Compost can do dirty work for you

Compost is black gold to a garden. It is a rich source of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. It makes even the driest sand or gummiest clay into beautifully crumbly, friable soil that is able to hold water. A two to three inch layer of it used as a mulch helps block weeds.

Compost takes ordinary garden waste, such as fresh green garden trimmings, lawn clippings, weeds (without seeds), kitchen vegetable trimmings, dried brown leaves, pine needles, spent plant material and dried weeds and grass.

Making your own

A basic compost pile needs to be about three feet on each side to provide the microbes and bacteria the critical mass of material they need to work efficiently. Add a little space to work and you have it.

A bin can be made of any material that will hold up and is porous to let air through. It can be as simple as wooden pallets or a circle of sturdy wire or plastic mesh, or as complicated as barrels mounted on a frame that are be rotated periodically. Commercial bins designed to look “pretty” are also available, but they can be expensive.

Chop all material by running it through a chipper shredder or mowing over it with the lawn mower. You can even lay the dry brown material in the driveway and run over it with the car. Don’t use seedy weeds or meat, dairy, or cat, dog, or pig manure to the pile. The weeds can survive the heat and the other stuff will draw unwanted animals or harbor disease.

Mix two parts brown material with one part green. This can mean two pitchforks (or buckets or wheelbarrows) of brown to one of green, and assures a mix the bacteria will love. Soak the pile with water to the consistency of a wrung-out sponge. You don’t need to add fancy additives to increase the productivity of the pile.

Within a few hours, bacterial action will begin to heat up the pile. Within two days, the temperature will rise to 140 to 160 degrees, which is hot enough to cook most weed seeds and bugs. The bacteria are active for about a week and the pile will begin to cool down.

If you want compost in a hurry, the pile will need to be turned about once a week for six weeks. Fold the outside layers of the pile into the center of the new pile and remoisten it as you turn it. If you don’t need or want the compost right away you can just let the pile be and eventually it will break down.