My Compost Beginnings
My passion for composting started in 1985 when living in a semi-arid high desert (AKA Colorado) rendered the yard we had a clay wasteland where even weeds struggled to grow. It was the first yard I had after growing up in Florida, where things seemed to grow out of thin but humid air – including bugs. Little did I know that that house I grew up in had been under the previous tender care of a retired gardener who, if not a practitioner of garden design, had at least the sense to add dirt and fertilizer to the sandy soil so prevalent in Florida. As a child I had not been privy to the proper workings of the garden ever since, in imitation of the grass stalks some kids would chew on, I had grabbed an elephant ear bud and stuck it between my lips (which then proceeded to double in size and turn purple, the plant being toxic).
After living with and loving our flower pots from all those years of apartment living, I was now confronted with a corner lot that looked like the poster child for drought. I did not know how I was going to fix this without spending a fortune: and we had spent our extra funds renovating our cute 1926 French Tudor house.
The Background to Composting
Fortunately, and perhaps presciently, Denver was going through a severe drought in the early 1980s and water was being rationed at that time. That’s when Xeriscaping first began appearing in landscaping circles, the idea revolved around using as little water as possible and still maintain interesting and attractive landscapes. If I recall correctly, the city’s Water Department began to educate the public about water-conscious landscapes, which was right up our alley. How does Xeriscaping connect to composting? Because number two of the seven principles of Xeriscaping is improving the quality of your soil. And you do that by composting.
What is Composting?
In any case, not sure the source, but I remember getting a simple little booklet all about composting.
I was fascinated! Remember learning about the Roman historian Cato the Elder’s 160 BCE piece De Agri Cultura in world history class? Composting! Remember learning about ‘Night Soil’ and why was it so hugely important in Asia? Composting! Remember the story of the Pilgrims getting help from the Native Americans who planted their corn with fish heads? Composting! So composting is really just adding some organic material to soil to help plants grow. It’s like store bought fertilizer but it’s something that ordinary people can create using kitchen scraps and leaves and paper. All that’s needed are four ingredients – browns, greens, water and air.
The Official Science of Composting
So why was composting number two in Xeriscaping principles? According to the EPA there are quite a number of reasons:
- Compost adds nutrients to the soil, introduces valuable organisms to the soil, including microorganisms, such as bacteria, fungi, and protozoa, which decompose organic material, promoting higher yields of agricultural crops.
- Compost recycles kitchen and yard waste, helping consumers in many cities to reduce their waste management costs as well as reducing the need to buy fertilizers for gardens and yards
- Composting reduces landfill waste. Organic waste in landfills generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas. By composting wasted food and other organics, methane emissions are significantly reduced.
- Compost retains a large volume of water, thus helping to prevent or reduce erosion, reduce runoff, and establish vegetation. Compost even can help aid reforestation, wetlands restoration, and habitat revitalization efforts by improving contaminated, compacted, and marginal soils.
- Compost improves downstream water quality by retaining pollutants such as heavy metals, nitrogen, phosphorus, oil and grease, fuels, herbicides, and pesticides (not that you’d want that stuff in your yard either).
The REAL Benefits of Composting
This is all scientific speak for:
- Getting bigger, better tasting vegetables because there are vitamins and minerals in the compost for the plants to grow – yes, just like you need your daily vitamin, so do plants.
- You don’t have to spend money on fertilizers anymore. Actually that’s what compost pretty much is – natural fertilizers instead of the chemical ones you get at the store. What’s more, some garbage services charge by volume so by composting your kitchen scraps and leaves, you can save money.
- Just a few decades ago, every town had its own municipal dump. That’s not true today. Based on data collected by Waste Business Journal, over the next five years, total landfill capacity in the U.S. is forecast to decrease by more than 15%. This means that by 2021 only 15 years of landfill capacity will remain. Composting can help reduce the volume of our garbage and give us more time to figure out a solution.
- Ever see a mudslide in the news? Mudslides occur when a large amount of rain causes water to “liquefy” the soil and move it downhill. Vegetation is a great defense against mudslides. Yup, healthy, well maintained plants and trees have roots that pretty much anchor soil and rocks in place so they don’t easily move. And what helps a plant to be healthy? Compost!
How to Start Composting
There are MANY ways to get started composting – you can get a bucket, make a bin, buy a tumbler or simply start a pile in your yard. Much of what you do will depend on the size of your yard, your annual or future plantings and how much waste you generate. There are MANY resources you can read. Here are basic guidelines on how to start composting:
- Choose a bin
A kitchen-top compost caddy is a good place to start. The one we chose from Amazon was the LALASTAR Food Waste Bin. Use this or any food-caddy-style model to empty your food scraps into a larger bin in the garden. - Pick a location
Place the bin in a sunny spot on bare soil where you can easily add ingredients and remove compost. - Add materials
A mix of greens and browns is ideal, and use twice as much brown material as green.. Greens include food scraps, coffee grounds, and grass clippings, while browns include dead leaves, branches, and paper (think greens as moist and browns as dry). You can also add teabags, toilet paper tubes, cereal boxes, and eggshells. Don’t compost cooked food, meat, or fish. - Turn the compost
Regularly turning the compost pile helps distribute oxygen and moisture, which speeds up the composting process. - Insulate
In the winter, insulate the compost pile to prevent it from freezing and stopping decomposition. You can surround the bin with bags of leaves or straw bales, or line the inside with leaves, sawdust, or woodchips. - Wait for it to be ready
It can take months for compost to be ready to use, so it’s best to start your compost in the fall for spring/summer planting.. Compost is ready when it’s crumbly and dark, with a fresh, earthy smell. - Use the compost
You can use compost to enrich vegetable patches, borders, patio containers, and lawns.
Our Composting Experience
We have the LALASTAR Food Waste Bin under the sink to collect all our greens – fruit & veggie scraps, coffee grounds, teabags, eggshells (although I store eggshells in separate jars because I use them for lots of things). Our browns consist of newspaper, leaves, cut grass, even shredded or cut up brown cardboard boxes (brown boxes without printing or the tape and labels) – very useful information. I have both a tumbler for faster, concentrated compost and a pile bounded by our old fence gates. The compost pile is where the cardboard boxes end – the best practice we have arrived at is shredding them into little pieces using the Bonsaii Paper Shredder. Check out our post: Cardboard Composting Increases Soil Quality to learn about cardboard shredding. Piles, also called cold composting, will take a long time to break down, so we start our piles in the Fall well before our spring plantings.
If you want a vegetable or herb garden, plants, trees, shrubs, flowers, vines, etc. start composting. It’s the one thing about gardening you can’t mess up: as I learned from my little booklet, 35+ years ago and has held true all these years . . . Compost Happens!
Our LivingOnThePatio Starter Kit includes a worksheet for instructions on building an outdoor compost pile (heap). Get it here.
Update: When Bees Build a Nest in Your Compost Pile
So, it’s now late-summer of 2024. Earlier in the planting season we learned about an interesting issue with compost heaps that you’ll want to know about. Apparently, because of the warm, moist center of the compost heap as the scraps breakdown, this environment is very appealing to bees. I don’t know what kind of bees except that they are the kind who get angry when disturbed and like to sting to express their dissatisfaction at being disturbed. And there are a lot of them!
Imagine my surprise when I stuck a shovel into our compost heap to turn the top layer over and get some rich dirt from the bottom layer and out swarmed a plethora of bees (plethora being defined as “an excessive quantity”). So, the issue became, how to get rid of the bees without killing them. And my extensive research identified that one of the most offensive odors to bees is garlic. Yes, garlic. I found this site for instructions on how to prepare your garlic repellent for bees: Making Garlic Spray.
I went to Harbor Freight and bought a pump sprayer for this task. It took me two heavy applications on our compost heap with a week in between applications, but within a few days after the second application I dug through the compost heap and the bees were all gone. Apparently they hate the aroma of garlic so much that they just pack up and move. And I was happy that they did.
Enjoy the Fruit of Your Labor
So, once you get some rich compost into your garden and your garden blossoms with flowers or fruits or vegetables you can slip out to the patio with an adult beverage and a snack to admire what you’ve planted and watch it grow! And remember, every day is Friday on the Patio.
Why Composting is Important FAQs
Is it worth it to compost?
Composting reduces waste, makes us less dependent on landfills, and decreases greenhouse gas emissions. Every day, the average American generates roughly four and a half pounds of waste – that’s about 1,600 pounds per year per person.
Why is composting so good for the environment?
Proper composting of the organic waste we generate in our daily lives – inedible or unused food – can reduce the dependence on chemical fertilizers, help recover soil fertility, and improve water retention and the delivery of nutrients to plants.
What happens if we don’t compost?
Today, Americans compost about 6 percent of kitchen scraps. The rest ends up mainly in landfills where it rots, generating methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent in the short term than carbon dioxide.
Why do people not want to compost?
The most common reasons for not composting were the size of their garden, not enough waste and compost being smelly.
Please Leave a Comment
What do you think? Please leave your comments below. Let us know your composting ideas. Do you have a compost heap or do you compost in a container? What do you use your compost for? Post a photo of your compost set-up.
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