A Grower’s Guide to Actually Making Tons of Compost
The web is full of compost 101 articles. I’ve even written a couple of them myself. While they’re all incredibly helpful if you’re just getting started, most focus on dealing with kitchen waste and household scraps in a more eco-conscious manner. This is a great thing, but for many gardeners, this won’t provide enough compost. In this post, I’ll cover the basics of making compost and how to scale up your system to create an abundance of compost for amending your soil, filling raised beds, creating seed starting mix, and more.
The Basics of Composting
Making good compost is a science, but it’s straightforward. You need to know four things: what to put in your compost, how to keep the in the ideal temperature range, how to keep it at the ideal moisture, and how to give it air.
Compost Ingredients
To make a compost pile that breaks down quickly into high quality finished compost for the garden, you need to mix “brown” or carbon-rich ingredients with “green” nitrogen-rich ingredients in a 1:1 ratio.
Too much brown material will cause a dry pile that’s slow to decompose. Too much green material will cause a slimy, ammonia smelling pile. Not what we want for fluffy, nutrient-rich finished compost!
Here are some examples of each:
Green, Nitrogen-Rich Materials
- Vegetable & Fruit Scraps
- Coffee Ground Tea Bags
- Grass Clippings
- Seaweed
- Weeds
- Manure (Avoid Dog & Cat Waste)
- Plant Trimmings
- Egg Shells
Brown, Carbon-Rich Materials
- Wood Chips
- Fallen Leaves
- Straw
- Wood Ash
- Hay
- Nut Shells
- Pine Needles
- Brown Cardboard
- Shredded paper (avoid glossy material like magazines)
- Corn Stalks & Husks
- Saw Dust
- Small Sticks & Twigs
Maintaining Compost Temperature
Creating compost pile with the correct 1:1 ratio of green and brown ingredients is a big part of keeping your pile at the ideal temperature. Once you’ve added these ingredients, aerobic bacteria will begin breaking down the materials. Through their cellular processes, these microorganisms produce heat energy!
While you don’t want a compost pile to overheat, as this could kill the good microbes, we do want it to stay warm. That warmth is an optimum habitat for those oxygen-loving microorganisms. It also helps to kill weed seeds, pest eggs, and plant diseases that could be lurking in your compost.
The ideal compost temperature is between 141°F to 155°F. Long stem compost thermometers like this one are quite affordable and can help you easily monitor the situation. While it isn’t necessary for a small kitchen compost, it’s a good idea to ensure your compost doesn’t overheat and kill off the beneficial bacteria.
Now, here’s the downside to a small kitchen compost. It may not be big enough to maintain that temperature. Ideally, a compost pile should be about 4 feet by 4 feet to maintain temperature. Larger is often better, especially for winters in cold climates. See below for tips on scaling up your compost.
Especially in northern climates, placing your compost in a south-facing sunny location can also help you maintain heat. In cold winters, you may also need to cover the pile. You can do this with a tarp or place your compost in the end of a hoop house or build a cattle panel high tunnel over it.
As I mentioned above, it’s also possible for the compost pile to get too hot. If the compost is overheating, it’s time to turn the pile. For small piles, you can quickly turn it with a pitchfork. For very large piles, a tractor might be a better solution if available. Chickens can also help slowly turn your pile. One of my favorite YouTube channels, Edible Acres, offers excellent advice on managing their huge and productive compost system with chickens.
Maintaining Compost Air & Moisture
The last piece of the compost science puzzle is to maintain adequate moisture and air. Ideally compost should be moist but not wet. Think of a wrung out sponge. You should be able to feel that the compost is moist in your hand, but you shouldn’t be able to squeeze out any liquid.
In very dry years or if you’re working in a hoop house, it may be necessary to water your compost pile. If you have a wet period, you can throw a tarp over your compost pile to prevent water logging and cooling. If you’ve ever watched Charles Dowding, the grandfather of no-dig gardening, on YouTube, you’ve probably noticed that he keeps his compost covered.
You’ve probably already realized that compost piles need some air. After all, it’s aerobic bacteria that’s breaking down the scraps into rich soil. So how do you add air? Bulkier materials can help create air pockets within the pile. I think people’s instinct is to add small scraps, but twigs and other bulky bits have their place too.
Turning the pile also aerates the system. This is another way chickens can come in handy, their tiny feet furiously stirring and adding air to the pile as they look for bugs, grubs, and other delicious bits.
Scaling Up Your Compost System
There’s no way to get around it. If you want more compost, you need more material. This means bringing more material onto the homestead in bulk. Here are a few of my favorite methods for find bulk green material and bulk brown material.
While I don’t do all of these, I have talked with people who use these methods.
Bulk Green Material
Again, green material is the nitrogen rich material you need to make good compost and feed your plants. In my experience, it’s often harder to source than brown material, but there are a few methods you can try.
Check coffee shops, caterers, restaurants, and shops.
One of the best ways to bulk up on green materials is to talk with local small businesses. Check with coffee shops, restaurants, shops, and caterers to see if they would save scraps for you. This often means extra work for them, so be willing to make it as easy as you can. Offer to provide good clean buckets with air tight lids (like these) that we use to store bulk food.
Grow green manure.
Green manures are cover crops that are cut and usually tilled into the bed while they’re still green. If you have extra space, you could harvest a green manure crop solely for adding to the compost.
I’ve written a comprehensive post on growing green manures for Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, which you can find here.
Collect grass clippings (and chat with neighbors who do the same).
If you mow parts of your property, bagging the clippings can provide an excellent source of green material for the compost pile. If you live in a more suburban area, you may also have neighbors who bag their clippings, sometimes even sending them to the landfill. Check with others to see if you can collect their clippings, too.
If you’re getting grass clippings from sources outside your property, it’s essential to talk with the landowner and ensure that they’re free from herbicides and pesticides.
Dumpster dive.
I get it. The thought of dumpster diving makes you uncomfortable. It’s often associated with poverty and sounds dirty and awful. But you know what’s scarier than grabbing some boxes out of a dumpster? Food waste.
40% of all food in the United States ends up in dumpsters and eventually landfills.
All of that is potential nutrients for your garden! Grocery stores, pharmacies, and other places that sell food and produce often chuck entire boxes of it into the dumpster perfect for you to grab. Think of it like looting in Skyrim (or your favorite game).
Be smart about it. Here in West Virginia and in most places, there are no laws that say you can’t dumpster dive. However, you should still do so, safely and respectively.
- Be quick, don’t linger by a dumpster.
- Keep it clean, don’t scatter trash around a dumpster, make sure you pick anything up that falls out.
- Don’t add any trash to a dumpster.
- Avoid getting all the way into the dumpster (especially if you’re alone).
When people are disrespectful, businesses are more likely to lock their dumpster.
**I probably can’t advise you to do so, but if you decide to eat anything that looks good from the dumpster, check the internet for recalls and sanitize any produce. Combine 2 teaspoons Regular Bleach (8.25% sodium hypochlorite with no additives) to one gallon of water to create a sanitizing solution. Submerge produce for at least one minute, then rinse with clean water.
Collect jack-o’-lanterns and other Halloween pumpkins and gourds.
Post-Halloween is a great time for the compost pile. Offer to compost neighbor’s and family’s pumpkins, gourds, and other Halloween perishables. You may also get some brown material. I see more and more people using straw bales as decor. Later, Christmas trees can be another great option.
Bulk Brown Material
Brown material is the carbon rich material that will help bulk up your compost and keep it decomposing properly with no smell. I find it’s often easy to find brown material for free or cheap.
Source wood chips.
Most of our brown material comes from wood chips. In a good compost system, they break down surprisingly quickly. We get ours from a nearby hardware and feed store. They get it from the local company that trims roadsides and power lines. They’re kind enough to give it away for free, so every time I pass, I try to load up the truck.
If you have space, you can do exactly what the hardware store does. If you live in a location near where a company is cutting, they’re usually more than happy to dump a load of wood chips on your property. Often, it saves them travel time and potential fees at a landfill.
If you have it in the budget and are clearing or cutting firewood, you could also purchase a small wood chipper.
Check on sawdust.
Similarly, sawdust is usually an unwanted byproduct. If you have a sawmill near you, check to see if you could clean up some of their sawdust for your compost operation.
Purchase or collect old hay.
Hay has a shelf life and eventually loses nutrition, making it unusable for farmers feeding livestock like sheep, cows, and horses. They may also get rid of hay that has gotten damp or moldy, which is also unsuitable as feed.
Often farmers will give this bad hay away for free or for very little. Keep in mind, you’ll usually need to load it yourself, so you may want to bring help.
When collecting or purchasing hay, talk with the farmer to ensure that they haven’t treated the field with herbicides.
Gather cardboard or other dye-free paper packaging.
It seems like people are constantly getting packages these days. Any of the non-glossy, paper or cardboard based material is perfect for the compost pile. Use your own and ask around for extra.
You can also check with stores that receive items in boxes that must be unpackaged and shelved, like liquor stores and grocery stores for their cardboard boxes.
Is Free Manure Safe for the Garden?
You’ll notice that I didn’t list free manure as a good source of extra green material. In the past, I certainly would have. My first gardens as an adult were largely made possible by donations from a nearby horse farm.
Sadly, much of the manure available is now contaminated with herbicides. These chemicals are often broadleaf herbicides applied to hay fields, grain fields, and pastures. The chemicals make their way through the livestock’s gut, into the manure, and into your garden.
Broadleaf pesticides will have a devastating effect on many of your vegetables crops like potatoes, broccoli, tomatoes, squash, and more. To me, it’s no longer worth the risk.
However, you can test manure or compost at home with a bioassay test if you’re willing to sacrifice a few seedlings. Mix the manure well so you get a well-blended sample. Take five seedlings and pot them up in your normal soil and then pot up five with the manure.
If herbicide is present, your transplants in the manure display stunted growth, curled or cupped leaves, prominent vein markings on the leaves, and pale, narrow, or distorted shoot tips.
If you have your manure from your own livestock, it may be fine to use. Scott helps a friend hay in exchange for bales for our animals. We know the farmer and are confident the hay our rabbits and poultry are using is free from herbicides. Therefore, all of our manure gets added to the compost.
No one lands on a perfect farm or homestead. No matter where you live, building healthy soil will probably become part of your labor. Hopefully, these composting tips allow help you improve your system so you can grow fruit trees, heirloom tomatoes, and so much more!
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