Finished compost!
The compost heap was one of the first things we added to the yard when we moved into this house two years ago. F built it for me out of leftover pallets from our fireplace wood, and at first, I was so excited about it that I saved every little scrap of vegetable and yard waste I could find for it. But over the course of a year or so, we found that it was too cold in winter to go out and dump scraps on the heap, and that it was too much of a pain to go out and turn every week, so the pile fell into disuse...
...until this year. You see, we were forced to buy compost to enrich the deep beds this year-- it cost about $50 for a cubic yard-and-a-half of the stuff, and that amount still wasn't enough to feed my aspirations. Our soil is pretty nice, but the best garden soil comes from years of good amendment practices and lots of organic matter. So after the beds were filled, I began to despair that there hadn't been enough compost left from that yard-and-a-half to enrich the uppermost layer of soil.
That's when I remembered the compost pile.
On the outside, it looked pretty much the same as the way we'd left it eighteen months earlier-- like a big sunken pile of dried-out grass. But digging deeper, I discovered what gardeners call "black gold"-- beautiful finished compost. With glee, I set the uppermost layers aside and shoveled three inches of homemade compost on the tops of my planted vegetable beds as mulch.
Having rediscovered this lost backyard resource, I've decided that the pile needs to be tended again. So a couple of days ago, I went out and thoroughly turned it. Lawn clippings that F had just added to the pile went to the bottom, covered by a layer of shredded paper. Next came the sod I had cleared in preparation for the garden almost two months ago (which was already decomposing nicely). Then more shredded paper. Then... ugh!
The most disgusting smell to be found outside of a sewer hit my nostrils as I reached the layer beneath the sod. Luckily, I was prepared for this eventuality, but the neighbors must have come home to a nasty surprise when stepping out of their air-conditioned cars-- the center of the compost pile had become an anaerobic mass of slimy, squishy, smelly sludge, and the stink immediately began to waft through the neighborhood.
Dear neighbors: I'm very, very sorry. (But not sorry enough to stop composting) ;-)
Another thing about this layer of the pile: it was full of earthworms! Now, I already knew there were earthworms in the pile-- I rejoiced when I saw them wriggling their way down through the compost mulch into my beds. But they don't belong in the type of fast pile that I'm now trying to build, in which the center heats up to temperatures inhospitable to worms and their ilk. I flipped them into the turned pile along with the sludge and more paper, but they will soon have to find another home.
Finally, beneath the slime, there was more finished compost to be had! I cheerfully stored it for later use by shoveling it into a spare 44-gallon trash can-- the garden's equivalent of a well-stocked pantry larder.
One of the most interesting things I found in the finished compost was what at first appeared to be an intact avocado pit. Just as I was making a mental note not to add any more avocado pits to the pile, I picked it out of the bin with my fingers and the papery outer covering crumbled in my hand, revealing a core made of perfectly smooth, rich compost. Nifty stuff :-)
6 comments:
that is awesome that you remembered the compost pile that was begun before. you're making good use of it now! i'm sure all those nutrients will be much welcomed by your thriving garden occupants.
your poor neighbors! coming home to that smell! but eventually it will waft away, and it is, after all, beneficial to your garden, right?
keep up the good work!
Of course I read about the sludge, wormy part right before lunch the other day...euw.
Neat-o mosquito about the avocado pit compost...
Sorry Otomayim! =(
I am loving the compost pile... just wish I had more stuff to throw on it! Never thought I'd say we aren't producing enough yard waste...
What role does the shredded paper play in the compost cycle? I was just curious.
Sorry for the late reply, R... I haven't got e-mail comments on this blog working yet :-/
The shredded paper is there to make up for all the high-nitrogen stuff I've been putting into the pile... green waste like grass clippings, vegetable trimmings, and so forth. A balanced compost pile is supposed to have a balance of "greens" and "browns" to heat it up and keep it decomposing quickly. Browns tend to be dead plant matter like fallen leaves and twigs. Our garden doesn't produce many browns, so I use shredded newspaper, which works the same way. I suspect I still don't have enough browns... we don't get the paper delivered and I'm not great about picking up even just the Sunday paper once a week (doh)!
Hi. I ran across your blog posting the other day when looking for some information related to avocados. I've had a lifelong interest in compost, and have made it for years in small quantities. While I make no claims of being an expert on it, I thought of a couple of things related to your issues with its smell. It appears you live in an area where there's a lot of rainfall, as the compost at the bottom is very wet. I'd suggest putting a roof of sorts over your composting area, to prevent it from getting excess water from rainfall. If it was my compost pile, I'd raise it so excess water drains out, perhaps by using a raised concrete pad. You could just use pallets, so air gets to the bottom of the pile, but eventually the wood they're made from would decompose. It's the excess water that is causing the excessive odor, and typically this is exacerbated by anaerobic (lacking air) decomposition, which I understand also increases acidity or decreases pH.
The other thing that might be helpful, though it would require a bit of work and equipment, would be to place aeration pipes at the bottom, that would intermittently and automatically pump air into the bottom of the compost pile. You would need a air compressor, tank, and some kind of timing mechanism for this, as well as the necessary piping; the old fashioned way of doing the same thing is to turn the compost frequently, that means to put what's on top on the bottom, and whats on the bottom, on top.
It's nice to see people taking an interest in such things. When I was younger, finding any information about compost or organics was exceedingly difficult, and nurseries and farm supplies would look at me like some kind of leper if I asked for anything organic. This morning, I just called the local farm supply to ask if they had 50lb bags of bone meal, and fully expected the answer to be "No," but was pleasantly surprised to find the answer was in fact, "Yes." Woohoo!
Post a Comment