Having an adequate supply of good rich compost is the gardeners dream. It's got many uses, and all those uses will end in better plants. Nevertheless, composting can be time intensive and tough work. I place a reasonable price on my time, so spending agespiles does not qualify as a worthwhile exercise, at least in my book. Nevertheless , I am doing compost, but I am doing so on my terms. I built 2 composting bins.
Each bin is five feet wide, five feet deep, and 4 feet high. I built the bins by sinking four" by four" posts in the ground for the corners, and then nailed two by 4's and one by 4's, alternating on the sides. I left two" openings between the boards for air flow. The 2 by 4's are firm enough to keep the sides from bowing out, and between each two by four I used one by 4's to save a little cash. The bins are only three sided, I left the front of the bins open so they can be filled and emptied simply.
I started by filling only one of the bins. I put grass clippings, dried leaves, and plant clippings in the bins.
I try not to put more than six" of each material on a layer.
You do not want twenty-four" of grass clippings in the bin and you must alternate layers of green and brown material. If required, keep 1 or 2 bags of dry leaves around so that you can alternate layers of brown waste and green waste.
When we root cuttings we use coarse sand in the studios, so when it is time to pull the rooted cuttings out of the terraces, the old sand goes on the compost pile. In our small backyard nursery we also have some plants in boxes that don't survive. Instead of pulling the dead plant and the weeds out of the container, and then discarding the potting soil back on the soil pile, we just dump the entire container in the compost bin. This adds more brown material to the mix, and is far simpler than separating the soil and the weeds. Once the bin is full, the guidelines of composting say that you need to turn the material in the bin every couple of weeks. There's no way that I have enough time to do that, so this is what I do. I pack as much material in the bin as I will before I start filling the second bin. I pile the material as high as I probably can, and even let it spill out in front of the bin. Then I cover all of the fresh material with mulch or potting soil, whatever brown material I can find. Then when I am out working in the garden I set a little sprinkler on top of the pile and turn it on really low, so a little spray of water runs on the material. Since I have got a good water well, this does not cost anything, so I let it run for no less than 2 hours as frequently as I will. This keeps the material damp, and the moisture will cause the pile to warm up, which is what makes the composting action occur. After I have the 1st bin fully full, I begin to use the second bin. As the material in the 1st bin starts to break down, it'll settle and the bin is not heaped up, so I just keep digging the material that I piled in front of the bin, up on top of the pile, till all the material is either in the bin, or piled on top of the heap. Then I just leave it alone, except to water it sometimes. The watering isn't mandatory, it just speeds the method.
Because I do not turn the pile, I can not expect all the material to decay fully. The material in the middle is going to break down more than the material on the perimeters, but almost all of it does break down reasonably well. The very next step works well for me because I have got a small nursery, so I keep a bunch of potting soil on hand at all points. But you can really do the same by just purchasing 2 or 3 yards of shredded mulch to start, and piling it up near your compost bins. If you do this, you'll always have a supply of good compost to work with.
Shredded bark, left in a pile will at last break down and become great compost. The potting soil that I use is about eighty percent rotted bark. I make potting soil by buying fine textured and dark hardwood bark mulch, and I just put it in a pile and let it rot. The secret is to keep the pile low and flat, so it doesn't shed the rain water away.
You need the mulch to stay as wet as practicable this may lead it to break down reasonably fast.
So I keep a bunch of rotted bark mulch near my compost bins. When both bins are utterly full, I empty the bin containing the oldest material by piling it on top of my rotted bark mulch. I make certain the pile of rotted mulch is wide and flat on top so that when I put the material from the compost bin on top of the pile, the compost material is only five to ten inches deep. My mulch pile could be twelve ' wide, nonetheless it may only be twenty-four to thirty inches high. When I have all of the compost on top of the pile, then I am going around the fringe of the pile with a spade, and take some of the material from the perimeters of the pile and toss it up on top of the pile, covering the compost with at least six" of rotted bark. This will cause the compost material to rot the remainder of the way.
After you get this system started, you never need to use all the material in the pile. Always keep at least two to three cubic yards available so you have got something to mix with your compost. If you use a large amount of compost material like I do then you need to buy more material and add to your pile in the late summer or fall, when you are done using it for the season.
Around here lots of the supply corporations sell a compost material that's already broken down very well. This is what I buy to contribute to my stockpile. But I try to be certain that I have at least three yards of old material available, then I will add another three yards of fresh material to that.
Then in the spring I will empty one of the compost bins and add the compost to the head of the pile. The pile of usable compost will be layers of material, some more composted than others.
Sort of like a sandwich. So what I am doing is chip off a chunk of the pile from the edge, spread it out on the ground so it's only about eight" deep, then run over it with my tiny rototiller. This mixes it together completely, and I spade it onto the potting bench. Having a heap of rotted compost near your compost bins is brilliant because if you've got a lot of leaves or grass clippings, you can throw some rotted compost in the bin to maintain that layered effect that's necessary for the composting process to work fine.
Sure this process is a little work, but it sure is nice to have a place to get rid of organic waste anytime I like. Then down the road when I have beautiful compost to add to my potting soil, I am grateful to have done the right thing earlier, and I know that I have wasted nothing.
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