I have to confess that I don't really like rules, or, more accurately I don't really
trust rules. Although rules can be important and useful, far too often they are a simplistic
responses to a complex contexts, or a one size fits all solution, or the reasons that
they are developed are lost in transmission. For these reasons I think that rules are quite
interesting, as they can reveal quite a bit about the cultural norms, the fears, the expectations,
and the context within which they were developed and disseminated. I have found that there
is a lot of this in the diverse realm of advice about gardening and growing, and my favourite
example is the set of rules about composting.
There is a common set of advice and guidelines out there that is so ubiquitous, and so repetitive,
they have essentially formed a culturally entrenched rule book on composting. These
rules can be divided into three rough groups based on the issues they are trying to deal
with. First, don't add meats, fish, oils, cooked foods, baked goods, bones, or dairy
products as they may attract rats and flies and produce unpleasant smells. Second, Add
an appropriate mix of 'greens' and ‘browns’, a balance between high nitrogen and high carbon
material, to ensure that the compost does not get too wet and smelly on the one hand
or decompose far too slowly on the other. Third, Don't add pernicious weeds, diseased
plants or plants that have gone to seed, in order to avoid spreading weeds and disease
to other parts of your garden.
I understand that these guidelines are there to help people who are new to composting to
be as successful as they can be. But it seems that success is not really about producing
the highest quality compost, or about capturing the greatest amount of fertility. For the
most part, success seems to be simply that people will continue to compost, or in other
words, that the rules are there to help people avoid things that might stop them composting.
But the rules can be problematic, as following them means a lot of potentially valuable material
needs to be disposed of in other ways. I have also met people who don't compost because
they feel that it is too complicated. Others have argued with me that cooked food and meats
will only spoil the compost because they don't decompose appropriately. Other people seem
hesitant to use the resultant compost on their gardens out of concern of spreading weeds
and disease, because they didn’t follow the rules.
Since starting the RED Garden Project I have been producing and composting a lot of organic
matter. When a few neighbours started to ask if they could add some of their kitchen and
garden wastes to my compost pile, I began to realise that there was the possibility
of collecting a lot of additional fertility by developing a community composting facility.
But I wanted to keep things really simple and easy. So I started an experiment which
I call the ‘No-Rules’ compost, with the aim of seeing what would happen if most of
the conventions were ignored. To find out which of these rules were important to follow,
if any.
I made a conscious decision to be open to the possibility of failure, so that I could
then figure out the simplest and easiest way to fix or work around the issue. Basically,
whenever somebody asked me if something could be added to the compost bin, I said yes.
Meat, bones, cooked foods, animal carcasses, oils, cardboard, newspapers, rotting food,
coffee grounds, spent grain from home brewing, bedding from the hen coop, leaves, garden
clippings, and grass cuttings all went in. Plus all of the material from the gardens
including the roots of pernicious weed, plants that had gone to seed, diseased plants, and
of course all the scraps from our own kitchen. Everything went in, whenever it was available.
When asked what could be added, I responded 'anything that was recently alive’. I figured
this was the simplest answer and was really the only guideline I started with, so perhaps
this is a one-rule composting system.
This experiment has been very successful. 3 years and 25 batches later, I am still using
the same system, with a few small modifications. Between 15 to 20 households use this composting
facility, plus the local hostel and occasionally big loads of kitchen scraps from restaurants
and cafes are added.
Even with all those people using this facility, there aren’t any signs, instructions, or
rules posted - and complaints are very rare. At the end of the process I get a huge amount
of compost for use on the gardens - about 80 wheelbarrow loads full of fertility each
year, which is a lot.
So, the question is why does it work so well? I think a lot has to do with the size of the
initial composting container, the large quantities and diversity of material that is added, and
the fact I put in the hard work to turn the succession of the batches, generally once
a month.
The initial loading box is 1.2m, or 4 feet, on each side. This is large enough for the
contents to heat up fairly quickly, and to retain that heat. The core temperature generally
reaches above 60º Celsius, or 140º Fahrenheit, which is hot enough to kill off any seeds,
and disease organisms, and to help decompose the material quite quickly. Although there
is a chance that the material on the edges won’t get to this sterilising temperature,
I have not noticed many weeds or seeds surviving the process.
The other reason that it works, is that I regularly cull the rat population. Instead
of trying to build a rat proof composting container, which is virtually impossible,
or by rejecting rat-attracting materials, I have developed the skills and methods to
effectively control the rat population. In the end it’s easier than I thought it would
be, but still a bit brutal.
Another thing that I have done is to start to sieve the compost at the end of the process.
This is generally a good idea anyway, but is a really useful thing to do with so many
people adding material. This means that any non biodegradable items such as plastic, metal
and stones are sifted out. There can be a fair amount of plastic, but since I built
an effective and easy to use sieve, this isn’t really an issue. The sieving also removes
any organic material that hasn’t fully decomposed, such as pieces of wood, bones, tough brassica
stalks, and some biodegradable plastic bags. All of this is separated out and added back
into the first bin to go through the system again.
Most of the time I still say yes whenever anyone asks if a particular material can be
added to the heap, but I have started to segregate large quantities of bulk garden material.
Although this material is fine to add, too much of it fills the bin up too quickly and
reduces the diversity of ingredients. So, large volumes of bulk material is piled in
a separate area, to be added bit by bit to the compost, or to decompose separately.
One of the main issue that I still have to deal with is the fact that the material at
the bottom half of the first bin can become anaerobic - shifting from an oxygen based
decomposition process, to one that is deprived of oxygen. This slows the whole system down
and creates the conditions for generating really bad smells and methane - all of which
I want to avoid.
This could be partially avoided by being more careful about adding layers of higher carbon
material, but essentially I need to turn the compost more frequently. This is a bit of
an issue with the current setup, as I need to turn all the older batches in order to
have space to turn the first batch into. So until I develop a different layout, I need
to more frequently put in the effort, but as a result I should get better quality compost,
in less time, with fewer nasty emissions.
I started this experiment as an attempt to develop the simplest and easiest system for
managing organic material and for attracting lots of fertility for use in the gardens.
I think I have achieved that for the most part.
I am now starting to explore how I can modify this system to improve the quality of the
resulting compost. Turning more frequently and sieving the end result are both part of
that process.
I have started to regularly add layers of soil to the first bin, as I am beginning to
understand how important soil is to the development of better quality compost.
I am also beginning to experiment with regularly adding other amendments to the system, such
as soft rock phosphate and seaweed dust. Gradually adding material that is high in particular
nutrients to the compost is a good general strategy for correcting the deficiencies that
exist in our limestone based soils.
The ultimate aim is to adapt this ’No-Rules’ composting system so that it can generate
lots of really high quality fertility, for use in the gardens, so that I can produce
a lot of really high quality vegetables. If I could reduce the amount of effort I need
to put in to managing the system, that would be good as well.
I plan to talk a bit more about this composting system in a future video, including the time
it takes to manage, the details of the box, and how I build a lid that is easy to open,
but more importantly how I would change the overall design and its details.
I intentionally left out a lot of details and discussion about rats from this existing
video. I am planning a future video in which I will talk more about why rats aren’t really
a problem, how I cull their population, and the context in which it may be useful to even
attract rats to your compost.
I will provide links to those videos in the content below,
but until then, thanks for watching.