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Composting Magic in the Garden–Making Gold out of Garbage

By Judy Thompson

Magic in a garden can appear in many forms—a camellia blooming on a snowy February day, an ornamental grass glowing at sunset, the reemergence of a long-lost plant. But nothing quite tops the transformation of garbage into the black gold of compost. I am enchanted by the magic of composting: Like a good witch, I stir the compost stew, mixing the leftovers from the garden with colorful peelings from the kitchen. With only a little help from me, there will be the alchemic conversion of nothing into something, of waste into bounty.

In wooded areas we can easily observe how nature makes its own compost. The leaves fall, break down and decompose, blending into the earth to nourish the trees and plants. In similar fashion, homemade compost, added to garden soil each year, improves soil structure, adds nutrients, aerates the soil, and increases disease resistance—quite a list of accomplishments considering its garbage lineage. Used as mulch around plants or mixed with soil, it has the ability to aerate clay and compacted soils and increase the moisture retention of sandy soils.

Using compost as an organic soil amendment also protects the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Compost from our yards and kitchens reduces the impact of solid waste disposal in the bay watershed. Compost also reduces erosion, lessens the need for chemical fertilizers, and protects the local waterways that flow into the bay. By some estimates, as much as one-third of the space in landfills is taken up with organic waste. That is a waste of good organic waste.
Make your own “black gold” and add composting to your must-do garden tasks.

Here is one way to set up a system to recycle organic garbage:




Select a compost bin: A homemade bin can be as simple as wire fencing configured into a circle or as fancy as the commercially-available compost tumblers. The optimal size is 3” x 3” x 3”. The bin can be located in shade or sun but should not be set over shallow tree roots that will invade the compost pile.

Many types of compost units are displayed at Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis on the right fork of Wildwood Trail, just past the sculpture Vulnerability (which perhaps represents a condition of the nearby waters). If you visit on a day when master gardeners are offering a demonstration in composting, you will be rewarded with informative handouts and a black plastic compost bin, provided free by the county. The easy-to-assemble GEOBIN™ Composting System is the simplest and most effective style I have ever used.

Decide what you will be “cooking:” The recipe to feed the microbes that will create most of the decomposition is simple: Add to the compost bin about 3 parts brown organic material to one part green organic material. Moisten lightly and mix it up (a compost fork or pitchfork makes that easy). This process provides the four essentials of composting—carbon (dry), nitrogen (wet), water, and air (oxygen from mixing). Use whatever you have of these recommended ingredients:

Browns (High in Carbon)
fallen leaves 

dead plants
straw
coffee filters
corncobs
old potting soil
nutshells
paper towels
dryer lint
old tee shirts

Greens (High in Nitrogen)

fresh grass clippings
green plants
vegetable & fruit scraps
coffee grounds, tea bags
weeds
manure (aged)
rinsed egg shells

What Not to Compost
meat, bones or dairy
fats
diseased vegetation
pet feces
invasive plants
weed seeds

“There are no hard and fast rules of composting,” says Pam Dennison, co-chair of the Anne Arundel Master Gardeners Composting Demonstrations project at Quiet Waters. “There are many variables, and experimenting with what works is part of the process.” She likens building a compost pile to following a recipe for dinner: “If a recipe doesn’t turn out quite as perfectly as you intended, you can still eat it and enjoy it. It’s that way with compost.”

The Rule of Two, Four, or More: At my house, everything headed for the compost bin is cut into 2, 4, or more pieces, depending on time and inclination. Kitchen shears, knives, and a cleaver (really fun for slicing through tough corn cobs and stalks) are at the ready to cut everything from melon rinds to banana peels. Outside in the garden cart are scissors and pruners to cut up overgrown plants, stems, stalks, ornamental grasses, and other garden waste. Leaves are chopped with a mulcher and bagged for later use. The smaller the pieces added to the mix, the more accelerated the composting process will be.

How to Build the Pile is a Matter of Taste: Compost aficionados often espouse the fast, hot, ready-in-two-weeks compost, but for me the satisfyingly slow process of cool, casual composting works best. This approach supports the ongoing recycling of our yard and kitchen waste over time. Horticulturist Roger Swain, in The Practical Gardener, confesses that he is an expert at slow composting, thereby imparting credibility to us casual composters.
The slow-brewing pile can be built like lasagna, starting with a bottom layer of stalks from ornamental grasses for aeration, followed by a layer of leaves, then a thinner layer of greens and so on. Every few days kitchen scraps, added from a compost pail in the kitchen, are buried under another layer of leaves. Keeping a bag of shredded leaves stored next to the compost bin makes this easy. Turning and mixing the layers with a compost fork keeps them moist and aerated.

Adding a small amount of old compost or soil invites the unseen assistants to this magic act, the microorganisms that will break down all the ingredients. Compost activators are unnecessary. Susie Blackwell, last year’s chair of the composting project, told a group at a Quiet Waters’ demonstration I attended, “ You might as well put $20 in to decompose.”
When is it ready? When it has turned dark and crumbly and smells woodsy, the black gold is ready. It can be applied freely to the garden at any time for top dressing around the root zones of perennials, trees and shrubs. Use it to top off container plantings or incorporate into beds for vegetables and annuals. Consider it free fertilizer, for usually no other soil amendments will be necessary when the plants are fed with compost.
Beyond the benefits to our gardens are the benefits to the bay watershed. That’s why Dennison considers the composting demonstration project very important: “It helps people become better stewards of the environment. As homeowners, we need to recognize our impact on the land. Creating compost from waste and using it instead of chemicals as fertilizer will help protect the bay.” What begins as a color-studded stew will slowly turn into a veritable feast for the garden as a mulch or a soil conditioner. And being a garden magician is good for the garden, good for the bay, and good for the soul of the gardener.

Judy Thompson, an avid gardener, writes frequently for What’sUp? magazines.

Tags: By Judy Thompson April 2009 Garden

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