Compost heap, properly planned and tended, enriches the soil and spares the landfill

By Laura Giovanelli
MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
Published: April 8, 2008

I wasn’t sure that my amateurish attempts at composting were going so well.

That was before I pulled on some gloves and started poking under the ugly pile of rotting lettuce leaves, eggshells, parsnip tops, onion skins and coffee grounds.

I started composting because I had a fuzzy notion that it was better than throwing away all that stuff in a plastic trash bag and ultimately into a landfill. But I neglected my compost heap for almost two years, except for an occasional turn with a hoe or a sprinkling here or there with some topsoil or commercial compost that I had vague ideas about it helping things along.

Deep inside the heap, I found rich, black compost writhing with earthworms.

It turns out that composting doesn’t have to take a lot of planning, fussing or equipment.

As Deborah Martin, a former agricultural extension agent and a co-author of http://www.compostgardening.com and The Complete Compost Gardening Guide, says: “Everything rots.”

“The organic matter that you put together is already going to decompose,” she said.

There are loads of books, Web sites and guides on backyard composting, but the problem is that many of them are based on instructions for composting on a commercial scale, Martin said. Turning kitchen and household scraps into compost at home isn’t nearly so complicated.

Homemade compost is virtually free. It’s good for your garden - or just your lawn if you don’t grow anything more than grass. And again, it’s not taking up space in a landfill.

“You’re actually making your house a little more sustainable, because you’re using what you buy,” said Wendi Hartup, an agricultural extension agent with Forsyth County.

Twenty percent of solid waste placed in a landfill is from yard and garden waste, according to the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service.

Here’s a quick and dirty guide to start composting:

-- Look for a relatively level section of your yard, ideally a place that gets partial sun. Put your compost heap where it is convenient for you to dump scraps but won’t be likely to bother the neighbors. (It does look like a pile of trash, though a properly maintained compost heap won’t smell that bad.) You don’t need a big area, but a general rule of thumb is 3-feet-by-3-feet (and then you’ll want your heap to be about 3-feet tall, though mine is shorter and it works). If you’d like, you can enclose it with a simple construction of chicken wire and stakes or PVC pipe to keep out the dogs. Leave one end open, or create a rudimentary door with a latch so that you can get into the pile.

-- Don’t worry about layering your compost heap. Just start dumping. Then, maybe once every few weeks, turn the pile with a pitchfork so the stuff on top and on the sides has a chance to decompose.

-- You can keep a covered bucket under your kitchen sink for vegetable scraps and other kitchen waste, then dump in the compost heap after several days. Or you can make daily trips to the pile.

-- Keep your pile moist but not soaking, about as damp as a sponge.

-- Your compost is ready when it looks earthy and brown, and doesn’t smell bad. You will probably have to pull back some of the less advanced compost on top to get to the compost that’s ready underneath. It can take as little as three months, Martin said. You shouldn’t be able to recognize much of what made the compost (so no rotting apple cores or corn cobs, but if you see them, just toss them back into the pile). If you’d like to use compost as potting soil, it’s a good idea to filter it through a screen. But if you’re going to use it in your garden or just to improve some soil, simply shovel it where you want it.

So what can you compost?

Probably more than you think.

Heading the list are coffee grounds and filters, tea leaves, yard waste, vegetable and fruit peels, cores and scraps, moldy and withered produce, stale herbs, spices, crackers and bread, dregs from bottles of juice, wine and beer.

Martin even provides instructions for some extreme composting in her book, such as clam and oyster shells (pound them with a hammer before putting them in your pile, but wear safety goggles) and animal bones.

You generally don’t want to compost meat because it can attract rats and other varmints. It also smells as it breaks down.

With typical kitchen waste, she suggests cutting scraps into 1-inch chunks (especially bulky items such as melon rind and citrus peel) so that it will break down faster.

Try to keep a balance of “greens” (nitrogen-rich items such as those kitchen scraps) and “browns” (carbon-rich material such as shredded newspaper, sawdust and dried leaves chopped up with a lawn mower) in your pile. Martin recommends roughly two or three parts of “browns” to one part “green.”

If you have too much “green,” your pile can go anaerobic and worse, smelly.

Remember - everything rots.

Laura Giovanelli can be reached at 727-7302 or at .