Sustainability Tip: Compost

Every year families throw shocking amounts of food in the trash.  It's amazing how wasteful this country really is!  Much of that food can be recycled in other ways.  The biggest source of recyclable foods are fruits and vegetables, coffee grounds, egg shells, dry leaves, and grass clippings.  Okay, so some families don't actually collect their grass clippings and just let them break down on the grass.  There are fewer and fewer lawn mowers with huge bags attached, but cut grass is great for compost.

All you need for a compost pile is a place where you can let the compost decompose, something that shouldn't be a terribly smelly and gross process.  I've seen tons of ways to do this.  Some people choose to use a compost bin or composter.  Others choose to simply use an old trash barrel.  I've also seen compost heaps that are made up of simple wood and tarps.  They're not hard to make, and just about any family can manage one.  In truth, all you really need is a tarp below to keep the compost from mixing with the soil beneath it, making it easier to transport off and away when it's being used, and a tarp above to keep in moisture.  Of course, on this I've heard mixed reviews as well.  Keeping the compost heap directly on moist ground can attract worms and help the process along, but in Texas, that will mean endless watering of the compost heap through much of the year, so better to keep the moisture in and let the soil below get a bit dry.  Walls on the sides are helpful, but not 100% necessary in my experience.  Another useful tool is a pitchfork or some other tool to turn it.  I've seen some mixed instructions on whether to turn or not turn compost, but there are some composters, like this one, that allow for rotation without so much as opening the bin.  These make composting easy and convenient, especially if you plan to create and use a lot of compost in any given year.

What goes into compost?  Well, the easy answer is a little bit of everything.  Compost is a mix of "green" or living material, and "brown", or dried material.  A good compost heap should be at least 60-75% brown material, as that's what's best going to help the process along.  Too much green has a nasty tendency to rot.  In truth, you can compost without any green material at all!  Nature does it all the time!  However, it does kind of defeat the purpose of composting to recycle foods if you're not going to add any fruits and veggies to the mix.  It also helps to add a healthy portion of good potting soil to introduce the micro-organisms that help the process along.  Worms are only a benefit here as well.  If you find a few worms while gardening, as much as they'll be a benefit to your garden, gardens will always attract more worms.  Grab some of those wiggly ones and toss them in the area you've set aside for a compost bin!  You'll be glad you did!

 So, we're looking at making a majority of this compost heap this mysterious "brown" matter.  What constitutes "brown material" anyways?  For the most part, this is just a bit of logic, dried, brown plants will be your biggest source of brown material.  Chipped twigs or wood (much like mulch) makes excellent compost.  Dried pine needles are great as well, but can be over done.  (As a hint here, think about that live Christmas tree you just toss out every year...Silo Christmas Tree Farm recycles theirs...you could compost and recycle yours too!)  The biggest source of brown matter in any compost heap tends to be autumn leaves, which can be stored up and added all year round.  Dried plant vines, such as tomato plants, or dried stalks from sunflowers and corn are also wonderful sources of brown matter.  In a pinch you can also use newspaper, cardboard (well shredded), and even printer paper, as long as it's not colored or contains colored ink.  That means many old bills, collection notices, letters, and fliers can also be composted.  If you've got a back yard fire pit or a wood burning stove, small quantities of wood ash can be thrown in to the mix too!

What about this green matter?  While I'd love to tell you it's just as logical, it's really not.  The most common source of green matter is found in your kitchen.  Fruits and vegetables make up a majority of green matter.  Pasta, tea bags, and coffee grounds can also be used as green matters.  Dead house plants and dried up flower arrangements are wonderful sources of green matter.  Though it's not green (at least not usually!) animal manure and bird droppings compost as green matter too!  Have a caged pet?  In most cases, the entire waste of their cage can be cleaned out and dumped in the compost bin, waste, shavings, paper, and all!  Even the extra food bits that are dropped all over the cage can be composted.  It's not just furry animals either.  Rats, rabbits, Guinea pigs, and mice are commonly thought of in household pets, bird droppings can also be counted as green matter.  Typically cats and ferrets are not counted in this mix because of the litter they use, and I've read that cat droppings, dog droppings, and ferret droppings should not be composted anyway.  Grass clippings, egg shells, peanut (or other nut) shells, animal and human hair (in small quantities) and nail clippings can also be tossed right in that compost pile!  With all of that, there's an endless amount of green matter around any household.  See why maintaining the balance between green and brown is so hard?

Depending on the contents of the compost, turning regularly may be necessary, and it will change the decomposition time of the compost.  A compost composed of mostly dried leaves, for example, can break down in as little as two or three weeks!  A compost heavily composed of stockier brown matter, like twigs and wood, will obviously take longer.  Whole trees eventually compost themselves in nature, but that can take tens of years to happen, which is why smaller pieces leads to quicker composting time.

The "care and feeding" of your compost heap is also quite simple.  First and foremost, make sure your compost stays moist.  You don't want it good and wet, but thoroughly moist.  Compost allowed to stay too wet can rot or mold.  Turning compost can help spread out the micro-organisms that break down the biodegradable material, which is especially advantageous if you keep adding to your compost pile throughout the year.  Aside from those two things, in my experience, keeping a compost is fairly simple.

One note on composting, anything chemically treated is not a good idea to compost, nor is anything that will seed.  Chemicals from the materials added to the compost bin will transfer to the compost, and then will be brought to whatever you use your compost for.  Would you really want commercial grade pesticides or gasoline fumes tainting whatever food you were growing in your garden?  It certainly wouldn't be something pleasant to add to household plants.  As for anything that will seed, that's a problem when using the compost, especially with weeds.  Seeds from weeds, hay, or grass will likely take root, not something you want in your vegetable garden as it will mean more weeding and work for you.  The same goes with composting pumpkin seeds, peanuts, or any other nut, as nuts are seeds.  However roasted seeds don't seem to present this problem, and should (I won't swear to it!) be safe to use.  Meats should not go into a compost heap as they will rot instead of providing healthy compost, and if you choose to use dairy at all, limited amounts are suggested, usually best in the form of cheese or yogurt instead of straight milk.

So, now that you know how to make compost, what are you going to do with it?  There's any number of possibilities.  Obviously, if you garden, this could be a valuable source of healthy soil and nutrients for your own garden, plant or vegetable.  Compost makes a wonderful addition to potting soil for indoor and outdoor potted plants and container gardens.  I've heard straight compost can be used as a substitute for potting soil, but I haven't tried it myself.  I even knew one person who used to sprinkle it across her lawn instead of Miracle Gro or some other similar chemical fertilizer.  Compost can also be a wonderful resource for a small kitchen garden or herb garden.  As being surrounded by plants can help improve your whole household's mood, provide cleaner, purer air, and create a sense of beauty in your home, many families are finding more reasons to surround themselves with living plants, which means compost can always be useful!  And if you can't use it, there's sure to be someone else who can!  Compost may be a strange gift, but a friend who gardens may truly appreciate it, or you can always look into selling it.  Though this tactic is most often used by big composting industries, like farms, small quantities may be sold to a local home gardener in your own community, and it's always worth a try.  If nothing else, you've reduced the total waste in landfills, and have a good amount of healthy dirt to spread over the green areas around your own home.

Finally, I've known a number of families that wonder what to keep their compostable materials in until they bring it from their kitchen to their compost bin or heap.  In our house, we're simply using one of those plastic coffee canisters.  My aunt over at Craft Attic Resources and Sorting Through Life's Lessons uses (or at least used to use) a plastic bin with a zip-lock freezer bag to hold everything until it went out.  I think those are both wonderful, low-cost ways to start a kitchen compost bucket in your own home!  All it takes is some items around your house and a little creativity.  Or, if you're one of those people who prefers the look or convenience of a store-bought item, there are plenty of kitchen compost keepers on the market.  These can range in price from low-cost to expensive, but tend to have a nice enough appearance that they can be kept out on the counter top instead of hidden beneath the sink.

And if you're really interested in just what can go into your compost, here's a neat link I found as I was researching compostable items that I may not have known about for this very article.  It's called 163 Things You Can Compost!