Get That Compost Pile For The New Year

By Annette Codding

   I was in my garden the other day moving compost and had a thought…what if I only had a garden as big as the compost I could produce? Hmmm…that would certainly be easier to take care of. The size of my garden is something that sometimes stresses me. When we first laid out the spot, we had an abundance of material.
   The mushroom farm was still open and you could just drive in and get a load for $25. We had also just done a job where there were hundreds of yards of wood chips that had to be hauled off. There were no fences and no fruit trees and no irrigation. All of that meant that there was nothing to work around. We could just back in and dump a load of material.
   With the building of the site that easy and the material so abundant, the garden size grew to something that could easily feed a few families, if properly cared for. But is that size necessary and who is going to take care of all of that space?
   So as I was moving the finished compost to a spot near the beds, I got to thinking about limited resources. That is exactly what we are working with these days when it comes to building or replenishing our gardens. By the end of January, the mushroom farm will be shut down.
   An interesting side note here, I was there a few weeks ago picking up a load and saw a neighbor who works there. I asked about the reason they are closing. “Not enough workers” he replied. That is crazy that a company is completely shutting down because of a lack of good employees.
   With the mushroom farm shut down, people are going to have to really get serious about creating their own compost to feed their gardens. And I wonder how many spoiled gardeners, like myself, are out there trying to figure out a plan. The good news is that we can easily create compost from waste material that most of us generate every day. Our only limitation will be how much or little effort we want to put into it.
   For all of us who like to grow our own food, we need to start some new habits. How convenient that it happens to be the new year? With every new year, we hear people talking about setting New Year’s resolutions. People come up with things that they want to start doing and pick the first day of the year for when they will start.
   That day has always been a fun day for us, so starting a new habit on that day seems like it would throw a monkey wrench in the “fun” plans. Instead, I would pick the first day back to work. Or even today. Today really is the best time to do anything that we ought to be doing daily. This thing I am about to propose might even be something you already do.
   Let’s talk about collecting trash and making it into some good black gold. It always amazes me how a lot of the stuff that would normally get bagged up and sent off to the landfill can be turned into something that can help produce nutrient-rich food. If we are organic gardening, then we will need to be amending the soil.
   The reason that conventional farmers don’t have to use compost is because they are feeding the plant through man made fertilizers. These fertilizers create an environment where the microbes in the soil cannot live. It’s pretty much just food for dead dirt.
   Instead of dead dirt, we have living soil. And all of those microbes need to eat compost. In organic gardening we aren’t really feeding the plant, we are feeding the microbes and they feed the plants. Microbes also play a big role in creating compost, building soil, water retention, and even our own health. Did you know that we have more microbes living in us than we have cells? Kinda crazy!
   Back to creating compost out of trash. Start by choosing an area out of the way and preferably a little out of sight. Then just start piling all of your kitchen scraps, old mail, old newspapers, paper feed bags, leaves, grass clippings, manure, and weeds. Don’t use coastal hay as it can have a residual chemical that will be bad for your plants.
   The bigger the pile, the faster you will end up with compost. A good mixture of all types of materials will create heat and the microbes that are naturally all over the place will go to work breaking it all down. You can turn it every now and then, and keeping it moist will help the process go faster.
   Composting seems complicated, but it happens in nature all the time. There are a lot of ways we can speed it up and help it along, but that’s for another day. How about just starting to collect all that you can and make it your New Year’s Resolution to not send anything to the landfill that can be put to good use at home. Until next time, enjoy the rest of this year, and have a happy and productive new year!