Compost Central

Though flowers and vegetables often get the limelight, the real heart of the organic garden is the place where compost is created. Our composting site is somewhat hidden, and certainly doesn't get much glory....but it plays a very important role in the overall health of the garden.



Our compost spot is about 50 yards from our front door...far enough away for its sights and smells not to be distracting, but near enough for frequent trips to deposit vegetable scraps and garden waste. It is located behind our chicken coop, which we aren't using currently except for storage. (That could change this year, as we are considering having laying hens again.)





A close up of the two Earth Machine composters. These were in my daughter and son-in-law's back yard, and since they weren't being used, I volunteered to use them. :-) This is where kitchen scraps go..... layered with shredded leaves, which are stored in the covered garbage can on the left. I rarely turn the material in these, maybe once in the Spring. I can pick them up, move them and fork the contents back in. It takes a year or more for finished compost in these, but it is very rich from all the vegetable matter.





I bought a recycled plastic compost ring at a yard sale a few years ago and liked it so well, I added these two updated GeoBins last year. The first one is still in the chicken yard, but will be set up next to these two after I harvest the finished compost this Spring. They are lightweight, but sturdy enough to hold lots of material, and though they are perforated for air flow, they still maintain good moisture content. You simply lift and set up in a new location, and turn your material back into the bin. I try to do this a few times a year, in order to help aerate the compost for faster decomposing. My plan for the three bins is to put the rough material in bin one, then transfer to bin two as it breaks down some, with the third bin used to finish the compost.





In spring and summer I use mostly straw or saved leaves for carbon material and grass for nitrogen, but in the fall when there is no longer grass available to heat up the piles, I use these Alfalfa pellets for their nitrogen content. They are cheap, and available at most Feed stores. Another good addition, that helps get things cooking is coffee grounds, saved in a 5 gallon bucket for us by our local Espresso shop....they call us when the bucket is full and we pick it up and bring them a new bucket. Worms love coffee grounds! It attracts them to the pile, where they help aerate and add their rich castings to the mix, and when I put the compost on my garden beds, the worms go, too. I alternate layers of dry garden waste or leaves, alfalfa pellets, more garden waste, then coffee grounds, and so on...repeating the layers. When I turn a partially broken down pile I add pellets and coffee grounds to help get it working again, and then leave it to sit over the winter.




This post wouldn't be complete without featuring my new favorite garden tool, the Flowtron Leaf Eater/Ultimate Mulcher which I got last Fall. It does a great job of shredding leaves, as long as you change the strings when they wear down. (And, I might add....it is ever so much more convenient than having to shred leaves by running them over with the lawn mower, as I did previously.) I save some of the shredded leaves in large lawn bags, stored in a dry place, to use for compost. The rest go onto my garden beds to cover them for the winter. I push the leaves aside when I'm ready to plant in the spring, in order to let the soil warm up, but use the shredded leaves again as mulch around plants in summer when the weather gets hot. This really helps keep moisture in the soil, and cuts down on watering chores.

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That about sums up the outdoor composting set up here. I also compost indoors with redworms and have done so for many years. Nothing beats pure worm castings as a fertilizer and soil conditioner for the garden. BUT... that is another post! :-)