Turn, turn, turn: the Composting Cycle

You have a bit of yard, a bit of garden, and what seems like a whole lot of organic matter going in the trash? And you have thought about composting, but the books and web sites seem to imply that successful composting is a mysterious mix of meditation and mountains of the "right kind" of green matter? Well, take heart: it isn't all that hard.

First thing: relax, because composting does take a while. I hate to haul in nature here, but did you ever notice the leisurely way a fallen tree rots back into the ground? You can step over it for years before it finally crumbles away into that soil-enriching stuff we've heard so much about.

Of course, if you grind that tree to sawdust it will swiftly decay, since so much more of it is getting attacked at once by those helpful little munchers and rotters that actually do the composting. Likewise, if you have a home compost pile or bin, chopping and turning the tasty contents will speed the process. However, what's time to a microbe? Do essentially (ah, that weasel word!) nothing, and they will take care of things in their own good time. Anyway, when I finally put compost in my garden beds, the oldest stuff in the batch has been rotting for three years, the youngest for two.

I use a three-batch system: two Smith and Hawkin Biostack composters plus a hole in the ground right behind them. I switch everything around once a year, in late October or early November (sometimes later if I'm lazy), when the garden is just about done. First, I shovel the finished (but slightly funky) compost from the hole out onto the beds, then refill the hole from the BioStack that has been sitting full but unused for a year, and cover the now-heaped hole with a bit of soil or a small leaf bin. Then I shut down the current BioStack and switch to the just-emptied one as the destination for my kitchen and garden matter for the year to come. Four or five months later, when I come back to the garden, the compost I added in the fall is sweet and ready.

That's the system in outline. There are a couple more points I'll discuss later. Watch this space!

(If three-and-a-half years seems like too much lead time for a bit of soil additive, think of it like bonsai: something—once the full cycle gets going—for your children to enjoy.)