COMPOSTING
Composting is just about the best thing you can do for your garden. It is a great thing to do for the earth. It brings full circle the cycle of growing and dying and growing again. It is the perfect ending and the perfect beginning. Composting is the breaking down of organic matter naturally and returning it back to the soil where it can nourish everything it touches. It improves any soil. At my house I have several compost piles, all in different stages of decomposition. My trash is picked up twice a week, but I hardly ever use this service as everything in my home is reused many times and/or recycled at Sunset Beach School. I hate to send anything to the dump; it just doesn’t make sense to me.
So, let’s get started…
Let’s talk about soil basics. There are 3 types of soil: clay, sand, and loam.
Clay is composed of tiny particles that are super compressed. Water has a difficult time passing through it. Plant roots have trouble extracting water and the nourishment they need from clay.
Sand soil is where water passes readily through it. Unfortunately, so do most of the nutrients. Plants have a difficult time getting enough water and nutrients from a sandy soil.
Loam is a mixture of clay and sand. It has the ability to hold some water and most of the nutrients plants need and are extracted when the plants call for them. If your soil has a little too much clay or a little too much sand, don’t worry, just add compost! Don’t worry about the pH; the compost will mellow the soil towards the optimum growing range of 6.5-7.0.
The idea of composting is to recycle organic waste from around your house. It utilizes any organic waste such as fruit and vegetable scraps (no meat or grease please), grass clippings, fallen leaves, twigs, tree trimmings, hedge trimmings, coffee grounds, egg shells, etc. You will need a mixture of fresh (green) which adds nitrogen, and dry (brown) which adds carbon. You will need fresh manure (preferably horse or chicken) and/or blood meal which will add more nitrogen and get the pile going.
Composting depends primarily on particle size, moisture content, and pile temperature. Ratios have to be within certain parameters or the composting process will be too slow.
Particle Size- the smaller the particle the faster the decomposition process as the bacteria can attack on all sides. I break up into small pieces anything that is going into the pile.
Moisture Content- the compost pile needs to contain 40-60% moisture- too dry and the process will be slow, too wet and there will be oxygen depletion to the bacteria. Just feel the outside of the pile and if it feels somewhat moist, you are probably OK. Be careful as the pile will be hot.
Temperature- A good compost pile will be in the 130-160 degree range. Once again feel the outside of the pile. If it is not hot enough you can add more manure and/or put a black plastic tarp over it for awhile. Take the tarp off after it heats up as the pile needs air. You can check the temperature if you would like with a simple “turkey thermometer”
which is available at any grocery store.
How Long? The time frame for the pile to break down the organic material into a dark brown usable substance varies with your geographic location and time of year. It can take as little as 3 weeks in the tropics to 6 months in the northern latitudes in the winter months. If you want to simplify and/or accelerate the process, there are many compost bins, tumblers, boxes, etc. which are available online. You have heard about “6 minute abs”- now they have the “6 minute compost” or something like that. Well it’s probably 10-14 days but they are a bit costly. You can also build a box using four wooden pallets and nailing them together and leaving the front open. This is a cheap, viable way, and it allows for plenty of air flow because of the open spaces in the pallets.
HOW TO COMPOST
What you will do now is build your pile. Your compost pile must be at least 4’x 4’ and at least 4’ high, the higher the better! BUT your compost pile will follow the laws of gravity and the higher you go the wider the pile will become.
LAYER THE PILE
1. Composting should be done in layers-each layer should be at least 4-6” thick of “brown” and “green” material and is added in alternating layers.
a. The bottom layer is composed of brown material—twigs are the best as they will take longer to breakdown AND will allow air to flow through the compost which is essential.
b. The next layer should be green material-table scraps, grass clippings, etc.
c. The next layer should be a thin sprinkling of horse or chicken manure.
d. The next layer should be brown material-dry leaves, woods chips, straw, pruning scraps, sawdust, etc. 4-6” thick.
e. The next layer should be a sprinkling of horse of chicken manure.
f. The next layer should be green material-4-6” thick.
And so on, and so on until the pile is at least 4’ high. I also shovel about 1-2” of soil from finished compost on top of each layer of manure. This “kick starts” the decomposition process as this soil contains a lot of micro bacteria. If your pile needs more action, you can add an organic seaweed mix which aids greatly in fermentation of the pile which accelerates the decomposition process. And don’t forget to keep your compost pile moist. Moisture deficiency will slow the process way down.
TURN THE PILE
1. Your compost pile must be turned every 1-2 weeks in the tropics. On the Mainland you will only have to do this every 3-4 weeks depending on the weather. The center of the pile is the hottest and where most of the action occurs. The trick is to move the material from the sides into the center of the pile. There will be plenty of space in the center of the pile as during this decomposition process, the pile is losing half of it’s size from this location. This moving of material is accomplished by using a pitch fork, shovel, or similar and working from the outside inwards.
WHEN IS MY COMPOST READY TO USE?
1. When your compost is a nice dark brown color and it smells like good, clean, rich soil it is ready for the garden. Just move it out from the bottom of the pile into a wheelbarrow or similar and work it into the soil in your garden.
SOURCES OF SPECIFIC NUTRIENTS
Nitrogen: bat guano, blood meal, chicken manure, cottonseed meal, fish emulsion, kelp meal, livestock manure (composted)
Phosphorus: bonemeal, rock phosphate, super phosphate
Potassium: granite meal, greensand, seabird guano, shrimp shell meal, sulfate of potash, wood ashes
Calcium: bonemeal, chelated calcium, eggshells, limestone, oyster shells, wood ashes
Boron: borax, chelated boron, manure
Copper: chelated copper
Magnesium: chelated magnesium, dolomitic limestone, Epsom salts
Sulfur: iron sulfate, sulfur, zinc sulfate
Zinc: chelated zinc, zinc sulfate
Iron: chelated iron, iron surface
PROBLEMS?
1. Compost pile not breaking down fast enough—Check moisture, and temperature. If both are OK, add more manure or blood meal.
2. Compost pile soggy—Could be from excess water, or acids that are produced as byproducts of decay. Add organic limestone, but be careful, this stuff is potent! Just add a little in each layer and give it a few days. Do not mix with sulfate of ammonia as this will result in the nitrogen being lost as ammonia gas.
Any questions, feel free to email me. Also, I am leaving the country for a few weeks beginning 6/14/09 and will not return until the first part of July. Yes, I am going surfing again to a remote location in Central America where there are only dirt roads and no communication with the outside world. Make sure that you check out “Where’s Jamie” and if you guess my location (after photos are posted on the site) you will win a $50.00 gift certificate to our bambooandtikis.com site. We will be doing this on a consistent basis in the near future. Not a lot of money, but what do you expect from a Surf Rat???
GOOD LUCK AND GREAT GARDENING!!!
Jamie
thehottestpepper.com
