The Start of Compost

Just because it is winter doesn't mean nothing is happening in the yard.  This fall I saw Dirt! The Movie for the first time.  The movie deserves its own post and maybe I will write a review at some point.  But for now, the topic is something specific that the film motivated me to do.  That something is construction of a compost pile.  I had always planned to do so, but the Dirt! moved it up my priority list a bit.  We try to eat lost of fresh vegetables here and I recognized the true waste of throwing scraps away.

Vegetables and other plant material and paper that gets thrown in American trash every day is valuable for phytonutrients and if properly 'processed' by composting can be an excellent, natural fertilizer.  Throwing away these materials is literally throwing away money when the cost of carting the trash, the loss of potential productivity to household plants, and the substitution of compost for synthetic fertilizer are all considered.

This is the time of year when most people in the Northeast are raking leaves. In suburban areas the leaves get packaged, picked up by garbage trucks, and dumped somewhere.  What a waste!  Think of all the plant nutrition and potential energy being thrown away.  American lawn and leaf habits warrant yet another post, but I will save that also for another time.  For now, I have been letting my leaves around in situ and I am gradually collecting them to fill my composter.

That brings me back to my original purpose.  Sustainability is about satisfying all needs in a way that never eliminates a resource.  I didn't want to eliminate the 'resource' of an aesthetically pleasing yard, nor did I want to eliminate the 'resource' of my wife's patience.  For that reason I chose to buy a self-contained plastic bin that will keep the composting process out of sight of guests.  In addition I purchased a stainless steel container with a carbon filter to keep inside with which to collect our kitchen scraps as they are created.  The container is durable and washable, so we will have it for a long time.  We can fill the container in about a week.

Meanwhile, I have been collecting yard wastes, leaves, and houseplant trimmings from my place of business.  Experts advise a high ration of Carbon to Nitrogen (brown wastes to green wastes) on the order of 20:1 or 30:1. The dried leaves have provided all of the brown waste I need.  Decomposition will be slow in the cold Northeast winter, but I think by spring I will have the beginnings of some beneficial plant fertilizer.

More on the process of compost and troubleshooting will come as the experience comes to fruition in the spring.