When starting your compost pile, it is important to layer your browns and greens while adding water to each layer. For a quick review of last weeks’ article, the “browns” are carbon-rich, mostly dry material consisting of items like stems, dried leaves, dried grass clippings, sawdust pellets, wood ash and the like. “Greens” however, are nitrogen or protein-rich material like herbivore manures, kitchen food scraps, coffee grounds, green lawn clippings, lawn and garden weeds (without seeds), or even green leaves.
To properly construct a compost pile, you should alternate layers of these brown (60 percent) and green (30 percent) materials. While constructing these layers, add a shovel or two every two to three layers of soil from your yard. This will give the pile a jump-start with the microorganisms needed in the composting process. An ideal size for a back yard compost pile is around 5’ x 5’ x 5’. Remember, for your compost pile to work it is important to know what can and should not be added. A lot of materials are great for composting, while others can bind up the decomposition process. See the list below for do’s and don’ts.
DO’S
Dried or green grass clippings*
Old fruits and vegetables
Twigs and small branch pieces
Garden waste
Straw
Rinds, peels, cores, and other vegetable and fruit scraps
Herbivore manures
Lawn waste (leaves)
Egg shells
DON’TS
Large woody material
Fats**
Weeds that have gone to seed
Meat/Bones**
Diseased plant material
Materials with long-lasting pesticide residues
Oils (salad dressing, cooking oil)**
Dairy products**
Pet waste
*Be sure that grass clippings have not been treated with pre-emergent.
**Dairy, fats, animal bones and meat, and oils will begin to smell and attract insect pests and varmints.
Other considerations
Every few weeks, give the pile a quick turn with a pitchfork or shovel. This aerates the pile. Oxygen is required for the decomposition process to work, and turning the pile “adds” oxygen. You can skip this step if you have a regular supply of coarse brown material, like straw. Once you’ve established your compost pile, add new materials by mixing them in. It is not necessary to add them in by layers at this point. Mixing, or turning, the compost pile is essential to aerating the composting materials and speeding the process to completion.
Add water to the pile as necessary. As was mentioned in Part I of this article from last week, keeping the pile moist is best for micro biotic activity; not too dry, and not too wet. The key indicator of composting is when temperature in the center of the pile warms up. These temperatures can easily warm up to 130 F due to the micro biotic activity in breaking down the organic material. The ideal temperature to achieve killing off of fungal spores and weed seeds is between 150-160 F.
Once your compost pile is uniform in consistency, it is time to start reaping the benefits. Compost can be used by simply spreading it across the surface of your garden and flower bed or by incorporating it into the soil through tilling. One resource, “Building Better Soils for Better Crops,” says that applying compost can substitute for mulch and can even suppress disease in your garden. For more information about composting go to https://bit.ly/2MtlXVa, to “Building Better Soils for Better Crops” chapter called Making and Using Compost. For more information about what goes into compost and why, go to videos provides by Kansas Healthy Yards called “Composting: What to Add”, at https://bit.ly/2nnP3dy, and “Composting: Making Black Gold”, at https://bit.ly/2nnO7G4.
Rip Winkel is the Horticulture agent in the Cottonwood District for K-State Research and Extension. Contact him by email at rwinkel@ksu.edu or call either 785-682-9430 or 620-793-1910.
