Compost is More than Organic, It's Natural!
What is the importance of compost in the garden? Compost is nature's way of adding nutrition to the soil for the plants, protecting surface roots, reducing water run off, retaining moisture and reducing methane gas in the landfill. Compost can be used to amend clay type soils and as top dressing instead of mulch or with a fine layer of mulch on top. Anyone can do it following a few simple steps.
Composting doesn't have to take a lot of your time, you can compost for a quick return or long term. Whatever works for your schedule and needs. It’s a natural decay process that produces a rich soil like humus. Compost won’t smell bad unless there are inappropriate waste materials added.
Not interested in regular compost maintenance? You can still get compost in time for spring by piling your vegetable and plant debris (I'll tell you how in a bit) in your compost bin. Let it pile up and do its thing over time and you’ll have some compost in spring. It will take about a year if not processed. A 3'x3'x3’ bin will give you about 6-9 cubic feet of usable compost in a year. You will need a minimum of 3’x3’x3’ bin and a maximum of 5’x5’x5’.
Interested in more compost? Then a bit of maintenance to regular maintenance will give you quicker results. Here's the skinny:
Turn and process your compost about 2-3 times and you will have compost in about 8 weeks. The standard is to turn it once a week and spray a bit of water for a return in 6-12 weeks. You want the pile to be layered with browns and green (more on that later) and reach a temperature of 158 degrees F. You can get a compost thermometer to determine when it is ready. After turning, you wait for it to build heat again and turn again until it is ready to use. Turning the pile adds oxygen, add some moisture with water, and nature will add the organisms. You will see earth worms, red worms and sow bugs in a short time. Bacteria, fungus, nematodes and other microbes will add to the decaying process. If you get ants, then it is too dry and you need to add more water.
My own compost is on the slow schedule. I really don’t have time to look after it. I pile in fruit and vegetable debris from the kitchen, flower tops from my hydrangeas, leaves and grass and chipped larger stuff. I even chip the branches from my Christmas tree each year. I process it in spring and fall and I get about a cubic yard of compost each year. I use it for my vegetable gardens, to amend my clay type soil when I plant a new plant, and I top dress plants that need a nutrient boost. Other than my acid loving plants, I try not to use store bought products to fertilize my yard. If you don't want to invest in a small chipper (about $100) you can still get results composting the smaller stuff.
So just what can you put in a compost bin? The objective is to layer “brown” and “green” waste. BROWN adds Carbon: fallen dried leaves, dead branches then broken into a few inches of bits or chipped, shredded paper (no glossy color ads that contain lead), toilet paper and paper towel tubes, shredded cardboard, paper egg cartons, saw dust, wood chips. GREEN adds Nitrogen: green leaves, grass clippings unless you leave them on the lawn, coffee grounds including the coffee filter, vegetable and fruit waste from the kitchen and garden, plant pruning broken down to bits, chicken manure. Dryer lint is ok if it is natural fibers and not synthetics, like cotton.
DO NOT add any dog or cat waste (possible parasites), meat & dairy products (attracts critters), wood ash, thorny plants, any plant that you don’t want to grow in your yard like poisonous plants such as Oleander or invasives such as Ivy and weed seeds, and nothing that has been treated with herbicide. Avoid adding diseased plant material so you don’t spread it to unaffected plants. Dog or cat fur from grooming is ok and if scattered in the yard in spring, the birds will use it to line their nests.
The Maintenance: turning with a pitch fork and mixing the layers a bit helps add needed oxygen. Grass clippings need to be mixed a bit when added to avoid matting. Add your produce debris from the kitchen as you acquire it. Potato peels, broccoli stems, banana peels, apple skins, artichoke leaves, trimmed lettuce leaves and so on. Leaves in fall are easy to process when they fall on a lawn and are mowed and instantly chipped and mixed with the grass clippings. Occasionally spray in some water to keep things moist. Adding green wastes will add moisture too. If it just isn't heating up or processing, you may need more green stuff.
Composting in Place: Leaving grass clippings on the lawn allows for those nutrients that were used to return to the soil. It provides Nitrogen to the soil, promotes deeper root growth, and encourages worm and nematode activity which help to aerate the soil naturally. Likewise when dead heading flowers and pruning leaves I leave them in the planters to compost at the site. I always remove anything that looks diseased to avoid spreading and contaminating other plants. Also avoid any piling of debris against plant stems and tree trunks.
You have rich brown compost, now what? For a new planting, mix in 4” of compost with existing soil. For annual amendment, top soil with ½ to 3” layer and mix in with the soil. It will add nutrients, microbes, help retain water and improve plant growth. Coarse compost (not like a fine soil yet) can be used to top dress your planting beds. Screened fine compost can be added to lawns, about a ½”. Compost can also be used on house plants and is great added to vegetable beds before new planting in Spring. See my post on vegetable gardens for more info.
Compost bin available through Santa Clara CountyTypes of bins: there are those shaped as cubes or have little domes these are all rodent ‘resistant’ due to the tops and no holes larger than ¼". You do have to keep them closed to keep critters out. Open piles or those contained by chicken wire etc., are accessible to rodents and have to be actively turned. If you keep an open pile you can only use yard trimmings and no food products. It is against the law to attract rodents. The more “active” your maintenance the less likely rodents will want to nest in your compost.
If your composting pile isn’t decaying you either don’t have enough moisture or too much brown material. A pile of branches will take a very long time to decompose.
If your compost pile smells bad then you have too many food scraps, or inappropriate food scraps like meat and dairy or it is too wet.
Worm composting bins for just food scraps is another method of composting. You will also need shredded paper for the ‘brown” part of the mix and add fresh produce waste buried into the existing decomposing mass.
The County of Santa Clara has a lot of info and they have low cost sales of compost bins and worm bins throughout the year often tied into a free workshop.