ABC Wednesday --Round 10 C

OK, Here it is, ABC Wednesday time again. This is the day to join in the ABC Wednesday Challenge, and share a little bit of our world with friends all over the world, and learn about them as well, one letter at a time. You can participate too, in either the sharing, or the learning, or both, by visiting ABC Wednesday,Where this week, the letter is:




And today my C word is Compost.

At the Master Gardener Class last weekend, the instructor mentioned how valuable Compost is, but went on to say that it is so much bother to make it and you can never make as much as you need, so you should just go ahead and buy it, or try to get it free from your local city.

Now for those of us with more money than we have brains, this is of course the most logical solution, but for the rest of us, there are things we can do at home to help make our gardens better.

How many of you have a compost pile?

How many of you actually try to compost, vs having a pile you throw stuff in and just forget about it?

Have you tried worm composting?

Today, I spent the day at the princess's preschool, setting up a worm farm. The kids were all fascinated with the worms, the teachers too. They all held them and petted them, and I think maybe they were even trying to name some of them.

I am so glad that I am getting a chance to reach, not just one child but a whole group of them. I hope some of the things I teach them and show them about growing and using good clean healthy natural methods to produce your own food will stick with them in their lives.

Anyone else raise worms?

Tell me your composting stories!

Fertilizer Friday -- Composting Q & A

It's Friday, and that means a visit to Fertilizer Friday over at Tootsie Time.
Check out her blog party and see what other people have blooming in their gardens.

I wanted to wrap up my series on composting with my Q&A page. It has been quietly floating along, where I hid it among some old posts. But it seemed like the best way to finish.

As I started my series, I started getting some questions. I tried to answer each one individually, but I though I'd post all the questions, and my answers, here too. I will continue to update this with new questions I receive as I go along

What are the blue things in the barrels?

Although not really related to composting, several readers noticed and wondered about the gallon jugs that I have buried in my oak barrels. This was a trick I started last year. Diann saw it on a blog and showed it to me. I took a gallon milk jug and poked small holes in the sides, right near the bottom, then I buried them in the barrels with just the cap exposed. I fill the jugs with water and replace the caps. It takes several days for the water to leak out, so I have a slow-drip watering system that delivers water to the roots of my plants.

Do you just add the coffee filters and tea bags along with the used grounds and leaves?

Yes The coffee grounds and tea leaves are Greens and the bags and filters are Browns, but they all go into the compost pile. The paper wont break down quite as fast, so if you are in a hurry, you can always separate them or shred them, but I never have.

Will keeping the smell down prevent "critters"?

It won't completely prevent them but it helps to discourage them. Just like your garden, your compost pile is a source of food, so if you have backyard wildlife, they will be interested in your compost pile. But keeping the smell down will make it less noticeable to them. You can cage your pile in chicken wire, if you want. I haven't and I know they dig in the pile and find apple cores and things, but they haven't made any real mess or anything yet, so I just pretend I don't notice. If they become a nuisance I will come up with a solution. Given the choice, I would rather they dig in the compost than in the garden.

Do you blend your kitchen scraps or just add them directly to the pile?

Blending your scraps in a blender or food processor will break them down more quickly, and speed composting time. If you don't have room for a compost pile, some people will blend scraps and then add them directly to the garden.

Because I have so many used pine shavings in my pile, my composting will take a little longer than usual anyway, the greens always break down long before the browns, so I have never felt a need to blend them.

Another factor is the fact that my kitchen scraps sit for up to a week before the get added to the pile, so they have already started to break down before they ever make it to the compost pile.

Does it matter if I use coffee grounds that are not organic?

No it doesn't. This is the beauty of composting. You can add organic or non organically grown vegetables, fruits, and even coffee grounds to your compost pile. The multitude of little organisms, bacteria protozoa and other microbes that live and feed in the compost don't just break down the food, they break down any chemical that may have been on it. (Obviously if you dump gallons of chemical on your compost pile to prove me wrong, you will succeed in doing so.) So, as long as you maintain a healthy pit, and keep the "composties" happy, they will produce good clean, healthy, organic compost.

Is it safe to compost egg shells? What about e. coli?

Egg shells are kind of an oddity. They provide calcium, but they do it in such small quantities and over such a long time that they really don't release it in the compost pile. But that's OK, because compost doesn't really need calcium.
Remember, when you build a compost pile, you are not feeding your plants, you are feeding your microbes.

From what I can tell e. coli is rare in eggs, and when it is present in eggs it is in the yolk. If it makes you more comfortable, you can rinse your eggshells thoroughly before you put them in your garden.

Many gardeners keep their eggshells separate, crush them up as small as they can then add them directly to their garden. I throw mine in the compost, simply because I can, and that way they don't end up in the landfill.

Making an 8" diameter circle of crushed eggshells around the base of aplant, and sprinkling the inside with coffee grounds is said to be an effective way of keeping slugs off your plants. apparently they don't like to crawl over the rough surfaces. I haven't had a real slug problem yet, so I have had no reason to try this.

Composting Series:

Composting I -What is Compost?

Composting II -Getting Started

Composting III -What to Compost

Composting IV - pH

Composting V -Aerobic vs Anaerobic

Composting VI Using Compost

Composting Q & A

And now for a bit of current garden info.

Diann has been doing lots of outside projects this week, so I have been working outside a lot too. It's kind of like, I built a basic a foundation, with the main flower bed, the herb bed, and a few planters here and there, now she is building on that, adding touches of color, of whimsy, or creativity.

Watch her blog at The Thrifty Groove for some of the neat garden projects she has been working on lately.

The last two Saturdays at the Farmers Market have been kind of fun.
Not rolling in the cash by any means, but a chance to get out and meet some people, and share some information about herbs. It always makes me feel useful when someone has a question that I can actually answer.

The vegetable garden at Diann's Parents house is not going to materialize this year. We did get a little bit tilled and got a few tomatoes, some green peppers and some assorted squash plants planted, but nothing near what I wanted to get in.

Even after the water dried up, because it was such a wet spring, it has turned into an International Mosquito Refuge. Never have I seen so many mosquitoes. They swarm in hordes, flying in my mouth, my nose, my eyes, biting everywhere, through layers of clothes and I swear even through the soles of my shoes. (OK maybe not, but it seems like it.) I am extremely sensitive to mosquito bites and when I get them they swell up and about half the time they actually form a scab.

So I am not spending nearly as much time in that garden as I wanted too.

Anyone know any handy mosquito abatement tips?

So that's my weekly garden report. Here is our flower bed this week. Of course, you can see all my buckets and junk in the background, Diann always tells me to clean up my mess before I take pictures and I always forget until I see the picture and see all my junk.



Make sure you check out Tootsie's blog, to see what everyone else has blooming in their gardens!

~{@ @}~ ~{@ @}~ ~{@ @}~ ~{@ @}~ Be sure and join me each Tuesday for Tuesday Trivia Tie-in, where readers are invited to share trivia and show off their treasures. Read all about it here

Fertilizer Friday -- Composting VI - Using Compost

It's Friday, and that means a visit to Fertilizer Friday over at Tootsie Time.
Check out her blog party and see what other people have blooming in their gardens.

This is number six in my series about compost, you can read the others here:
A step by step tutorial for the beginning composter.

Composting I -What is Compost?

Composting II -Getting Started

Composting III -What to Compost

Composting IV -pH

Composting V -Aerobic vs Anaerobic

Composting Q & A

I want to talk just a little bit about how to use compost, but before I do, I have to share a quick personal experience with the garden.

This was one of those, I knew better but did it anyway moments.

This spring, I was getting the ground ready for our flowerbed. I had been to a plant swap and had a whole truckload of new plants to put in, none of which cost me anything except for some time.

This flowerbed has some history. The last few years, at the end of the season, we have dumped all the planters and pots that we had everywhere, onto this bed. Then we bought a few chrysanthemums, and prettied it up for fall.

Last spring, when it was time to plant, I decided that the progressive dumping and adding to this bed had raised the soil level too high, all the water was running out when I tried to water it, so I took about 6” of dirt off the top of the bed, and used it around the yard to fill in some low spots. And to fill in where we had taken some patio blocks out.

It didn’t occur to me until halfway through the season, when the flowers were all looking sick and wimpy, that I had taken the best soil from the bed and left the clay and depleted soil below.

So this year, I wanted to make sure and add something to the soil, to break it up a little and revitalize the soil.

I didn’t have any compost ready yet, but I knew, from research, that rabbit manure could be added directly to the garden without being composted first, and it will not damage the plants.

I had been picking up the used bedding from the pet store, and had a big bag of it in the back of my truck, ready to go dump on the compost pile.

Great, I thought to myself, (without really thinking it through, of course,) I can just use that.

So, I added it to the flowerbed, and took a shovel and dug it in nicely, then I added a bit more rabbit manure that I had left in the truck, and planted the plants. I watered them well, and left them to take root. I wanted to see how they did before we filled in the spaces between them with some annuals, and mulched around them.

At this point, everyone but me should be grinning, and smirking, knowing what would happen next.

When the pet store cleans out their cages, they scoop everything into a bag. All the used bedding from the rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters and bird cages, all goes into the bag.

You guessed it, all that uneaten birdseed, all the seeds and corn kernels, grains and good things that are in the rodent food, all of that, when mixed with a nice blend of rabbit manure and soil, and watered generously and left in the sun began to grow!

Not just grow, but absolutely flourish! I had provided optimum growing conditions for them, and they were taking advantage of that.

For the next week, every day I pulled and plucked and weeded. I took them out by the handful. Finally, when we got some annuals, and got them planted, I put down a layer of newspaper and covered it with mulch. That seemed to control most of them. But I just noticed today that I have, not one, not two, but three corn plants growing in that garden. I may just leave them, there is no law against having a few stalks of corn in the flower bed is there?

One of them is over a foot tall. To manage to get that big without getting pulled took some clever growing. It was hiding in a day lily, and at first it sort of looked like day lily leaves.

So, the lesson I learned was: Never use compost, until it has had a chance to break down properly.
A few months in the compost bin would have saved me all sorts of time, effort and work, not to mention frustration, aggravation and self flagellation.

This goes back to the TIME part of FAT TOM. Compost requires time, and if we try to rush things or skip steps, it very seldom results in saving us time.

Your compost will be ready when it is black and crumbly, looks like dirt, and you don’t recognize any of the stuff that you put into the pile in the first place. It may have small twigs or sticks in it, in some cases, depending on how you are using it, you can screen these out.

There is an excellent tutorial for building a compost screen that you can find here.



One person who built one, suggested that you alter the measurements to make it a custom fit for your own wheel barrow, and that you add a strip of wood underneath on each side to create a lip so it stays in place.

This is a project I hope to build this year, as soon as all the vital stuff is done and I have some play time.

So, now you have a huge pile of fully composted and screened compost and you are wondering what to do with it?

Well, lets explore some ideas.

But first let me take a minute to debunk a commonly held myth.

Many people believe that compost is a fertilizer, and that when you add compost to your garden you are adding nutrients to the soil. This myth is hard to completely debunk, because like many myths it has a small element of truth in it. Compost has a small amount of nutrients in it, that will be released into the garden over a long period of time.

So, why do we add it, if it isn’t full of nutrients?

Compost improves soils structure, adds beneficial microbes and increases the ability of the soil to retain nutrients. It improves the mobility of air, water and nutrients in the soil, allowing plants in your garden to make better use of the nutrients that are available.

So, now that we know that, how do we use it?

In a new garden, compost can be placed directly on top of the soil and then worked in with a tiller, to a depth of about 6”. A recommended amount to use on a new garden is about 4-6”. Then each year, before planting add another 2-4” and work it in with the tiller.

For pots, and containers use about 1 part compost to 3 parts soil, (By volume) mixing well.
Some people recommend using compost as a garden mulch, and you certainly can, but in my personal opinion, unless you have an abundance of compost, this is not necessarily the most efficient way to use your compost.

There are less valuable mulches available, that way you can save your compost for where it will do the most good. However, using a bit around the trunk of a tree, as a mulch is not a bad idea, since you will not be digging the tree and tilling that soil every year. Just don’t pile the compost directly up against the tree trunk, or you may find yourself inadvertently composting a tree.

About ½” to 1” of compost raked into your lawn as a top dressing will slowly work its way down to the roots of the grass, allowing for the same benefits under the grass that it provides in the vegetable garden.

One popular use of compost is brewing compost tea. This is not quite the same as Earl Gray or Orange Pekoe, and I wouldn’t get out your fine china for this one. Put a large shovelful or two of compost in a burlap sack, and set it in a five gallon bucket. Fill the bucket almost to the top with water and let it sit in the sun for about a week. You can lift and dunk it every couple of days if you want, to aerate it a bit..

When you lift the bag out, you will have liquid, rich with microorganisms, good for watering plants, or for spraying directly on the foliage. This should be roughly the color of iced tea. If it is much darker you may want to consider diluting a bit.

And now, to flaunt our flowers...

Here is what the flower bed looked like before we started anything this year, after a disappointing season last year.

Here is what it looked like after I planted the plants from the plant swap.


right after we got the mulch down.


And this is what it looks like this week. It is kind of a side view, but it shows the progress.


Those of you who read Dianns blog will recognize the gardener, she loves that sprayer!


Be sure and join me each Tuesday for Tuesday Trivia Tie-in, where readers are invited to share trivia and show off their treasures.

Read all about it here

Fertilizer Friday -- Composting V - Aerobic vs. Anaerobic

It's Friday, and that means a visit to Fertilizer Friday over at Tootsie Time.
Check out her blog party and see what other people have blooming in their gardens.


This is number five in my series about compost, you can read the others here:
A step by step tutorial for the beginning composter.

Composting I -What is Compost?

Composting II -Getting Started

Composting III -What to Compost

Composting IV -pH

Composting Q & A

Today we are going to meet two of the main organisms that help make compost.

Two different types of Bacteria. Aerobic and Anaerobic.

Both are composters, they will eat organic matter and turn it into compost, but they work differently and each do best in a different environment.

Anaerobic bacteria thrive in water . They are the bacteria largely responsible for composting algae at the bottom of lakes ,and for composting in swamps, bogs and other wet places. Some anaerobes do not like air, while others simply do not require air to live, as a result, they do their best work in places where there is no air. They have a slower metabolism than aerobic bacteria, and take much longer to convert a pile to compost than aerobic bacteria will.

When you hear talk of Cold Composting, it is anaerobic bacteria who do most of the work. The upside of cold composting, or anaerobic composting is that the pile is much less labor intensive. You simply pile everything in a corner somewhere, and a year or so later, you have compost. An additional benefit is that these bacteria have a tendency to reduce the overall size of the pile less, so the same amount of raw material cold composted will produce more humus than it would if it were hot composted.

The downside is that it takes a lot longer, and anaerobic bacteria tend to give off a nasty smell we often think of as swamp gas.

One way to combat the smell is to cover the pile with dirt. If you are composting primarily to reduce your contributions to landfills, cold composting or anaerobic composting is a good solution. You dig a hole, throw everything in and bury it. Or, as an ongoing operation, dig a trench and fill it in, covering it as you go.

In a few years, there will be no evidence that anything beside dirt was ever there.

Aerobic Bacteria on the other hand, require air to live and grow and do their job. Just like a gym full of people working out, they generate heat, so Aerobic composting is what we call Hot Composting. It is the fastest way to make compost.


In order to keep aerobic bacteria happy, you need to keep the compost pile moist but not waterlogged, imagine a sponge that you get wet, then wring out. That’s how wet your compost pile should be.
You also need to make sure they get air. There are several ways to do this.

The easiest way is with an aerator. You can buy a fancy-shmancy one for $35 from the garden store, or, you can use a stick. You poke a whole bunch of holes down through the compost to let air get in.

I cannot stress enough that composting doesn’t have to be, and should not be, an expensive endeavor. There are people who will sell you everything from a fancy bin, to a compost fork, to an aerator to a compost thermometer, compost activator, and a variety of other compost implements, but you don’t need any of those things to make compost.

My preferred method of aeration is to turn the compost. This isn’t necessarily easy, it takes time and it can be a lot of work. But that’s why I have a two compartment compost bin. I take it, one shovelful at a time and move it from one side of the bin to the other, The stuff I scoop from the outside, I toss toward the center and the stuff from the center I toss to the outside, so it all gets rotated.

All the experts say use a pitchfork, but I don’t have one. I do have a shovel, so that’s what I use.

I like this method because it gives me a chance to see how everything is doing. If there are any big chunks or clumps that need to be broken up usually a good whack with the shovel takes care of them. And it lets me see if I need to add water.

I can also check from time to time to see if it is hot, while I am turning it.

Funny that I should mention this, after my mini rant about buying things, but I ordered a compost thermometer from Amazon recently, with an Amazon gift card I got for participating in a study group, so I may not have to keep sticking my hand in it any more. It is a convenience and didn’t cost me out of pocket, but it is not a necessity and nobody should think they cannot compost without one.

Your compost should be between 110-160 degrees F. 110 degrees will feel warm to your touch, but not hot. Imagine the temperature of a baby bottle. or the temperature of the water when you bake bread.

When it drops below 110, or no longer feels warm to the touch, it is time to make some adjustments. If you can still see big pieces of your browns, it means your greens have done all they can and you need to add more. If it is dry add a little water, if not get some air into it.

All those things can be checked while you turn the pile.

Some compost zealots advocate that you turn your pile every day, but the most efficient composting occurs at 130-160 degrees. It often takes a day or two to reach those temperatures, so if you are turning every day, you will cool off your compost, and it will never reach the ideal temperature. It will still compost eventually, but not as fast.

There is no magic formula for time and temperature to make compost, like baking a cake. But you will have compost most quickly if you keep your pile moist and aerated, and keep a good balance of greens and browns.

This will keep your pile aerobic, maintaining the most efficient bacteria for compost. If it gets too wet, and anaerobic bacteria develop, you will notice a swampy smell coming from the pile. The best way to counter that is to get dry material, preferably browns at this point, and air into the pile.

With an efficient aerobic pile, in anywhere from six weeks, to six months, you should have finished compost that is ready to use for a whole bunch of garden needs. The time is influenced by what you put in the pile, some things break down faster than others. Think, Overripe banana, underripe apple, which one will break down first?

Time is also influenced by how big the pieces are. If you blend your greens, and run your browns through a shredder, they will break down faster than if you just chop them and throw them in.

A final factor? Many people suggest "lasagna composting" where you layer your greens and browns, this is a great way to start a pile and a good way to make sure you are putting in even amounts of greens and browns, but if you mix them together in a bucket or wheelbarow before you add them, they will break down faster.

So now we have addressed the last part of FAT TOM, Time, Temperature Oxygen and Moisture.

Next time we will talk about what to do with all that compost once you make it, and I'll reveal an I-knew-better-but-did-it-anyway moment from my compost experience this year.

We were able to finally get the tiller into our garden and run through it, but the ground was still pretty wet and clumped up pretty good, so it is not quite ready to plant, I'm hoping that with some sunshine and wind, it will dry out enough so that we can run the tiller through it again this week and maybe be able to plant it soon.

It was so discouraging to see our plans for a big garden this year all wash away, but we have all summer to build the ground up, dig some drainage ditches and take some other steps so that next year we should be all ready to plant the garden we hoped to plant this year.

Be sure and join me each Tuesday for Tuesday Trivia Tie-in, where readers are invited to share trivia and show off their treasures.

Read all about it here

Fertilizer Friday Composting IV -- pH

It's Friday, and that means a visit to Fertilizer Friday over at Tootsie Time.
Check out her blog party and see what other people have blooming in their gardens.

This is my fourth post in my series about Composting. You can read the others here:

Composting I -What is Compost?

Composting II -Getting Started

Composting III -What to Compost

Composting Q & A

This week I am going to talk about pH.

I remember the first time I was introduced to the concept of pH. It was an ad back in the 70’s.

I can still sing the jingle, but I didn’t have a clue what pH balance meant, and I venture a guess that neither did most of the population.

Then, in the 80’s I worked at a swimming pool.

We had to test the chlorine level and the pH level every hour, and write the numbers down on a little chart.
Once a day, the maintenance guy would take the chart go and fiddle with the knobs and switches in the control room.

I still didn’t have any idea what pH was, I just knew that it had something to do with shampoo. And I knew that if the color of the strip was ever out of the “Safe” range according to the little chart on the wall in the lifeguard office, we were to call the Maintenance guy immediately. In fact, if it was ever more than one full number out of the “safe” range, we were to evacuate the pool. That never happened in the time I was there, but it was on the safety instructions posted on the wall in the lifeguard room.


So, I had heard the term a lot, but still had no idea what it was.


In the 90’s I took Occupational Food Safety classes at Virginia Tech, where I learned all about FAT TOM. No, he wasn’t a guy who worked there. FAT TOM was the acronym or mnemonic for the conditions necessary for bacteria to grow.

When we talked about Acidity, they gave us all kinds of facts and figures and numbers about pH levels and what was ideal and what was bad. I still didn’t know what the heck they were talking about, but I finally dared to ask. And I got a long confusing answer about logarithms and reciprocals and stuff. But I did finally learn that the “H” part stands for Hydrogen. OK, now I was getting somewhere.

One instructor said the “p” stood for “percentage“, another said it was for “parts” and still another said it was for “potential”. So maybe I didn’t need to feel so stupid for not knowing what it was.

But the best answer I got was that it really didn’t matter what pH stands for, but it was important what it represents. OK, I was on a roll here. Finally I was getting something I could use. So here it is, in normal people language.

pH is a term used to measure, or describe the amount or acid or acidity in a substance. Great, I can live with that. So pH means acid? Well, not exactly. The higher the pH, the less acid. The lower the pH, the more acid.

But it’s more than just that. Remember in science class when they taught us about acids and bases? Remember all the things we had to test with those little red and blue strips of paper? Remember having no clue what they meant when they said something was a base? Me too! But a base (or alkali) is the opposite of an acid. A really high pH level indicates something is a base. A low pH level means it is an acid.

For whatever reason, pH is measured on a scale of 0-14. Don’t ask me why, It’s all I can do to explain what. Why, is reserved for someone else.

A pH level of 7 is neutral. No acid, no base.

Just for info purposes, here are some common substances and where they rank on the pH scale.

Foodborne pathogens grow best in a pH between 4.5 and 7.5.
Now, in the restaurant industry you don’t want bacteria to grow. So you manage conditions so as to discourage them. Foods that fall between 4.5 and 7.5 are high risk foods and you make sure and treat them accordingly, keeping them refrigerated and away from some of the other FAT TOM elements.

In a compost pile, however bacteria are good things. The more they get in there and do their job, the faster the compost breaks down. So the ideal pH level for your compost is 5.5 to 8.

Interestingly enough, most plants will do best in soil that has a pH level of 6.5 to 7. But when you add a good quality compost to your soil, it broadens that and will allow your plants to thrive in pH levels from about 6 to about 8.

That’s another mystery for the science guys to explain…

What all this boils down to, is that we want our compost to be between 5.5 and 8.

But how do we control the pH in compost?

This is the really cool thing about composting. Most of the time we don't really have to do anything. The natural process of composting produces a substance with a pH level between 7 and 7.5 All you have to do is keep your pile balanced with browns and greens, and you will generally have a good pH level.

Now, there are some myths out there about pH in the compost pile and I want to address a couple of them now.

MYTH -Coffee is acidic, so coffee grounds will lower your pH level and the you have to add something to bring it back up.
FACT- Although Coffee is acidic, most of the acid is leached out of the grounds in the brewing process. Coffee grounds are mostly neutral. Adding brewed liquid coffee directly to your garden will lower your pH slightly, but coffee grounds will not, especially if they go through the composting process first.

MYTH - You need to add lime to your compost pile to counteract the acid in the food scraps you add.
FACT- Not only is lime not necessary, but many experts are now agreeing that adding lime may be harmful to your compost pile. Lime is often added to garbage piles or outhouses to reduce odor. It does this by killing certain bacteria and by converting nitrogen to ammonia. (it's a little more complex that that, but that is the main idea.)
It makes no sense to add nitrogen to your compost and then add things to destroy the nitrogen.

MYTH -You should attempt to make your compost either acidic or alkaline, based on the needs of your soil
FACT- If your soil need pH adjustment add it directly to your soil. Your compost should have the acidity level necessary to feed the fungi and protozoa and microbes and bacteria needed to compost, No matter what you add, you will either kill them, or they will produce compost that is roughly 7 to 7.5 pH. As a general rule, you will not significantly affect the pH of your finished compost by adding anything to it.

So, I hope I have helped you to understand what pH is, and how it comes into play when composting.

Next time we will discuss some more factors that affect your compost pile.
~{@ @}~ ~{@ @}~ ~{@ @}~ ~{@ @}~ Be sure and join me each Tuesday for Tuesday Trivia Tie-in, where readers are invited to share trivia and show off their treasures. Read all about it here

Fertilizer Friday, Composting III - What to Compost

It's Friday, and that means a visit to Fertilizer Friday over at Tootsie Time.
Check out her blog party and see what other people have blooming in their gardens.

This is my third post in my series on Composting.

You can read the other posts here:What is Compost?
Getting Started.

OK, I have a fancy compost bin, what do I do now?

How do I make compost out of potato peels, grass clippings and a half eaten apple?

Who do I look like? McGuyver?

Well, it’s actually very easy!

Lets take a phrase I learned way back in my food service days and bring it to the Compost pit. FAT TOM. This is what is needed for bacteria to grow, and so, it is also what is needed for compost to break down.

Food
Acidity
Temperature
Time
Oxygen
Moisture

In Hot Composting we manage each of those factors to provide the optimum environment for the bacteria, organisms, worms and various other whatnots to work their magic.

So, lets take them one at time.

We’ll start with Food.

If I were a microbe, a bacterium, a mold spore, a fungus, a worm, what would I like to eat? Well, for one thing they like just about anything people like.

So food for people is food for the compost pit, with a few exceptions:

Although they will eat meat, it isn’t a good idea to put it in your compost pit. Meat, fish and other animal matter can be returned to the soil, and can produce nutrients, but it needs to be treated differently. Meat in your compost pile will create odors, attract pests and under the wrong conditions could harbor parasites, and undesirable bacteria (think, salmonella, botulism, etc)

Dairy products, should not go into a compost pit for the same reasons, although the results are generally not quite as bad.

Animal proteins will compost at a different rate and temperature than vegetable proteins, and will generally upset the balance of your compost.

Beyond that, there are a few other things to keep out of the compost pile.

Most ashes are good for your compost, but do not put Coal Ash in the pile. Coal ash contains far too much Sulphur, and will likely damage your plants.

Although it may seem like a good idea, Dog and Cat Droppings do not belong in the compost bin. They can contain parasites. diseases and harmful bacteria that will not break down under regular compost conditions and can spread those to your garden, or to you when you are gardening. (Think, e-coli, toxoplasmosis, etc.)

Most plant trimmings and even weeds can be returned to the compost bin, but if you have a Diseased Plant it’s better not to take a chance. It would be a shame to spread blight, leaf spot or mosaic virus all over your garden next year when you think you are just spreading good healthy compost.

It’s never a good idea to just throw a piece of wood on the pile, but wood can be added, in small quantities if it is chipped or shredded. Remember though that Treated Wood or Plywood have no place on a compost pile. They have glues and chemicals in them that you just don’t want to eat in next years salad.

The same goes for Colored and Glossy Papers. A bit of color here and there is ok, but heavily colored papers have dyes that may or may not be safe. Many newspapers are printed now with a soy based ink, but they haven’t quite developed the ability to use indigo plants, berry bushes, and onion skins for their colors yet, so they still use synthetic dyes.

It probably goes without saying, because my readers are smarter than this, but Paint, Pesticides, Synthetic Chemicals, Plastic, Rubber, Glass, Metal, (including aluminum foil,) Styrofoam, and anything Non-organic shouldn’t go in your compost pile.

Ok, so now you know all the things that you DON’T use, what DO you use?

Everything else!

OK, that may be a bit vague, so lets break it down a bit.

You want to use a mixture of Carbon and Nitrogen. All organic matter is comprised of Carbon and Nitrogen. Without sounding like Bill Nye the Science Guy, or Mr. Wizard, or your seventh grade science teacher, you want to find a balance of the two.

Think of it as Vegetables and Carbs (no it isn’t a coincidence that carbon and carbohydrate both start with C-A-R-B) You need a balanced diet of both to have a healthy body, too much of one or the other and you have problems.

In the world of composting, things high in Carbon are generally referred to as Browns, and things high in Nitrogen are generally referred to as Greens. This has absolutely nothing to do with what color they are.

I can give you numbers and formulas and ratios that would make a math teacher giggle, and if anyone is truly interested there are plenty out there, but the numbers themselves are less important than the results.

There are many different opinions as to how much brown and how much green to use, some people say use a two to one ration while others say 50/50. The rationale here is that some people prefer to keep their compost slightly nitrogen heavy, that way it is always composting. They put the microbes on a low carb diet, so they are always hungry.

If a pile gets “too brown” it becomes inactive, and if it gets “too green” it starts to give off an unpleasant odor. Many people are willing to tolerate an odor, in exchange for a compost pile that is always active.

When you are first getting started, a good way to start a pile a is to put a 4-6" layer of browns down, then an equal layer of greens, then a layer of browns and another of greens and so on. This is often referred to as the Lasagna Method of composting. If you end up with browns on top, the top of the pile won’t compost but it will help contain odors. An alternative, and a good idea for several reasons, is to end with greens, but then cover the pile with a thin layer of garden soil.

This will introduce many of the microbes and organisms that are already in your healthy soil to the pile, acting as a compost starter. Of course you can buy compost starter too, if you would rather spend money than waste any good dirt.

What, you may ask, constitutes a Brown and what constitutes a Green?

Good question!

Browns may include such things as:

leaves,
paper,
cardboard (shredded),
wood ashes,
peat moss,
sawdust,
cornstalks,
pine needles
peanut shells,
straw
breads and grains.

Dry Dead leaves are one of the very best. They break down quickly and form a rich dark compost. Some other browns that can be used in moderation are:

pine cones,
tree nut shells, (walnuts, hazelnuts, etc)
wood chips
corn cobs

These are all great sources of carbon, but can take a long time to break down. If you have a means of crushing them or mulching them before they go on your compost pile you will be much happier with the results.

Greens on the other hand will be such things as

garden refuse,
hay,
manure,
tea and coffee grounds,
feathers,
hair,
and food scraps

I don’t want to get into numbers, because they make my eyes glaze over, but just because something is classified a green, or a brown, doesn’t mean they will all act the same. Seaweed for example is a green, but it is very high in carbon, a tiny bit more and it would be a brown. All leaves (except fresh oak leaves) are classified as browns, regardless of their color, but some act more like a green than a brown. An substance is either a green, or a brown, based on the ration of Carbon to Nitrogen in the substance.

Then there are things like Dryer lint, which can be added to your compost pile, that are a mystery. Cotton is a brown, wool is a green, Do you wash more jeans or more sweaters? You could give yourself a mild tumor trying to calculate the percentage of brown to green in your dryer lint, then trying to factor it into a compost ratio. So I don’t do numbers, per se.

The real test is to put it into your pile and then watch what happens.

If your pile isn’t breaking down, add more greens, if it is slimy, smelly and soupy, add more browns. The perfect combination will be the one that creates the temperature you need, without creating odor. Since every pile is different, everybody’s food scraps, leaves and other miscellaneous stuff are different, it will be a trial and error process until you find the balance that works for you.

A final personal anecdote.

Our compost has a multi stop journey.
It starts in a Folgers Can at the kitchen sink.

Each night, I empty that can into a Rubbermaid tub that sits right outside our door. Then, once a week, that tub gets carted to the compost bin and dumped there.

Since about Christmas time I have been visiting the local pet store a couple of times a week, and picking up their used bedding from when they clean out the small animal cages. Rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters mostly. It is a mixture of pine shavings, recycled paper, and a bit of straw. It is also liberally dosed with rabbit, guinea pig and hamster droppings. So it is in itself a blend of browns and greens. It is a bit brown heavy, so it was composting very slowly until spring when we started to mow the lawn and add the grass clippings to the pile.

What a difference! In just a few short weeks, with added greens and rainfall, as well as hot sunny days, our pile has turned from a big pile of stuff to a medium sized pile of compost. One or two more turnings and it will be ready to go!

So, now you know how to feed your compost pile. Next time we will discuss the importance of some of the other factors and how to regulate them so you have a healthy compost pile.


And now a couple of pics from our Garden this week, to make sure I don't break any Fertilizer Friday Rules.

The toadstools seem to be thriving, it's been such a wet year.

The mystery flowers have enjoyed the rain and the recent sunshine to show off their beauty. Maybe I'll just make up new names for all of them. Something exotic sounding...





The Chamomile is doing well, I'm still not quite sure how to use it. This is the first year for it, we planted it at the end of last season, so it is time to start researching.


And an overall view from the front of our flowerbed shows a nice fingerprint smudge on the camera lens...


I'm such a pro photographer, I think I should just hire Diann to take all my blog pics, she does so much better pictures than I do.

~{@ @}~ ~{@ @}~ ~{@ @}~ ~{@ @}~ Be sure and join me each Tuesday for Tuesday Trivia Tie-in, where readers are invited to share trivia and show off their treasures. Read all about it here