esmerelda v asked:


I’ve no choice as the leaves / grass wont fit in my bin anymore.

Manda Panda asked:


My boyfriend’s mother did an organic no dig garden last year and she now has leaves and fruits and vegetable peels on the garden composting creating new soil for the coming season. However, a lot of the compost is still leaves and other bric-a-brac, not decomposed yet. Any way to help and speed up the process?

By: Derrick Walters

To restate a popular phrase: “compost happens” and indeed it does. Make a pile of shredded leaves and grass clippings, stir it up every now and then and as long as it gets rained on occasionally you will eventually get compost. Worms and microscopic creatures will do their thing. While this process is simple enough it does have drawbacks. Not everyone has a good location for this pile of compost wannabe. Another problem is that it is hard to control the moisture level of an open pile of composting material which you do not want to wet or too dry. With the open pile design you can not readily remove some compost when you are ready for it, you need to wait until the pile has finished composting. Therefore you may end up with multiple piles of compost that are at various stages of completion.

To help address some of these issues we have come up with ways to improve the process. Many people use upright bins to compost. These can be as simple as a frame of shipping pallets on their sides to form a box. This type of composter will certainly help to make your composting more than just a spreading pile. This type of composting will also allow more critical oxygen to reach all areas of the composting material. You will also find it still fairly easy to mix up the composting material. Two problems still remain. First this is still primarily a batch process and second, moisture control is difficult unless you tarp the container.

There are newer manufactured bins that come closer to getting it right, with the idea being that you add the material in the top and remove compost from some type of drawer in the bottom as you need it. The concept sounds good but with many of these composters it is difficult to properly mix up and add air (aerate) the compost. Even if you are able to do a good job stirring it up you are back to basically a batch process without the planned downward and out flow. Yet if you do not stir it up well and just keep adding material to the top, the lack of oxygen will greatly slow or halt the composting process with this type of composter.

The next big step in composter evolution was to move to a simple drum style compost tumbler. Basically, a barrel was attached to some type of stand that allowed it to be rotated. This was a real leap in composting technology because you now could monitor and control moisture content, thoroughly mix and aerate the composting material and the composting could take place on a tidy enclosed space. For all of the advantages, one big drawback still remained. This was the ongoing problem of the batch nature of almost all composters. How could a composter be designed so that the composting would continue as an ongoing process with finished compost removed as it is needed? The answer was the development of a composter with a drum inside of a drum. This double drum system allows material to be added through a door in the side of the outer drum and as it breaks down into compost it will exit out a discharge port in the end of the rotating drum. This development has solved the last of the major hurdles to effective backyard composting. No more batch composting! With this type of composter, a good mix of greens and browns, and a little water, you will get your first compost in a few weeks and keep producing throughout the warm part of the year or all year long in warm climates.

If you are looking for the fastest most practical backyard composter, you really need to consider a composter that incorporates the double drum technology. Another benefit we have found is that children love to see how the compost seems to magically appear from the output port even though it was grass and leaves etc. that was added to the feed port moments before rotating the drum. This has allowed these high tech composters to be an interesting educational tool to help us impress upon children how they can be involved in the stewardship of our fragile earth. 

kynasty16 asked:


i threw a bunch of sticks/leaves/grass cuttings and such in a pile and i wanna compost it. any instructions on what i should do?

By: Chris Dailey

Creating a mulch pile for your garden is one of the more important things you can do when preparing for your organic planting. Mulch, which will inevitably become humus or compost will act as a natural barrier against the elements for your garden, provide water retention in the soil, will protect you against invasions of weeds, and at the very least provide an outward beauty that only this dark brown material can provide. However, all of this is great unless you have no idea how to start your very own mulch pile. This takes a little bit of planning but in the end you will have a fine source of composting material that you can use on your garden when the time comes to plant. Here are a few tips on how you can create a very large and easy to maintain mulch pile for your organic garden.

The amount of waste that everyone accrues on a daily basis is getting worse each and every year. People that eat out a lot probably do not have the same problems that most families face. Feeding four or more people can create quite a bit of waste and much of this might be organically based. Organic waste is the first step in determining whether or not you can have a successful mulch pile. Of course, you need to consider how much area you have to store the mulch, the size of the garden area that you will have to grow your plants in, and of course how much time you will have to use the mulch and tend to your garden. All of these factors weigh in as you determine whether a large or a small old pile is best for you.

The first thing you should do is order off an area of your property where you can begin to place your organic waste. Mulching is actually a very easy thing to do and it can even be helpful especially if you have a large area of upkeep on your property. You can begin by collecting the every day yard waste that most people have. Do you have a lawn that you know on a regular basis? Are you adjacent to a forest or do you have trees on your property that have leaves? If so, you have an ample and free natural supply of organic waste that you can begin to add to your compost pile right away.

Other things that you can use which are related to and or originate from plants are things like sawdust, vegetable and fruit waste from your daily eating, as well as the newspaper that you read every week. By taking this material and shredding it into smaller pieces, you can begin to create a mulch pile in no time at all.

Most people that create a compost pile will pile everything in a large mound and make sure that it has access to sunlight. They will cover this pile with a tarp that is dark in order to absorb as much heat as possible. Heat is a very necessary component in order to get the microorganisms and process is going for the mulching process to begin. Although it is possible to not use a pile and to simply throw this material on top of your existing garden, it would be unsightly and would not be as beneficial to the garden because the composting process will create nutrients that the soil needs to properly feed the plants. If the composting process will take a few weeks or months to occur while sitting on top of the garden, this is time wasted and the nutrients cannot go into the soil because the composting process has not occurred.

One other possibility is to partially compost your material opposed to waiting for the entire process to occur. This will work for people that have not had the time to set up their mulch pile but the process of setting this up is very easy as well. Simply take all of the materials aforementioned, mix the pile regularly in order to aerate the pile so that the microorganisms have ample supply of air. Then, this will inspire the process to occur much more quickly. Also, the larger the pile, the faster the composting process will occur because heat and pressure will be an increased factor.

Before adding the compost to your garden area, you probably do not want to wait for the sticks to decompose. Hard substances such as branches and twigs that are still in the composting material will be your sign as to when to remove the compost and place it on your garden. If you wait too long, waiting for the larger sticks to decompose as well, you may miss all of the benefits of the composting process and also wait too long in order to enrich the soil and protect your crops during the growing season.

If you are seeing this as a lot of work that you do not want to do, but you have access to all of the material mentioned, you can actually apply all of the uncomposted mulch material to the top of the garden and allow it to decompose there. However, this is not as effective as using a mulch pile that is properly prepared months in advance and therefore it is recommended for the benefit of your crops that you apply only composted mulch material.

Also remember to add very thick layers of the material from the mulch pile onto your soil. A little bit will have major effects on preventing weeds from appearing or maintaining even temperatures throughout the soil itself. Think of it as an installation of sorts that can only protect your planting efforts if you use enough to do so. You should also turn your mulch from time to time in order to aerate it even after it has been applied to the surface of the garden. This is to make sure that the composting process continues and will ensure an even distribution of nutrients into the soil as water is applied from about and percolates down under.

One caveat is to not use too many wood products in your mulch as the decomposition time is much longer than on things such as tomatoes or pairs that will decompose in a matter of days. Also consider adding more mulch about halfway through the season in order to make sure that nutrients and protection is consistent throughout the growing time. This is a little bit of extra effort and will require probably another mulch pile, but it ensures that your crops will be as healthy as possible and will not be subject to elemental disasters that may occur. These include the wind blowing away too much mulch, heavy rain storms that wash some of it away. These are all factors that need to be considered and maintained while growing your organic garden plants.

So it is time to get mulching! Gather all of your organic waste and create a schedule for yourself in order to begin your mulch pile. Continually add lawn clippings and old newspapers along with your organic waste from your kitchen and over a period of a couple of months you will have a fine mulch pile that you can begin to use on your organic garden in no time at all.