A Recipe for Compost

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF): Use a mulching mower or reversible leaf blower to shred Fall leaves, save them in bags or bins, add them to your kitchen scraps to create nutritious soil.

Please enjoy this post from several years ago--relevant now more than ever!

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I've added a gardening tip here and there over the past few years, but I've always included a recipe for a food that uses whatever vegetable or herb I've been discussing.


Today's post is a little different. I feel strongly that an appreciation of fresh food leads invariably, inevitably, inexorably back to the source: where your food comes from.

More folks getting interested in fresh local food means more folks trying their hands at growing some portion of it.

Maybe it's a windowsill with some herb pots in an apartment, or maybe it's rotation planting of your annual garlic and basil crops in raised beds.

One of the easiest and cheapest ways to make your gardening efforts succeed is to make compost. 

Adding compost to your garden accomplishes the following:

• compost reduces weed growth
• compost decreases the amount of water your plants need
• compost nourishes your soil by replacing nutrients lost in production

Compost does not:

• smell bad--if everything is working correctly it smells like earth
• attract animals or bugs--composting the proper items (see below) and covering the scraps with leaves discourages annoying bugs (flies) while allowing the decomposers to work

Just like breast milk has a whole host of goodies that cannot be replicated in a factory, homemade compost--with its microscopic and visible critters--provides so much more to your garden than a bag of topsoil from the store. It's alive.   [I just compared compost to breast milk. Whoa.]    It's nearly as easy to make, in my opinion as both a woman-who-has-lactated and a gardener who makes compost. To make breast milk you need boobs, hormones, protein and water. To make compost you need some shredded leaves and some kitchen scraps.

Where do you get kitchen scraps?

We've enjoyed a variety of CSA farm shares, from the no frills (the vegetable is plucked from the field and placed in a crate where it sits untouched until I reach into the crate on pick up day) to the tidy waxed box (with my name on it) filled with cleaned, bagged items.  Regardless how cleaned/washed your produce is, unless you're buying it off the the salad bar you will have unwanted bits.

You'll need to do something about those bits.  Sure, you can toss them in the trash, or grind them in the disposal. I've got suggestions for reusing vegetable scraps, and of course there are composting pigs and turtles, but a great way to process them is to compost them.

Just like with sautéing, smaller pieces finish faster. Chop up large scraps into smaller pieces.

sorry for the freaky eyes, she loves her celery

Setting up a compost bin can be very low-cost.

You'll need a place in the kitchen to collect scraps and a place outside to let the scraps decompose.  [If you don't have space outside, you can even compost on the floor of your closet, using worms, but that's another post.]  I have 2 outdoor compost bins--one covered and one open.  I got the covered one free after taking a series of composting classes through my local parks and recreation department.

What if you don't have space for a pile? You can make compost lasagna in a raised garden bed.

After your garden has had its seasonal run, shovel off a layer of soil and set it aside.  Fill the garden bed with layers of kitchen scraps, shredded leaves, coffee grounds until the bed is nearly full. Top with the reserved soil.
Over the winter the materials will decompose in place. You can tell in the Spring because the soil level will be lower--but it's not compacted, it's easier to dig when you're planting your new crops.

Once you have a place to compost, get layering.

I layer kitchen waste with shredded leaves that we save each Fall.  I was a bit exuberant with the leaves and still have some left over, but I'd rather have too much than too little.  Story of my pantry (but not my house!).  A good ratio to aim for is equal amounts, by weight, of kitchen scraps and leaves.

Since the leaves are far lighter than my tea bags, cantaloupe rinds, coffee grounds and corn husks, the volume of leaves is much larger than the volume of kitchen scraps.  I use about 3 parts leaves to one part kitchen scraps.

I have my minions children dump several bucketsful of kitchen scraps, enough to cover the surface about an inch deep.  Then I dump a bag of leaves, enough to cover the surface about 3 inches deep. Then more scraps, then leaves.

Need more scraps? Ask at local coffee shops if they give away Grounds for Gardeners.

Not a stir fry.  My compost bin in July.

Do include crushed eggshells in your kitchen scraps.

The calcium helps your tomato plants, and the worms who will migrate to your pile will take bites of the shell to help them grind up their meal.

Don't include meat, dairy, or most animal wastes.  I say most, because the manure from vegetable-eating animals, such as horses or cows, is widely considered to be great for compost.  Aged manure, that is--fresh manure is too hot (it requires nitrogen to break down, instead of providing nitrogen to your garden).  In my opinion, my composting pig falls in this category as well.  I use the bedding (hay, pig poop, and whatever scraps they don't eat) in my compost bin.

Once you've layered your unwanted bits and your leaves, and watered it or let the rain fall directly on it, and stirred it occasionally to bring the decomposed stuff--and the decomposers themselves--up from the bottom to work on the newest stuff, your compost will begin to look uniform and soil-like.  Time to spread it on your garden and start a new batch.

Just 3 visible ingredients--kitchen scraps, water, and shredded leaves. The air and time are implied.

A Recipe For Compost
By Kirsten Madaus

How to Make Compost: use a mulching mower or reversible leaf blower to shred Fall leaves, save them in bags or bins, add them to your kitchen scraps to create nutritious soil.

Prep time: 88:88
Cook time: 88:88
Total time: 88:88

Yield: 1 bin
Ingredients:
1 part kitchen scraps
3 parts shredded leaves
water
air
time

Instructions:

In a vented bin, a raised bed, or just a pile in a corner, layer kitchen scraps and shredded leaves. If it hasn't rained in forever, add water and stir--a pitchfork works real well. You want your compost to be "sponge damp". That means if you were to squeeze a handful like a sponge, no water would drip out of it, yet it feels damp to the touch. If it's been rainy--no worries. A wet pile will dry out eventually--unless it's in a rotating tumbler without air vents. In that case, you may not have adequate air circulation and have additional issues.

Speaking of air--give your compost a stir every now and then (weekly or monthly) to allow materials from the bottom of the pile to mix with air and the stuff on the top of the pile. Or don't stir it--left on its own, a pile of kitchen scraps and shredded leaves will turn into compost over time.
Stirring it just makes you feel like you're accomplishing something and does speed the natural process along a bit.

When the contents of your compost bin looks like dirt--with the occasional eggshell, tea bag tag, or avocado peel--you're done. Time to work it into your soil!

I've learned about composting from my parents, fellow gardeners, and by listening to You Bet Your Garden with Mike McGrath on the radio. I enjoy the program so much I donated to WYSO to get a copy of Mike McGrath's Book of Compost (Amazon affiliate link), a terrific resource.

My Daddy--working hard.

After I first published this post, I had my visiting parents review and suggest edits--it's been Gardener Approved.