Compost Happens!

To have a healthy, thriving garden, your vegetables need a healthy, thriving soil.  A nutrient rich, bio-diverse soil allows plants to grow larger, produce more and have better resistance to disease and insects.  Soil types in our area can range from hard-as-rock decomposed granite to loose sand. While there are some of the trace minerals plants need, they are typically lacking in nutrients.  The best way to add those nutrients is by adding compost.

Compost also improves the soils texture, water retention and porosity. The best thing of all is that you can make it yourself with materials that you would have otherwise thrown away. It’s an easy way to reduce your food waste!

Composting can be done in a free standing pile or in a bin.  While the bin might be more aesthetically pleasing, the process and end product are the same no matter how you do it.

Start by selecting a site, you will need a space about 3 feet wide and 6 feet long. It doesn’t need to be the focal point of you garden, but should be convenient and close to a water source.

A good choice is the spot you will have a garden bed next year. Next gather your materials. Compost is made by combining green/wet and dry/brown materials in equal amounts by volume. Never add meat, fat, bones or dog and cat waste.  Examples of green materials are lawn clippings, kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, eggs shells and various manures. Brown materials are things like dried leaves and can be a little harder to come by than the greens.

A good, and inexpensive, source is a bale of straw.  Now use those materials to build your compost pile. The optimal size of the pile needed to generate the temperatures necessary to kill weed seed and pathogens is 3 feet tall, by 3 feet high, by 3 feet deep. Start by loosening the first couple inches of soil with a shovel or spading fork.

It is important that the compost pile is in direct contact with the soil because that is where the microorganisms and macroorganisms that will be breaking down the compost materials come from. Start by adding a 3 to 4 inch base layer of brown material, then a 3 to 4 inch layer of green material.

Keep repeating the layering until the pile is 3 feet tall, ending with a layer of brown material. It may take a few weeks of gather materials and layering to get the pile to that size, but when you do water it just until it runs out the bottom. Finally, turn the pile by moving the material from the pile the spot right next to it.

This loosens and adds oxygen to the pile and speeds up the composting process. Again add water, the goal is to have the material as wet as a wrung out sponge, but more water will be needed at first because the particle size is larger. Turn the pile once a week, adding water as necessary, and you will have finished compost in 14 to 16 weeks.

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