Garden Alchemy - Patch

Priding myself on trying to live a greener existence, I have tried my hand many times at composting and I am embarassed to admit that the concept always seems to elude me. Last year I bought a counter-top compost pail and religiously saved all my kitchen scraps only to send my husband out in the cold to the compost bin with a swirling mass of fruitflies assaulting his vision.

Needless to say, that didn't last very long. I've tried tumbler bins as well as loose piles and have always ended up with the same result: a mess of sludge littered with whole pinecones, sticks, lumps of sod and the occassional rock. It seemed like a mathematical equation that I just couldn't figure out... the "greens," the "browns," the do's and don'ts... I just couldn't keep it all straight. Everywhere I looked people were touting composting as the simplest thing to reduce your carbon footprint while benefiting your garden, and I just found the whole concept overwhelming and seemingly complicated.

Composting is a way of duplicating that which already occurs in nature, but in a controlled environment; you are simply harnessing the power of decomposition and using it to your advantage. In order for your composting efforts to be efficient and effective, you must have equal parts of two ingredients in your bin: nitrogen and carbon, or "greens" and "browns." The greens are nitrogen-rich materials including grass clippings, kitchen scraps (veggies, fruits, egg shells, but no meat, dairy or fat), prunings and trimmings from your garden, coffee grounds, and tea bags, among other things. The "browns" are carbon-rich and include leaves, straw, leaves, hay, and, oh yeah, did I mention leaves? With an equal mix of these two types of materials, in addition to water and air and minimal effort on your part, you can have a constant supply of the "black gold" for your garden.

Sounds simple enough, but I could never seem to figure it out. I inevitably ended up with an overabundance of greens and a constant dearth of brown materials. My kitchen scraps alone could fill up a bin within a month, but left to sit there without enough dry carbon-rich browns I was simply creating a mini-landfill in my backyard. Loath to become the next Superfund site in New Jersey, my husband put an end to the composting efforts and, frankly, I was relieved that he did. It was a constant source of stress for me: I felt guilty not composting, but I also felt like a huge failure at it.

I recently had the opportunity to hear a lecture from Gray Russell, Environmental Coordinator for the Township of Montclair and composting genius. His passion for composting is infectious and I am now inspired to give it another shot. Also, his lecture couldn't have been more timely considering we are just about to be inundated with a seemingly endless supply of "browns" in the form of autumn leaves. So, instead of dreading all the raking in the next few months, this is the perfect opportunity to collect all the browns needed for an entire year of composting!  I ran out to Home Depot straight from the lecture and bought chicken wire and stakes to construct a circular "leaf corral" to be placed next to my compost bin. The corral, which measures about 5 feet tall and 3 feet around, will contain all of the leaves that I can fit in there from this year's bounty. I will then have a constant supply of browns that I have always been lacking in the past. Each time I go out to my compost bin with a bucketful of funky kitchen scraps, I can cover them with an equal amount of leaves from the pile and I will always be keeping the correct ratio of greens to browns.

This simple idea of having a separate holding pen for the browns made it all come together for me - suddenly the idea of composting seemed so simple: 50% Green + 50% Brown = 100% Gold! The key, I think, is to not overthink it. I was making things overly complicated for myself and therefore I was setting myself up for failure.

Another motivating factor in my decision to give composting another shot was learning about where our trash, including our compostable kitchen scraps, actually goes when the trucks haul it away. Actually, it ends up not too far from our own backyards at the Essex County Incinerator on Raymond Avenue in the Ironbound section of Newark. The incinerator is capable of burning up to 2,800 tons of municipal waste each day and it accepts garbage from most of Essex County and much of Manhattan. According to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the incinerator emits more mercury, a potent neurotoxin, than any other facility burning trash in the state. The facility, which just settled a lawsuit brought about by community organizations alleging that plant emissions, specifically the amounts of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and fine particulates, violated the terms of the facility's state operating permit more than 900 times over the past five years. In addition to the environmental implications of the plant itself, one must also consider the carbon emissions of the hundreds of trucks hauling our trash there day in and day out. If I can make a dent in that amount, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, you can bet I'm going to try!

So here is a simple action plan that you can enact immediately to get your composting started:

Get yourself set up with a compost bin. You can create a simple bin out of cinder blocks, chicken wire, or rot-resistant wood or you can purchase a commerically made bin. Place the bin in an area of your yard that won't seem like it's a million miles away on a snowy morningSave your autumn leaves in a bin or a pile next to your compost bin to ensure enough brown materials for the entire yearBegin adding materials to your bin, including everything from egg shells to grass clippings, spoiled veggies and fruits, cut flowers, garden trimmings, leaves, etc.Be sure your bin stays moist like the consistency of a wrung-out sponge. Rain should take care of this, but if necessary give it a spray with the hoseTURN your compost once a week. This step is essential in order to get much-needed oxygen to all those microbes that are hard at work transforming your garbage into gold. You want to get the materials that are in the middle of the pile to the outside and vice versa. About a minute is all you need to spend doing this, but it is absolutely essentialThings NOT to add to your bin include meat, fish, chicken, dairy, fat, bones, grease, weeds with a lot of seeds such as dandelions, anything toxic, or anything you're unsure of

Composting is not as complicated as I originally thought; in fact, it's simply a matter of making it convenient for yourself and changing your habits slightly. And if you think composting is just a fad, read here about how Essex County just started their own composting facility in Millburn that is open to the public and creates compost from the leaves collected in South Orange and surrounding municipalities. So, don't be the last one on your block to start composting, get out there today and turn that trash into gold.

Village Gardener is a weekly column chronicling the adventures and mishaps of an enthusiastic novice gardener learning the ropes through trial and error.

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