By Taylor Romanowski

Published 5.3.11

What is sprouting up everywhere; seen at the grocery stores, on commercials even advertised on your favorite chip bag? Composting, it’s the new sensation. The simple practice of organic materials decomposing into soil – it’s the secret you need to make your garden flourish. It’s Mother Nature’s own magical soil enhancer, nature’s way of recycling, returning valuable organic matter and nutrients to the soil to be used again.

Being that this week is International Compost Awareness Week, there is no better time to break out the gardening gloves and dig in. We’ll show you exactly what you need to do, sit back and enjoy the ride…

Let’s start with the basics and travel back to the beginning of time. Composting has been around since the first plants on earth started to shed their fallen leaves. Compost is created when the right mixture of key ingredients is provided to millions of microorganisms. They do the dirty work; these microorganisms will eat, multiply and convert raw materials to compost as long as the environment is right.

Even though many of the commercials and advertisements we see make it seem like composting is an advantage to just you, the gardener, that’s not quite the case, you’re just along for the ride and get a pretty nice treat at the end. The truth is, composting doesn’t just benefit you and your garden, it benefits our environment as well, which is what we’re all about. Compost’s magic powers do more than just produce pretty flowers and tasty vegetables, it has the manpower of ten… plus three.

The abilities to help regenerate poor soils, suppress plant diseases and pests, reduce or eliminate the need for chemical fertilizers and promote higher yields of agricultural crops is just the start of what compost can do for our environment. Compost goes further than what’s in the dirt, extending to what can potentially be leaked into our water and airways. It binds heavy metals and prevents them from migrating to water resources or being absorbed by plants. Compost has the ability to prevent pollutants in storm water runoff from reaching surface water resources. It’s also been shown to prevent erosion and silting on embankments parallel to creeks, lakes, and rivers and prevents erosion and turf loss on roadsides, hillsides, playing fields, and golf courses. Things we use and depend on daily may not be here if it wasn’t for compost.

Compost allows the precious resources of our planet to live on by kicking organic materials out of landfills and incinerators and putting them into the ground where they belong. By diverting organic materials out of these landfills, the production of methane and leachate that formulates in the landfills is avoided, making our air cleaner, healthier and easier to breathe.

Now that we’ve convinced you that there is no better or stronger superhero than compost you’re probably wondering how you can get a part in this newest member of the green bandwagon. The good news – the process is fairly simple; and the rewards, well let’s just say they’ll leave you pretttty happy.

Before you get started, you’ll need a few tools and if you’re a gardener you probably already have most of them lying around your yard and garage. The most essential tool would be the backbone of this whole operation, acompost bin or container. You can build one out of wood, chicken wire, or recycled plastic or buy one at your local store. You’ll also want a pitchfork or turning fork for mixing and turning your compost pile, a shovel for removing finished compost from your bin or heap, and for tossing compost onto the garden and lastly, a garden cart for moving compost from your heap to your garden. Now, onto how you can get started on your very own compost pile…

• Dig out those gardening gloves hidden in your garage and gather all yard waste: grass clippings, fallen leaves and pine needles. Don’t forget about all the “brown” materials like dead leaves, shredded paper, straw and pine needles. These will add carbon to your compost, which isneeded. You don’t want your pile to shrink and start to stink {which will happen if the pile is full of only green matter}. Remember this little equation: green life + brown death = happy soil.
• Once you take your lunch break, instead of throwing your food scraps into the trash, transfer them to your new compost pile. Now hold those horses, don’t start running off quite yet… we can’t add all food scraps into the pile, only ones that will biodegrade completely. Coffee grounds, eggshells, fruits, vegetables, nutshells and tea bags will do the trick; do not compost any meats or bones.
• We know you’ve always wanted to use a pitchfork; well today is your lucky day. Turning your pile is the key to successful compost. Don’t have a pitchfork lying around? A shovel will work as well, but we have to warn you… a pitchfork is far more fun and gets the job done faster. The tines of the fork penetrate layers of leaves and grass clippings, and makes the mixing process much easier than using a shovel. Turn your pile as much as you can, each time you turn the process speeds up. Think of it as a wind up toy, the more you spin, the faster the toy moves. As the turning slows down, the toy’s speed slows as well.
• Just like humans depend on water to stay alive, compost needs it just as much. Keep your compost damp but not wet. As you add material to your pile, make sure that each layer is moist as it is added. During the summer, your pile will dry out and the composting process will slow down. So keep your pile {and yourself} hydrated!
• By now you’re probably getting anxious to see your compost in action and the magical results of blooming flowers and nutritious vegetables sprouting out of the ground. Well, you’re almost there! Add compost to your garden a few weeks before you plant. Let the compost have a chance to work its way into the soil. Try to mix it in and let it sit before you plant. Fun fact: worms and most bugs are ok and will actually help your compost along the way, no need to waste your time digging these creepy crawlies out of your compost.
• Last but not least, bring on the heat. Hot summer days have now become your best friend. The compost process works best at temperature between 120 – 150 degrees. Composting in the warmer months is easier to do and if this is your first attempt at composting, we recommend you try your first batch in the summer.

Organic material such as food, yard debris and soiled paper are the largest components of our trash, constituting two-thirds of the U.S. municipal solid waste stream. That’s a lot of waste to be sending to landfills when it should become useful and environmentally beneficial compost instead. The more we compost, the less we add to the volume of solid materials in landfills. Using compost to feed our lawns and gardens will reduce our dependency on chemical fertilizers. Soo, we’ll save money and reduce the potential of chemical pollution on our environment. Win and win. Now get your pail and add your scraps; start transforming your organic materials into magic soil… dig away.