Composting The Easy Way
By Michael McGroarty, Fri Dec 9th
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Having an ample supply of good rich compost is the gardenersdream. It has many uses, and all of those uses will result innicer plants. However, composting can be time consuming and hardwork. I place a reasonable value on my time, so spending hoursand hours turning compost piles doesn't qualify as a worthwhileexercise, at least in my book. Nonetheless, I do compost, but Ido so on my terms.
I built two composting bins. Each bin is five feet wide, fivefeet deep, and four feet high. I built the bins by sinking 4" by4" posts in the ground for the corners, and then nailed 2 by 4'sand 1 by 4's, alternating on the sides.
I left 2" gaps between the boards for air circulation. The 2 by4's are rigid enough to keep the sides from bowing out, and inbetween each 2 by 4 I used 1 by 4's to save a little money. Thebins are only 3 sided, I left the front of the bins open so theycan be filled and emptied easily. Photos of my compost bins areon this page: http://www.freeplants.comcomposting.htm
I started by filling just one of the bins. I put grassclippings, dried leaves, and shrub clippings in the bins. I trynot to put more than 6" of each material on a layer. You don'twant 24" of grass clippings in the bin and you should alternatelayers of green and brown material. If necessary, keep a fewbags of dry leaves around so you can alternate layers of brownwaste and green waste.
When we root cuttings we use coarse sand in the flats, so whenit's time to pull the rooted cuttings out of the flats, the oldsand goes on the compost pile. In our little backyard nursery wealso have some plants in containers that do not survive. Ratherthan pulling the dead plant and the weeds out of the container,and then dumping the potting soil back on the soil pile, we justdump the whole container in the compost bin. This adds morebrown material to the mix, and is a lot easier than separatingthe soil and the weeds.
Once the bin is full, the rules of composting say that youshould turn the material in the bin every few weeks. There is noway that I have time to do that, so this is what I do. I pack asmuch material in the bin as I can before I start filling thesecond bin. I pile the material as high as I possibly can, andeven let it spill out in front of the bin. Then I cover all thefresh material with mulch or potting soil, whatever brownmaterial I can find.
Then when I'm out working in the garden I set a small sprinkleron top of the pile and turn it on very low, so a small spray ofwater runs on the material. Since I have a good water well, thisdoesn't cost me anything, so I let it run for at least two hoursas often as I can. This keeps the material damp, and themoisture will cause the pile to heat up, which is what makes thecomposting action take place.
Once I have the first bin completely full, I start using thesecond bin. As the material in the first bin starts to breakdown, it will settle and the bin is no longer heaped up, so Ijust keep shoveling the material that I piled in front of thebin, up on top of the pile, until all the material is either inthe bin, or piled on top of the heap. Then I just leave italone, except to water it once in a while. The watering isn'tnecessary, it just speeds the process.
Because I don't turn the pile, I can't expect all of thematerial to rot completely. The material in the center is goingto break down more than the material on the edges, but most ofit does break down quite well. The next step works great for mebecause I've got a small nursery, so I keep a pile of pottingsoil on hand at all times. But you can really do the same thingby just buying two or three yards of shredded mulch to getstarted, and piling it up near your compost bins. If you dothis, you will
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