying the bin, pick out as many worms as you need to start again. Use the compost as you would use concentrated, well rotted manure: lightly hoe it into the vegetable beds, or mix it into potting compost.

Tyre wormery

You can build an outdoor wormery from used car tyres, stacked up on an earth base and with a wood or metal lid on top. Stuff the tyres with crumpled newspaper, and fill up slowly with kitchen and garden waste (do not forget the calcified seaweed or egg shells). Stack more tyres as required.

The advantage of this system is that, when you remove the compost, enough worms remain behind in the tyres to begin the process again. Take care not to remove them! It also has the advantage of being warmer than the thin-walled dustbin, especially if you insulate the lid

Troubleshooting frequent compost problems

Odour
The most common problem is unpleasant, strong odours. These are caused by lack of oxygen in the compost due to overloading with food waste; the result is that the food sits around too long, and the bin contents become too wet.

The solution is to stop adding food waste until the worms and micro-organisms have broken down what food remains, and to gently stir the entire contents to allow more air in. Check the drainage holes to ensure they are not blocked; drill more holes if necessary. Remember that worms drown if their surroundings become too wet.

Worms crawling out of the bin
Worms crawl out of the bedding and onto the sides and lid if conditions are wrong for them. If the moisture level seems correct, the bedding may be too acidic. This can happen if you add a lot of citrus peels or other acidic wastes. Adjust by adding a little garden lime and cutting down on acidic wastes.

Fruit flies
Fruit flies are an occasional nuisance. Discourage them by always burying the food waste and not overloading. Keep a plastic sheet or piece of old carpet or sacking on the surface of the compost in the bin. If materials are held in a container too long, fruit flies may lay their eggs in them.

Do the following to control fruit flies:
• add food scraps when they're fresh
• bury food scraps under bedding
• keep a lid on your bin (but ensure there are air holes for the worms)
• sprinkle calcium carbonate (lime from stone, not quick lime) in the bin
• place a petri dish filled with vinegar in the bin, or place the bin outside in subfreezing temperatures for a few hours (but don't let the worms freeze)

If flies persist, move the bin to a location where flies will not be bothersome. A few spiders nearby will help control fly problems!

Compost tea
The process begins with red worms digesting organic waste and producing castings. The castings are nutrient-rich populations of microbes. Steep them within a compost tea brewer. The result is a highly beneficial compost tea that will jump-start plants and turn soil into living, healthy soil. Learn more about how the tea is brewed and how it can help your plants and yard.

Tips for successful composting

Activate your compost.
'Activators' can be added to your compost to help kick-start the process and speed up composting. Common compost activator materials are: comfrey leaves, grass clippings, young weeds, well-rotted chicken manure.

Flying insects attracted to the compost?
Small fruit flies, especially, are naturally attracted to the compost pile. They can be discouraged by simply covering any exposed fruit or vegetable matter. Keep a small pile of grass clippings next to your compost bin, and when you add new kitchen waste to the pile, cover it with one or two inches of clippings. Adding lime or calcium will also discourage flies.

Unpleasant odours.
This can be a concern in urban and suburban areas with small lots and neighbors living close by. Odours can be reduced, or eliminated, by following two practices: first, remember to not put bones or meat scraps into the compost; second, cover new additions to the compost pile with dry grass clippings or similar mulch. Adding lime or calcium will also neutralize odors. If the compost smells like ammonia, add carbon-rich elements such as straw, peat moss or dried leaves

Compost pile steaming?
No problem. A hot, steamy pile means that you have a large community of microscopic critters working away at making compost.

Matted leaves and grass clippings clumping together?
This is a common problem with materials thrown into the composter. The wet materials stick together and slow the aeration process. There are two simple solutions: either set these materials to the side of the composter and add them gradually with other ingredients, or break them apart with a pitchfork. Grass clippings and leaves should be mixed with rest of the composting materials for best results.

A moveable compost bin.
The soil beneath a compost bin becomes enriched as nutrients filter down with successive waterings. You can place your bin on a plot of earth which you plan to use for a future vegetable or flower bed, or fruit tree. Each year, you can move the bin to a different area; you'll get a double benefit - the compost from the bin, and a bed of nutrient-rich soil ready for new plantings.

Additive only.
Compost should be used as a soil additive, and not as the 100% growing medium.

Don't dispair
It doesn't matter if your compost isn't textbook perfect. Incomplete compost can still put goodness into the soil. If it isn't finished by the winter, you can either call it a slow heap and wait another year, or spread it onto the vegetable patch anyway. The worms will drag it beneath the surface.

If you don't like the look of your compost, remember that there's no organic stuff that nature can't digest. Either turn it over and leave it for another year, or layer it with fresh material, to get a better result next time around.