Composting For Small Gardeners

Composting is the natural decomposition or decaying process that takes place when whole or natural waste matter is combined in a controlled manner, thus converting it into a usable soil-like material.  You may say, “Well, that is a nice description of what composting is but why should I care about composting and why is it important to our environment?  After all, I am only one person and I really don’t see what difference I can make.”
 
The benefits of composting have a positive effect on both our environment and your wallet – yes, even the efforts from a typical household can make a difference whether you are a gardener or not!

How does composting benefit the environment?

Composting is the best alternative to landfills and incinerators that I know of.  Few people realize that as much as three-fourths of an average household’s waste is compostable.  Surprised?  Take a look at what you have in your kitchen trash can and see what I mean.  How much of the trash you are looking at right now consists of raw vegetable or fruit peels, rinds, and scraps, coffee grounds, used tea bags, cardboard cartons, junk mail or other recyclable paper?

In addition, the use of compost to amend the soil in a vegetable garden, flower bed, or yard replenishes and restores soil nutrients that have been depleted over time.  When compostable materials are tossed into our landfills and into incinerators, those valuable nutrients are just lost and the natural nutrients in our soil are soon exhausted.   When this happens, gardeners will often rely on chemical fertilizers so that their gardens will grow nicely.  Instead, when we recycle those organic waste materials the natural decomposition process that occurs will conserve nutrients, which is to the advantage of the entire ecosystem.

What benefits does composting offer to me?

Compost is a high-quality source of nutrition for your garden which virtually eliminates the need to buy commercial fertilizers.  Also, compost improves soil composition, it helps to retain moisture, and it even helps to protect plants from certain diseases.  Composting isn’t just for gardeners.  Non-gardeners are often interested in composting their organic waste as a means to reduce their trash thus reducing their trash-collection bills. They are often motivated by a desire to help improve the environment as well.
 
Composting has quite a history going back thousands of years.  Early American settlers and even our first president were farmers who knew of the benefits and promoted proper composting methods.  If you are interested in learning more about the history of composting or want to dive deeper into the “how-to” of composting than we will here, I highly recommend reading The Rodale Book of Composting, Easy Methods For Every Gardener.  Much of what I have learned regarding this topic came from this informative book.

So now if you are convinced that you want to compost, how do you get started?

There are entire companies that specialize in composting on an industrial scale, handling tons of municipal wastes.  However, since we are focusing on home gardeners, we will compost on a smaller scale. So, let’s keep it simple!

What ingredients should you put in the compost bin?

Kitchen crock

You only have to look as far as your kitchen and backyard to find the nutrient-rich ingredients for compost.  Basically, most anything that is of living origin can be composted.

From your backyard you can gather grass clippings, small twigs, wood chips, weeds, pine cones, pine straw, hedge clippings, dried leaves, hay, barnyard manure, and wood ash.

Compost ingredients

From your kitchen and around the house you should include vegetable and fruit peelings, rinds, cores, and hulls, egg shells, coffee grounds, tea bags and tea leaves, spoiled fruits and vegetables from your refrigerator, paper wrappers, cardboard, cereal cartons, junk mail or other recyclable paper.  When adding cardboard boxes, junk mail or other recyclable paper make sure you remove any plastic windows on envelopes, adhesive tape, or plastic labels.

What to avoid?

Avoid meat scraps and fatty materials as these break down very slowly and they attract animals to your bin.  Do not include pet and human feces as these may contain disease organisms.  You should also avoid any materials that are contaminated with pesticide residues, toxic substances, treated lumber, old tires or any petroleum based matter.

Of course the safety and fertility of the final humus depends on the contents you put into your compost. 

Adding water

The living organisms in compost need air and water to live.  You should keep your compost moist, not wet, and well aerated.  Keep a check on the moisture level and add water sparingly to each new layer or to the pile only as needed.  Frequent turning with a shovel or pitchfork will keep the compost aerated, dispenses the moisture evenly, and will properly heat the pile.
 
How involved in composting you decide to get will be largely determined by the space you have to dedicate to it, how much time and effort you want to spend on it, and how much money you are willing to spend.  Yes, there are some start-up costs involved but the results are well worth that small investment.