“Should everything be composted?” was the question discussed and addressed during a Master Gardener meeting.
There is a long list of items that you can compost. Here is a list of items that will decompose when placed on soil:
rotten fruit and vegetables, spent coffee grounds, eggshells, paper coffee liners, loose-leaf tea, tea bags, soiled paper napkins and paper towels, paper towel tubes, expired plant-based milks, cardboard pizza boxes, food boxes, spoiled leftovers, unfinished meals, tofu, aquatic plants, corn husks and corncobs, straw.
Some of these are brown or carbon-based, while others are green, or nitrogen based.
Conversely, there are items that you don’t want to put in your compost pile: used or spent chemicals, plastics, pet waste, citrus peel, dairy products, deceased animals, meat and fish, rice, disease- or insect-infested plants, hay, glossy paper, produce stickers.
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Compost done correctly will be something that you can easily determine. If you smell the compost properly processed, you will not be able to tell what the material was originally.
The smell will give it away if you can smell what it was. Then it wasn’t processed correctly. I have seen that situation come up in composts that claim proper processing.
A well-done, well-turned compost material will be black gold and not spread diseases to other plants, which is the real issue.
A gardener’s most valuable soil amendment is humus, often referred to as black gold. Composting is the production of humus from selected garden and kitchen wastes. Microbes break down organic raw materials into humus.
Composting is a great way to get rid of yard waste and improve soil structure with no negative impact on the environment.
Humus is organic matter that has gone through this process. This humus adds nutrients to the soil. What is significant is that humus improves soil structure, water-holding capacity, and nutrient-holding capacity.
Many diseases overwinter in leaf litter, which means that you must kill these problems so that you don’t infect your plants next year with a new batch of the diseases. At 150 degrees F, the heat will kill off most pathogens in your compost.
What I also find exciting is that you are killing fungi, insect eggs, nematodes, bacteria, weed seed, and more.
If you do it right, you should not have any problems composting almost anything, but that is also the problem.
When you read these steps, you can take the information and adjust it to suit your own needs, allowing you to create your own black gold. Start by making something like lasagna.
Place four to six inches of carbon-rich material on the bottom layer. Next, you add a four- to six-inch layer of nitrogen-rich material, alternating the layers and aiming at a four-to-one ratio of browns to greens.
Place the layer on top of the previous as you progress up the pile. You need to layer material that will provide a mix of four: one Carbon-to-Nitrogen ratio.
The basic materials you can use include a variety of manures, which raise the temperature as they decay, leaves, non-animal kitchen scraps, black and white newsprint, wood chips, corn fodder, and several other materials.
Air must have a chance to circulate in the lasagna-like mix of the compost pile. The compost needs to be turned four to six times every day the first two weeks.
Temperatures achieved by the decomposition should reach between 130 degrees and up to 150 degrees.
Decomposition should take place to solve the disease issues. A pile too-wet will slow the decomposition process, and you may never achieve the necessary temperatures.
For another four to six weeks, turn the pile intermittently, incorporating some older microbial mixed compost to initiate activity in the new pile, along with molasses.
By monitoring the CO2 process you will know when your compost is ready to be used.
I hope that you have a great time making your own compost and making your own black gold.
If you find something not quite right in the garden during your stroll this week and are unsure how to solve it, please drop me an email with your question, and I will do my best to answer it.
You can reach me at ericlarson546@yahoo.com.