Composting is easy, costs almost nothing and produces a product that can be used even if you don’t have a garden. I have two composting bins, and with the City of Ottawa’s green bin, my wife and I compost almost everything that is compostable.
Items that we compost ourselves include: a) uncooked kitchen vegetable scraps; b) minor amounts of paper towel and newspaper; c) egg shells; d) dead plants; e) coffe grounds; and f) minor amounts of grass clippings (most grass is mulched by the mower). All other cooked foods, meat scraps and most of the paper towel go in the green bin.
Our standard black bin composter is located beside the garden nestled among the branches of a pine tree. All kitchen-related materials go in here. I will also add some garden waste (Halloween pumpkins, non-diseased vegetable plants) to this bin.
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| One of four buckets of beauty compost. |
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| Our typical black compost bin and Homer. |
Quite frankly the compost that comes from the black bin ranks 10 out of 10 on the awesomeness scale. Every spring the bin yields about 4 large plastic buckets. To make emptying the compost easier I put the bin on a concrete patio stone. Instead of spreading this compost thinly over the garden beds I take a more direct approach to applying it. When I dig a hole for a seedling I make it extra large in order to add one heaping scoop of the compost to each hole (an extra scoop or two for pumpkins and zucchini). This way the roots grow in direct contact with the compost. When you see the large yields I get you’ll be a convert.
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| Seedling hole with a scoop of black compost. |
Back along the edge of the forest I have a larger composter with two bins. I got the idea for this bin from The Victory Garden book. I made the frame from scrap, untreated 2x3's and 2x4’s. The walls are common chicken wire providing ample aeration. The purpose of having multiple bins is to toss the material from one into the other which mixes and aerates the pile allowing composting to start or reactivate and makes room for fresh material. Into this bin I put most of the plants from the garden, some grass clippings, straw, and any other large-volume, slower-to-decompose organics.
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| Our two-bin composter. The right side is 1/2 full and it's only the spring. |
The two-bin compost piles will get fairly big over the summer. When this starts to compost it gets really hot – I have seen water vapor coming off the pile on a cool morning. Once I stuck my hand in the middle of the pile while wearing very damp work gloves, it felt as though my hand was burning. In the fall after the material has composted sufficiently, I spread it evenly over my garden bed or over weak areas of the lawn.
Some simple rules of thumb I follow when composting are:
More the merrier. The more material you put into the bins quicker the bacteria will become active. Think of it as requiring a critical mass to start up.
Mixing the pile frequently. Mixing helps aerate the material and exposes fresh fuel for the bacteria.
Watering the pile. I tend to water my composters if we go two weeks without rain and if the weather turns really hot. A dry composter = no or slow decomposition.
No meat. The meat will attract animals and take forever to break down.
No dog waste. No sir! I will put horse/sheep/cow/chicken poo in my garden but not dog poo.
The benefits I experience with my composting are: a) incorporating fresh organic material back into my garden beds on an annual basis; b) hardly ever using fertilizer; and c) large healthy plants with great yields.
A pretty interesting series of Youtube videos regarding composting can be found here and here. The first guy tends to be a bit long winded but both videos are informative.
