Making compost
If you're about to start a new season
garden, your time will be best served by enriching your soil. This will
do more for the health of your garden and the abundance of your crops
than any fertiliser you apply later in the season. If you plant your
seeds and seedlings into fertile, living soil, you give them the best
chance of success.
Our garden in full production with the compost heap and bin sitting quietly at the back.
Compost is a gentle fertilizer that adds organic matter
to the soil. Organic matter will bring the worms in, and they will
bring in all manner of microbes that will help creature the soil you
need for good crops. Another great thing about compost is that it will
help you manage your kitchen and garden waste, you end up throwing less
in the rubbish bin and recycle bin, and you will make, at home, the best fertilizer possible for your garden.
Many things
that were once alive, like paper, cardboard, cotton and linen fabric,
hair, tea leaves etc, can be used to make compost. Instead of being
waste, they'll now be a resource to make the best fertilizer around. So
start your search today. You can use
all those old papers, magazines and worn out skirts in your compost
heap. Set up a little compost collection bucket in your kitchen for the
kitchen waste you want to put into the compost. It's best if this has a
lid if you want to empty it once a day.
There are two categories of materials you need for making compost, and
for the sake of simplicity, we'll call them greens (which supply
nitrogen) and browns (which supply carbon). Greens are the wet nitrogen
filled materials like grass clippings, kitchen waste and fresh manures.
Browns are dry things like paper, cardboard and straw. You will need
30 browns (carbon) to one green (nitrogen). Now that might sound
complicated but all it means is that you need much more dry material
like paper and straw than you need greens. Everything you add to the
heap should be small. Chop up the scraps, cardboard etc with your
garden spade before adding. The smaller it is, the faster it will
decompose. BTW, if you don't have enough kitchen scraps to make a
compost heap, chop up your kitchen waste and bury it in the garden. It
will decompose and add to the fertility of the soil.
BROWNS - carbon
- shredded newspaper and magazines - but nothing glossy and coloured
- shredded computer paper
- cardboard - cut up in small pieces
- crushed egg shells
- ash
- straw and hay
- hair
- the contents of your vacuum cleaner - check to make sure there's no plastic
- wool and cotton clothing
GREENS - nitrogen
- grass clippings
- leaves
- green garden waste - but nothing that is diseased and no woody branches, they take too long to break down
- anything high in nitrogen like cow, goat, sheep, chicken and horse manures, chicken manure pellets
- fruit and vegetable peelings - not onion or citrus, which are best in a separate pile because they take a long time to decompose
- kitchen waste - but not meat or dairy products
- seaweed
DON'T ADD ...
- meat
- dairy products
- diseased plants
- anything plastic or acrylic
WHERE TO PUT THE COMPOST HEAP
Build
your compost heap on bare ground, not on bricks or pavers. You want
the worms and microbes to find and colonise the compost, so it needs to
be on the soil. Site the heap close to the garden where it will be used
and if you have dogs or chickens, it will need to be fenced off or else
they will eat what you put in there. If you live in an extreme
climate, it might be best if you shelter the heap up against a wall.
This will also provide a solid border to one side of the heap.
HOW TO START
- Start on bare earth by placing a thick layer of shredded newspaper or straw as your base.
- Add whatever other ingredients you have, alternating browns and greens if you can (sometimes you can't).
- Always remember the 30 brown to one green ratio. If your compost is
too dry with browns ,it won't decompose, if it is too wet with greens,
it will smell. When the heap has been going for a while, if it is too
dry, add greens, if it's too wet, add browns.
- On the first day, if you've built a reasonable heap, get the hose
and moisten it. Don't wet it, just a slight spray to moisten things and
to start the heap off.
- If you have heavy rain or snow, or if you're in a cold climate, you
will need to protect the heap with a heavy tarpaulin. If you can, tie a
brick to each corner with cord to keep it in place over the heap.
- If you don't have any animal or poultry manure, see if you can buy
or barter a bag, or, alternatively, buy a bag of chicken manure pellets
from the produce store and lightly scatter them through the layers as
you add to the heap. Animal manure should also be added every so often
to the heap. The manure will heat up the compost and activate the
compost a great deal. Comfrey leaves will also help speed up
decomposition.
Comfrey will help activate and speed up the composting process.
Making
compost is not rocket science but you do need to watch your green to
brown ratio. The truth is, if you threw all the above into a heap in
your backyard, it would eventually rot down, no matter what you did and
you'd have compost. But we are actively working to increase the
fertility of our gardens, so we want compost and we want it NOW. What
ever you can do to speed up the process, do it. Turning the compost
helps speed it up, so turn it over with a fork about once a week.
If you build your heap well,
you'll feel it heat up and sometimes you'll see steam coming off it. If
the heap doesn't heat up, add more manure and mix it in. But even if
it doesn't heat up, if you're in a warm climate and you turn it
regularly, you'll have compost in about eight weeks. It will take
longer in cold climates. But use your gardener's common sense and help
it along however you can. Protection up against a brick wall, covering
the heap and adding manure will help heat up the heap even in cold
climates.
Eventually, all the pieces of paper, hair, manure and kitchen waste will
evolve into beautiful dark brown, sweet smelling compost. Planting your
seeds and seedlings into soil enriched with compost will give them the
best chance of survival, but compost making is an ongoing garden task.
If you can make a lot of it in summer, and you live in a snowy climate,
store it in your shed over winter for the coming season. If you're in a
milder climate, it's fine to just having it sitting in the garden
waiting to be used. Making compost might seem like a chore in the
beginning, but it will become second nature to you, and when that
happens, you'll reduce the amount of household waste you give to other
people to dispose of for you and you'll have a continuous supply of the
best soil conditioner and fertilizer.
