Having an ample
supply of good rich compost is the gardeners' dream.
It has many uses, and all of those uses will result in
nicer plants. However, composting can be time consuming
and hard work. I place a reasonable value on my time,
so spending hours and hours turning compost piles
doesn’t qualify as a worthwhile exercise, at least in my
book. Nonetheless, I do compost, but I do so on my terms.
I built two composting bins. Each bin is five feet wide, five feet deep, and four feet high. I built the bins
by sinking 4” by 4” posts in the ground for the corners, and
then nailed 2 by 4’s and 1 by 4’s, alternating on the sides.
I left 2” gaps between the boards for air circulation.
The 2 by
4’s are rigid enough to keep the sides from bowing out,
and in between each 2 by 4 I used 1 by 4’s to save a little money. The
bins are only 3 sided, I left the front of the bins open so they can be
filled and emptied easily. Photos
of my compost bins are on this page: http://www.freeplants.com\composting.htm
I
started by filling just one of the bins. I put grass clippings, dried leaves, and shrub clippings in the bins.
I try not to put more than 6” of each material on a layer.
You don’t want 24” of grass clippings in the bin, you should alternate layers of green and brown material. If
necessary, keep a few bags of dry leaves around so you can alternate layers of brown waste and green waste.
When we root
cuttings we use coarse sand in the flats, so when it’s
time to pull the rooted cuttings out of the flats, the old sand goes on
the compost pile. In
our little backyard nursery we also have
some plants in containers that do not survive. Rather
than
pulling the dead plant and the weeds out of the
container, and then dumping the potting soil back on the soil pile, we
just dump the whole container in the compost
bin. This adds more brown material to the mix, and is a
lot easier than separating the soil and the weeds.
Once the bin is full, the rules of composting say
that you should turn the material in the bin every few weeks.
There is no way that I have time to do that, so this is
what I do.
I pack as much material in the bin as I can, before I
start filling the second bin. I pile the material as high as I possibly
can, and even let it spill out in front of the bin. Then I cover all
the fresh material with mulch or potting soil, whatever brown material I
can find.
Then when I’m out
working in the garden I set a small sprinkler on top of
the pile and turn it on very low, so a small spray of water runs on
the material. Since I have a good water well, this doesn’t
cost me anything, so I let it run for at least two hours
as often as I can. This keeps the material damp, and
the moisture will cause the pile to heat up, which is
what makes the composting action take place.
Once I have the first bin completely full, I start using
the second bin. As the material in the first bin
starts to break down, it will settle, and the bin is no
longer heaped up, so I just keep shoveling the material that I piled in
front of the bin, up on top of the pile, until all the material
is either in the
bin or piled on top of the heap. Then I
just leave it alone, except to water it once in a
while. The
watering isn’t necessary, it just speeds the process.
Because I don’t turn the pile, I can’t expect all of the
material to rot
completely. The material in the center
is going to break down more than the material on the
edges, but most of it does
break down quite well. The next step works great for me
because I’ve got a small nursery, so I keep a pile of potting soil on
hand at all times. But you can really do the same thing by just buying
two or three yards of shredded mulch to get started, and
piling it up near your compost bins. If you do this, you will
always have a supply of good compost to work
with.
Shredded
bark, left in a pile will eventually
break down and become great
compost. The potting soil that I use is
about 80% rotted bark. I make potting soil by
purchasing fine textured, and dark hardwood bark mulch, and I just put
it in a pile and let it rot. The secret is to keep the pile low
and flat, so that it does not shed the rain water away.
You want the mulch to stay as wet as possible, this will cause it
to break
down fairly quickly.
So I keep a pile of rotted bark mulch near my
compost bins. When both bins are completely full, I empty the
bin containing the oldest material by piling it on top of my rotted bark
mulch. I make sure the pile of rotted mulch is wide
and
flat on top so that when I put the material from the
compost bin on top of the pile, the compost material is only 5 to
10 inches thick.
My mulch pile might be 12’ wide, but it
may only be 24 to 30 inches high. Once I have all the
compost on
top of the pile, then I go around the edge of the pile
with a shovel, and take some of the material from the edges of the pile
and toss it up on top of the pile, covering the compost with at least 6”
of rotted bark. This will cause the compost
material to decompose the rest of the way.
Once you get this system started, you never want to
use all of the material in the pile. Always keep at least 2 to
3 cubic yards on hand so you’ve got something to mix
with your compost. If you use a lot of compost material like I do,
then you should buy more material and add to your pile
in the late summer or fall, once you are done using it for the season.
Around here many of the supply companies sell a
compost material that is already broken down quite well. This is
what I buy to add to my stock pile. But I try to make
sure that
I have at least 3 yards of old material on hand, then
I’ll add another 3 yards of fresh material to that. Then in the
spring I’ll empty one of the compost bins and add the
compost to the top of the pile.
The pile of usable compost will be layers of
material, some more composted than others. Kind of like a sandwich.
So what I do is chip off a section of the pile from the
edge, spread it out on the ground so it’s only about 8” deep, then
run over it with my small rototiller. This mixes it
together perfectly, and I shovel it onto the potting bench.
Having a pile of rotted compost near your compost
bins is great because if you have a lot of leaves or grass clippings,
you can throw some rotted compost in the bin in order to maintain that
layered effect that is necessary in order for the composting process to
work well.
Watch The Video For Top Composting Tips
Sure this process is a little work, but it sure is nice to have a place to get rid of organic waste
any time I like. Then down the road when I have beautiful
compost to add to my potting soil, I am grateful to have done the right thing
earlier, and I know that I have wasted nothing.
Michael J.
McGroarty is the author of this article. Visit his most
interesting website, http://www.freeplants.com
and sign up for his excellent gardening newsletter.
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