Composting Basics: Guidelines for Success, Even on a Small Scale
Compost is like gardening’s secret sauce, it’s great for our soil, helps our plants grow healthy and strong, and it’s touted as being easy. People talk about how they just throw all their kitchen scraps in the composter, and like magic, they get rich nutrient-filled soil additives.
It’s kind of true; composting is a little bit of magic, but unfortunately, it’s also not quite as simple as just chucking all your kitchen scraps in a bin. Many people get excited to start composting, go out and buy a bin, and start filling it with kitchen scraps. But often, a few months or a year later, they just have a smelly rotting pile of kitchen scraps instead of a pleasantly scented soil addition.
Eventually, that pile of kitchen scraps will break down into a beneficial soil additive. But eventually means it’ll probably take a year, or two, or even more, depending on the types and sizes of items added to it.
Here are a few guidelines to follow to help your compost break down faster.
The Perfect Compost Recipe
Compost is like a recipe; it needs three ingredients in the right amounts in order to “cook” right. The three key ingredients for compost are brown matter (carbon), green matter (nitrogen), and water. But what is brown and green matter?
Brown matter includes dead leaves, branches and twigs from pruning, wood chips, sawdust, non-waxy cardboard, paper, cornstalks, straw, or hay.
Green matter includes vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grounds, tea leaves, grass clippings, flowers and leaves from deadheading or pruning plants, weeds (that haven’t gone to seed), eggshells, seaweed, and manure (only use cow, horse, sheep, chicken, or rabbit manure.)
The most commonly recommended ratio for composting is 2 parts brown matter, to 1 part green matter. The size of the items in your compost will also affect how quickly it will break down. While a variety of sizes helps hold air pockets in the pile, items should generally be chopped to pieces about 1-2 inches in size before being added to the compost.
Your compost also needs water in order for everything to break down correctly. It’s hard to measure water content in your composter, but it should ideally be about as damp as a wet sponge.
Turning your compost is another critical part of the process. If you have a tumbler style composter, it’s a good idea to rotate it every 3-4 days. You’ll also want to turn the compost in a bin style composter every 3-4 days. A wing-style compost aerator makes this task quick and easy.
Composting On A Small Scale
Even if you live in an apartment, you can still compost. Bokashi composting is an anaerobic composting method that uses inoculated bran layers to help ferment kitchen waste. Essentially you add a layer of chopped up kitchen waste, then a layer of bran, to the Bokashi bucket, and press it down firmly. Once the bucket is completely full, set it aside for about 10 days, drawing off the liquid created every other day.
Bokashi buckets have a spigot, which makes it easier to draw off the liquid. After 10 days or so, you’ll have what is commonly called pre-compost. The contents of the bokashi bucket will be very acidic at this point.
Once your bokashi pre-compost is ready, you’ll want to find a spot in the garden where you can bury it and let it continue to work for a minimum of two weeks before anything is planted in that area. You can also add bokashi pre-compost to an outdoor compost bin if you have one, as this will eliminate any danger of the acidity killing plants. It can also help speed up your overall composting process.
If you’d like to get started with composting, in a traditional outdoor bin, or with a bokashi system, stop by the garden center. Our helpful staff can help you decide what method and style of composting are best for your garden needs.
