Compost – Nature’s Perfect Food

(for plants)

Compost (noun).  : a mixture that consists largely of decayed organic matter and is used for fertilizing and conditioning land. 

It is created with the aerobic decomposition of carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich natural materials.

The key to luscious, healthy gardens is good soil.  And how is good soil created?  By decomposition of plant and animal matter and a thriving population of beneficial microorganisms and fungi.

Fortunately, our gardens and kitchens are a constant source of dead plant matter.  And since you have to do something with it, you might as well put it to good use (and help the Earth while you’re at it).  Composting is like magic, turning garbage into what’s often called “black gold.”

Mother Nature’s way of nourishing the soil is what we want to try to duplicate when building our garden; that way the garden is not only healthier and happier, but requires less work and money than applying fertlizers to provide the nutrients plants need.

After (compost)

How to Make Compost

Composting is one of those subjects that everyone has an opinion about.  You can compost in multiple different ways and there are lots of products on the market that can help you.  I encourage you to do some internet research on the different methods and benefits of each,

Personally, I prefer the easiest methods possible, so those are what I will share with you.  They are The Mostly Passive Compost Pile and Chop and Drop.

The Mostly Passive Compost Pile

This is composting for the gardener who doesn’t mind waiting for the compost to be “done” and wants to do as little work as possible.

Basically all it entails is setting aside an area (I have a 6 foot by 4 foot rectangle bordered off with concrete blocks, up against a fence in an unused and unseen area of my garden), and using that area to dump all of your compostable matter.

The only thing you must remember is to make sure you have a mixture of dead brown material (the browns are carbon) and green material (greens are nitrogen).  You want to try to keep a ratio of about 3 brown to 1 green so that your compost doesn’t contain too much nitrogen, which can harm your plants.

Browns include:

• Dead leaves (easy and plentiful if you have access to deciduous tree leaf drop)
• Undyed paper products without meat or dairy on them (napkins, paper towels, compostable paper plates)
• Unbleached Paper bags
• Brown paper used in shipping or wrapping (natural/brown only, not glossy or dyed)
• Very small twigs
• Very small wood items – toothpicks, flower stalks, twigs,
• Used coffee grounds and tea leaves (tea bags are compostable if made only with paper)

Greens include:

• Vegetable scraps from the kitchen (not contaminated with any oil, meat, or dairy) like expired/rotting green veggies, potato peels, lettuce stumps, garlic husks, apple cores, orange peels– any fruit or vegetable material*
• Living plant matter (leaves and stalks that are still green)
• Fresh manure (from herbivores only, like cows or horses)
• Grass clippings (make sure there are no weed seedheads or they will germinate in your compost pile if it doesn’t get hot enough to kill them, which is usually the case)

*Note – some plant matter takes a LONG time to decompose so you may not want to include them.  Some of these things include

• avocado skins
• pits of fruits like mango
• nut shells

You can include them in your compost if you don’t mind the big pieces when using your compost later to plant things or to top-dress your soil.

Whenever I have any dead plant matter, whether from the kitchen or the yard, I dump it into my sectioned-off compost pile.

After a couple of years it’s full enough and decomposed enough to use to mix into garden soil and top-dress the soil in the spring.

Some things should never be added to a compost pile:

• Diseased plant material
• Poison ivy or poison oak
• Weed seeds
• Dairy or meat products (unless you have a very hot pile that can decompose it quickly and prevent the gathering of vermin)

Every spring I add a bag of good quality compost that I buy at the nursery to my existing compost pile. This adds whatever microbes are in the bagged compost, buries exposed plant matter, and helps bulk up my pile.

Watering your compost whenever it’s been a while without rain is also a good idea, as decomposition requires moisture.

Chop and Drop

Chop and drop is exactly what it sounds like.  Whenever I trim my plants, I let the spent flowers, leaves, and small clippings just stay where they fall.

This is exactly the method for creating rich soil in nature and I figure, why try to reinvent the wheel?  This method has worked for eons.  In forests, prairies, and deserts all over the world, dead leaves, twigs, stalks, etc. fall to the ground and there they lay, being digested and decomposed by various bacteria, fungi, and small creatures.  This decomposed matter is full of nutrients that plants need.

When removing dead plants (dead, not just dormant), I chop the plant at the very base.  I leave the root ball in the soil to decompose in place, while I take the larger bulk of the dead plant and put it into the compost pile.

If you have deciduous trees that drop leaves into your garden bed in the fall, you can just let them stay where they fall.  This leaf hummous is great insulation for plant roots during cold winters as well as providing nutritious decomposition material.  It also provides the perfect habitat for earthworms (which are super beneficial for your soil), overwintering pollinators like native bees and moths, and garden-friendly pest control like lizards and frogs.

The exception to chop and drop

In the early spring, when I’m going around the garden and removing all the dead plant matter that I left standing over the winter (stalks, stems, large dead leaves like those of cannas or bananas), I take all of that to the compost pile.  Chop and drop only works for small bits and pieces that are dropped occasionally.  Spring cleanup creates far too much dead matter to leave on the ground without making the garden look like a dump.

What to do with your compost?  Use it when planting new plants by mixing a little bit in with the native soil during planting to add nutrients and organic matter.

You can also use it to top-dress your garden beds in the spring to add nutrients.