You may be familiar with composting kitchen waste. There is a lot written about it. But did know you do the same for garden biomass, formally known as yard waste? The practice is no different. 

Starting a compost pile is as easy as following any recipe. Just the right materials all mixed together. In a matter of months, you’ll have finished black gold to mix into the soil of your flower, herb, and vegetable gardens. Or just leave it in the garden beds where the biomass laid. 

In the Bee Better Teach Garden, we practice cold composting, which is basically composting in place. There is no turning. This practice takes longer for the biomass to become compost, but it really works well in our garden, because we can leave it and forget about it, it’s ready to use before we know it! 

We compost biomass in a discrete place, and I designed the garden to allow for this. The beds were designed with a formal boxwood hedge to add structure to all the wildness behind them. It doesn’t have to be in a discreet place but for many, keeping a tidy garden is necessary. I’m one of those people, so when I designed my garden I allowed for this. Since 1997, I have been doing this in beds behind the boxwood hedge, filling one and moving on to the next, and I truly have the best soil in six states!

COMPOST INGREDIENTS

Compost is decomposed or well-rotted organic material. It can be made from a variety of organic materials, such as vegetable waste, leaves, grass clippings, and even animal manures. The cleanup of our chicken coop also goes over these compost piles, the high nitrogen helps break the garden waste down faster. 

Making cold compost is a very simple process of alternating layers of brown (high in carbon) and green (high in nitrogen) ingredients–-adding water between each layer–-and keep topping off with a mixture of brown and green. I do so until I can see the top from behind the hedge. And given the hedge is at least 40-feet long and 15-feet deep, that is a lot of area to fill.

MATERIALS TO USE

Brown ingredients, such as old grass clippings, shredded paper, hay, and straw are the high carbon ingredients. We also #LeaveTheLeaves. I’m also been known to pick up bagged leaves from the street when I know the leaves are maple or oak. Great wildlife food source!

Green ingredients, such as fresh grass clippings, although I don’t bag my clippings; rather, I recycle them to the lawn as I cut, providing about 25% nitrogen required for turf; vegetable kitchen wastes (including coffee grounds; no, especially coffee grounds, which are high in nitrogen.); yard biomass such as weeds and small twigs; disease-free vegetable plants; and cow, horse, or chicken manure. Again, I take advantage of this when cleaning out the girl’s coop. If you are low on green materials, you also can use high-nitrogen organic fertilizers, such as blood meal and cottonseed meal.

Materials To Avoid

Items that should be kept out of compost include meat, bones, and dairy products. It’s not that these items won’t break down, they will if animals don’t get to them before the solider flies come in to reduce the mass in no time. Also, make sure the added material is cut up small. Large amounts of wood chips won’t break down quickly.

MAKING A PILE

To get started, find a place for your compost pile that’s convenient to the garden and has well-drained soil.

Here are seven simple steps for making compost:

1. Add a Brown Layer—leaves, old grass clippings, shredded paper, hay, and straw for your carbon source. Think brown as in not moist. Lay a 4- to 6-inch-thick layer of brown material on the bottom. Shred the materials before adding them to quicken the decomposition process.

   
   

2. Moisten Layer—Dampen the bottom layer so that it’s moist, but not soggy. The moisture will help accelerate the decomposition process by providing the right environment for microbes to break down the material.

   
   

3. Add a Green Layer—Fresh grass clippings, vegetable kitchen wastes, garden biomass such as weeds, small twigs, and herbaceous cuttings snipped into 6-inch piece lengths or less; disease-free vegetable plants; and cow, horse, or chicken manure.

   
   

4. Add a second Brown Layer

   
   

5. Moisten Again

   
   

6. Add a second Green Layer—2- to 4-inch-thick layers of nitrogen-rich green materials, such as fresh grass clippings or vegetable kitchen scraps. and If you wish, add a compost enhancer or fertilizer to help jump-start the pile.

   
   

7. Repeat—Alternate layers of brown and green material until the pile is 3- to 5-feet high (or container is full). Moisten each layer before adding the next.

Ok, so now you know the secret. You really can’t mess up. Keep in mind to layer the pile roughly with equal amounts of green and brown, and keep moist. Also that there are no large sticks, and smaller ones are broken up into smaller pieces; as well as the green materials are small to accelerate decomposition. 

THE BREAKDOWN

You can turn the pile if you like doing that sort of thing. I don’t. If you do, wait until after the center heats up and then cools down (up to several weeks, depending on the time of year and size and composition of the material), turn the pile. Use a garden fork, composting tool, or shovel to mix the contents, blending the inside and outside materials. Moisten the pile again after mixing. Repeat turning the pile once or twice. The compost is ready to use when it’s dark and crumbly–usually in a month or two. With no turning, it will take twice as long, but I’m in no hurry.

Incorporate a 1- to 2-inch-thick layer of finished compost into vegetable and annual flower beds two weeks before planting. On poor soil, add a 2- to 3-inch-thick layer.

Now you are all set!!! When you begin spring cutbacks, you will have enough brown to start with, then with your first grass cutting, add your green. So yes, it doesn’t have to happen on the same day or even week.

Compost happens!