Composting

Based on the meeting on Sunday it seems like a lot of folks are interested in composting so I thought I'd make a general blog post about it in case anyone wasn't there or wanted a quick reference to come back to later.

First off, I feel composting is entirely underrated and undervalued. Food scraps and lawn clippings make up about 1/4 of all waste in landfills. When this organic matter is withheld oxygen while decomposing they emit methane, which is 20 times more toxic than carbon dioxide. Each ton of organic matter you divert from a landfill saves 1/3 of a ton of greenhouse gases from being emitted into the environment. And let's not forget the awesome effect compost gives to your soil when you use it for gardening! win-win!

Ok so what you want to do is have a structure to contain the compost as it decomposes. This can be anything from an uber cool tumbler to a chicken wire cage or like Jeff has, a simple wooden enclosure. For more on compost enclosures check out this link. We have even used a simple large trash can with holes drilled all around it (to circulate air) and it has happily provided the black gold we all crave. I've heard that it's best to use larger items like branches on the bottom to really get the air circulating to the bottom of the pile, but personally I've never been that strict about it and have had no problems.

So once you have the structure you can start adding compostable materials to it in about a 50/50 ratio of carbon rich and nitrogen rich items. Examples of carbon rich materials would be: leaves, wood chips, newspaper, cardboard, etc. Examples of nitrogen rich materials would be: fresh grass clippings, manure from herbaceous animals (cows, horses, even llamas!), basically any non-cooked kitchen scrap that contains no meat or dairy. The best results come from layering of all items vs just heaping on a ton of leaves at one time for example. Some things you don't want to include though - like anything diseased or thick things that might take a very long time to break down.

Try to stir it at least once a week during the main decomp stage to make sure air is circulating well. From personal experience my bin takes about 6 months to go from heap to black gold.