Hi there, I'm Christy Wilhelmi from Gardenerd, and amid all of the
Coronavirus craziness going on I've been getting a lot of questions about
composting so I wanted to address those questions today.
First of all I want to say composting is one of the most important things that
you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. Food waste and the greenhouse
gases that it causes are a huge contributor to climate change, or at
least through co2 emissions. And the more we can bring that down the better. And in
the news lately it has been said that more and more people are throwing food
away. Especially the hoarders who, you know, bought stuff to store up for three
months and then, you know, two weeks later it's gone bad in the fridge. So I'd
rather you compost it than throw it in the garbage. So let's talk about
composting. Composting is a chemical response to mixing browns and greens
together. Browns are things like cardboard paper, paper towels, napkins,
tissues, shredded paper, you know, your junk mail that comes in the mail. As long
as it's not glossy or has metallic inks you can compost that. It's
all yeah, It's also things like cotton or burlap, or you know, things like mulch and
all the...whatever it is around me right here. You know, mulch, dead trees, twigs, etc.
So those those are your brown ingredients. Those are called mature
biomass or carbon ingredients. Your greens, on the other hand, are your
kitchen scraps, anything that's still, you know, alive. Immature biomass, as it is
called, and that's going to be stuff like your you're trimmings from your garden
you know. If I wanted to trim up some of these and put them in the [compost] I could.
Things like high nitrogen ingredients like animal manures, just like chicken
and horse and goat and rabbit manures. No pet [manures] please.
Things like, you know, when you brush your hair and your in your fingernail
clippings. That can all go in the compost pile. So when you put Browns carbon and
nitrogen Green is together and add little bit of water and a little bit of
soil from your garden, magic happens. Microbes start to break things down and
compost happens. That's my favorite thing, my bumper-sticker:
compost happens.
So the thing to know is that the more often you turn your pile the better or
the faster it's going to break down into a compost because when you turn the
pile, you're aerating it. Plus you're exposing new surface area so microbes
find a new place to eat and bacteria and fungi start breaking down that biomass
into something that it can turn into soil over time. A lot of people ask, "Do I
need to have a formal compost bin?" No you don't. You could take a length like an
eight...six to eight foot lengths of...I'd say longer is better, length of a three
foot tall or four foot tall hardware cloth (that's welded wire mesh), make a
cylinder out of it, zip tie it closed and that's a compost pile. You just need to
make sure you cover it if you have critters who like to visit your garden.
Compost bins are most of the time not made for easy turning. They're made with
the lid on the top and the stupid little door on the bottom, which is why I have a
petition to bring back the BioStack which is the best composter ever, and
I'll show you about that in a minute, but compost naturally as it breaks down the
finished compost settles to the bottom of the pile. And so you should
theoretically be able to lift that little door and scoop
out the finished compost but it it doesn't really work that way. Yes it does
slide to the bottom but the best way to harvest compost is to actually turn the
pile, expose the finished compost and then sift that off the bottom. So when
people ask like how should I set up my compost bin, and I do have another video
on this about setting up your compost operation, it's a good idea to have your
compost pile and compost bin and a space next to it so you can move the bin. You
can shimmy the bin off and set it down next to it and then shovel your contents
into it. Because then as you get to the bottom you're going to see finished
compost that looks more like soil and you're going to be able to sift that off
and use it in your garden. Another question people have been asking is what
about worms, "Do I need to buy worms to put in my compost bin?" If your pile is
open on the bottom to soil and sitting on soil microbes and
they're gonna find your bin in a couple of months. So don't worry about it. They
are seeking food to break down. That is what they want, so you don't need to buy
an expensive batch of worms. Of course if you want to you can. Nobody's stopping
you, but make sure you get red wigglers. Those are the kind like to break down
food fastest and they eat about their weight in food per day and
and worms eat a lot of food. So you can add them if you want to but it's not
necessary. I've had another request to show people what compost is supposed to
look like during different stages of breaking down, so we're gonna go over to
my piles and take a look. Okay so this is my compost setup which, again, I have
another video that talks about this a little bit more in depth and want to
show you bin number one. Bin number one has right now...let's get in here see...
mostly a layer of brown on top. So that shredded paper bags and paper pulp pots
and some old root systems and that's gonna be your Brown layer. And you always
want to end in brown because Brown is gonna help keep out the odor and the
critters. So if we peel back that layer of brown...I've got a burlap sack in here too - you
can see food waste. So that's where and that's where the critters are so
eggs and kiwi and chard stems and that kind of stuff. So that's all in there. But
you always want to end in brown so when when you add a layer of green I always
pull back pull back the brown layer, add to the corner and then push the brown
layer back on. And just so you can see an example of other Brown things: I've
got these old pulp pots, I've got this whole container full of cardboard boxes
and newspaper and the like. That's all gonna go in the compost bin at some
point or another. There are also bins of chicken manure
that we've been storing on-site from our hens and some other brown materials,
leaves and shredded stuff that's going to go in there eventually. So
that's what compost looks like in the beginning when you're just starting to
build a pile. After a while we're gonna jump down to bin number three here. This
is what compost that has been sitting for a couple of months looks like. This
bin was in bin number one, the contents of this bin was in bin number one. This
is a lot fuller than the first bin as you can see. So now a lot of this you can
still distinguish pits and twigs and eggshells and that kind of thing. So as
you dig down, yes there's still a lot of material that needs to be broken down
but the contents, you can see it looks a lot more like soil. That's what we're
going for. Want to get as close to soil as possible. And the further down in the bin
the further down the bin you get down to this layer that's where all the finished
most finished compost is going to be. So this compost pile has a little ways to
go before I'm going to use it. I want to show you some finished compost that is
completely ready to use, and that is over here in this bin. It's already been
sifted and ready to harvest. Look at that! This essentially looks like soil and our
our compost comes out kind of sandy. We do a heavier carbon to nitrogen ratio
than some. And this also this pile was made using an active batch thermal
compost technique which you can learn more about in Gardening for Geeks. So but
this you can see, this is finished compost. It has been sifted once and I
will show you my sifter. So you can make your own sifter out of recycled lumber
and this is a gopher basket that has been just left closed the way that it's
sold. And then stapled into a frame there so that you can sift. So once I sift out
the big pieces the big pieces go back into bin number one and the finished
compost goes here in this bin and is ready to
use in the garden. So that's pretty much all you need to know in order to start a
compost pile. Browns, greens, a little water,
well more water than you think, probably, and soil. No you do not need to keep your
compost pile in the sun. In fact, in the shade is better because you don't
want it to dry out. Now if you live in a really wet environment then yes, put it
in the sun. But most of us live in a place where it gets really hot in the
summer and we don't think about watering our compost piles mid-season. So as soon
as the pile dries out the microbes go dormant or they die, so no more
composting process. So it's a good idea to keep it in the shade where you can
keep an eye on it and keep it moist. For more information about growing your own
food and making your own compost visit Gardenerd.com. And consider becoming a
patreon subscriber to support all this free stuff that we do on Gardenerd.
Also check out Gardening for Geeks. That is my book and it has tons of
information that can walk you through the step-by-step process of how to make
compost on your own using two different methods including the active batch
thermal composting method that I talked about in this video.
That's it for this week if you like this video share it with your friends and
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online. Happy gardening.