COMPOST! Not Tumble!

GROW THIS: COMPOST

Composting is easy. Super easy.

And the benefits to your garden are tremendous. Compost is loaded with nutrients for your plants, acts like a sponge when it gets water, and gives the water back when the plants need it.

Compost also loosens up clay soils, and enriches sandy soils. You really can’t use too much compost.

Good gardeners know the benefits, but might find the costs daunting.  Making compost yourself is easy and free or can be very low cost.

There’s lots of classes on how to make compost (my fair city, Plano, Tx. runs a fine class) and directions on how to compost are all over the internet.

The recipe is easier than Mom’s snickerdoodles; toss together green stuff (grass clippings, green plants or weeds, veggie trimmings from the kitchen) brown stuff (dried leaves, sawdust, paper, woody plant stems) and water. Microorganisms (teeny microscopic bugs) in the air or in the dirt  start eating this stuff, and turn it into compost.

I find it best to make a pile about four feet square.    

The bugs aren’t even fussy about their “home.” You can just pile it up, and stand back. Some folks (like my wife) want it a little neater. Simple. You can do something as simple and cheap as buying six to eight feet of chicken wire or hardware cloth (a coarse metal screening.) Make a loop of the wire, and you have the frame for your compost pile.

Or you can buy a “Bug Taj Mahal” at just about any garden retailer or on-line. My favorite is a Shepherd Bin. (Pictured above.)

After a few days to a week, stick your hand into the pile. It should feel warm. Ideally, warmer than a bathtub. If it’s cold (or room temperature) something’s not quite right. Not to worry or panic; you probably just don’t have quite the right balance of air, water, green stuff and brown stuff. And your pile can be easily fixed. 

The only thing you really need is a pitchfork. Like lousy houseguests, your bugs will have eaten everything they can reach in a week or two (they aren’t very mobile.) Also like bad guests, once they eat all your food, and drink everything, they tend to go to sleep. But that’s OK, because they will have started the composting process, turning that junk into real compost.

If you pitchfork the pile (think of tossing a salad) and water it as you go, the whole process starts over, and this time there will be more bugs! After a few months, (depending on how often you toss it) You’ll have beautiful compost you can put in your garden, or use for compost tea (don’t laugh, we’ll get to this later.) 

If you’re fussy (I’m not, I’m lazy) you can pick out the woody twigs and bits of plastic that are left over, to get a really fine potting soil.

My favorite part about making compost is that you don’t have to be obsessed about tossing it. If you leave it for months and months, it will still be there waiting for you. The microorganisms will have gone to sleep, but the macro-organisms (earthworms, ants, etc.) will pick up where the little guys left off, continuing to chew it up, and leaving their little “deposits” of organic goodies.

Just toss it, water it, and your compost loves you more.

NOT THAT!
FOR GOODNESS SAKE, DON'T BUY A COMPOST TUMBLER!

They don’t work.

Some marketing geniuses figured out that some folks might not like to toss their compost pile. They advertise “Miracle Compost Tumblers!”

“Get tons of compost in just a few weeks with no work!”

They range in price from less than $100, to several hundred for motorized/mechanized units that hold about 50 gallons.

The theory is you put in a little green stuff, and a  little brown stuff, some water, and spin the barrel. If the salesman is a real entrepreneur, they may sell you “compost starter,” which amounts to some seed microorganisms, and a little food for them.

All I seem to get is wet, sloppy green stuff and brown stuff. Or dried out green and brown stuff. Then I was left with the dee-lightful task of cleaning out that stuff, and putting it back into my regular compost bin.

I’m not alone. My friend Renee, a lovely single lady gardener was put off by the thought of shoveling compost, but wanted to be ecologically “green,” use all her waste materials, and get potting soil in return. After several tumbler tries, she gave up.

My pals at the Texas Discovery Garden were given an $850 motorized 50 gallon tumbler. Nobody could make it work.

Want compost, but don’t want to pitchfork it? Buy it in bags or bulk from a local garden center. Some cities (like Plano) take their citizens’ yard waste, and compost it for us, and then sell it!

Me? I’m cheap. I’ll make it myself. But I’m lazy, so maybe I’ll let those bugs eat a while longer.