Mucky thoughts (Composting in general)

Member Name: Diaz

Product:	Composting in general
Date:	22/05/01 (89 review reads)
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Advantages: Free compost, environmentally friendly

Disadvantages: Hard work, Can be smelly

I have distant memories of a particularly vile compost heap at my primary school, we were forever being told off for jumping around in it. I think the game went something like this, take a smaller child and throw them in the heap and kick compost all over them until they cried, Ah happy days……

These days of course I try and avoid putting small children in compost heaps (unless they really annoy me). Why am I writing an op about a smelly heap of rotting vegetation?? Good question, this kind of thing is close to my heart I suppose I fancy myself as an environmentally friendly kind of person (which doesn’t mean I don’t use deodorant)

The reason composting is important is that it diverts waste from landfill which is a rapidly diminishing commodity in our tiny island. This is why the government is so keen on helping out, that and an EU directive telling them they have to reduce the amount of waste to landfill by 25%. Which is approximately the amount of compostable waste in your bin. (Check your council, chances are they have a special discount available for buying composter bins) The other reason is that it can be used as a pretty good fertilizer and soil conditioner, which if you have a garden is a good thing isn’t it??

How does this miracle of nature work then??
Naturally occurring bacteria and fungi, small invertebrates (like earthworms and millipedes) break down vegetable waste and pretty much anything else for that matter the process from fresh waste to soil can takes anywhere between a few weeks and a few months depending on the type of waste and the weather conditions.

Given the right conditions the natural process of decay is speeded up. Bacteria and fungi feed and multiply, giving off a great deal of heat, temperatures can reach as high as 60 o C in the center of a well managed heap. When the temperature drops, the creepy crawlies move in and complete the process of decomposition. T
he kind of creepies you can expect are millipedes, springtails, slugs, mites, earthworms, spiders and centipedes. Quite a diverse little ecosystem.

Here’s the science……Decomposition can occur in two ways either

Anaerobic; without oxygen. This can be quite slow and gives off unpleasant gases including methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

Aerobic; with oxygen, This can be quite rapid and can cause the heap to become quite hot. Aerobic decomposition does not usually produce unpleasant odours.

I imagine most people would consider the aerobic composter to be the ideal situation and this is what requires the work, to maintain an aerobic heap it must

Be kept well drained

Have an equal mix “greens” (kitchen waste and fresh garden waste and “browns” (fallen leaves and shredded paper)

Be turned regularly

An indicator that your heap has gone anaerobic is a nasty niff. If you have plastic composters make sure they have holes in them to allow airflow through the heap, another way of introducing air is to put worms in the heap, they dig around leaving tunnels for the air to get in.

Something you should bear in mind, which as a youngster I clearly didn’t, is that compost heaps can host pathogens (disease causing bacteria and viruses) and in some cases can cause allergic reactions. So basic hygiene should be observed.

Composters can be bought from your usual garden centers, but I found knocking together a couple of old pallets into a box worked pretty well for me, you can pick them up from tips or factories usually for nothing. Alternatively just put the heap on the ground, nature isn’t generally fussy.
Here are some simple methods for effective composting

1. The layering method, this is slow and cool
Add a mixture of materials alternating 10 cm layers of waste with layers of soil, keep moist and the compost should be
ready in three to six months. You can speed up the process by occasional turning.

2. The ‘all in together” method, this is fast and hot
Store enough kitchen and garden waste to make a heap of about square yard. Put it in a bin, turn it several times a week. It will generate a lot of heat and the compost should be ready in three to six weeks.

3. The compost worm method fairly fast and cool

Build up the heap like the layering method, but add composting worms (see my op about wormeries, shameless plug). About couple of thousand worms should do the trick. Keep the heap moist, but not too wet. The nice thing about this is the worms should turn the heap for you cutting down on your work. The heap should be ready in about three months.
Adding worms to the fast heap wont work so well as worms don’t survive at temperatures above 30oC

What you can add to a compost heap
Vegetable and fruit scraps, fallen leaves, tea leaves, coffee grounds, vacuum cleaner dust, soft stems, dead flowers, used vegetable cooking oil, egg shells, old newspapers, lawn clippings, sawdust from untreated timber and wood ash

What you can’t add to a compost heap
Meat and dairy products, diseased plants, metals, plastic, glass, fat, magazines, large branches, weeds that have seeds or underground stems, bread or cake (may attract mice), bones, animal manures (especially the droppings of cats and dogs), Sawdust from treated timber.

With a little bit of time and work you can divert a large amount of your waste and turn it into something useful. I’m not sure I should admit this but I find digging around my compost heap strangely satisfying, maybe I should put it down to childhood experiences……

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