How to Make Your Own Compost

Compost is probably our most misunderstood and underutilized resource. More often than not, people react scornfully to the idea of it, and consider it the province of impossible rustics. Yet it remains the best solution to two of our most enduring problems: waste disposal and economical food production. I've been pleased to see that the White House will now be growing its own vegetables, for the first time since World War 2. And from what I hear, our nation's nurseries are in for one of their busiest years ever, as they cope with the demand generated by the growing popularity of home gardens, a result of upward-spiraling prices for food and fuel.

Composting fits neatly into the category of ideas we like to think we've left behind, yet depend on, even at second-hand. Factory farms like to try to replace natural organic processes with laboratory products provided by Monsanto or Dow Chemical, but in the end all the great minds together can't replace compost--all they can do is try to achieve similar results, then convince us to buy what they make and spread it on our own vegetables.

Partly, it's a problem of misconception. Kitchen scraps and yard trimmings are not waste, they're a valuable resource. As our society urbanized and suburbanized during the 20th century, people lost sight of this fact because they came to depend on store-bought vegetables and prepared meals. But those who have stubbornly continued to garden through good times and bad have never forgotten it.

The first thing to consider when making your own compost heap is where to situate it. It you have a space big enough to plant a garden, you have room for compost. Ten square feet is more than enough room to get a good, productive compost going, and it's also enough room to easily incorporate all the kitchen scraps and yard trimmings an ordinary home can generate. If you have a larger yard with a great quantity of leaves and grass, so much the better, You can have two or more compost heaps going at all times. When I say "going," I mean it quite literally. Compost is a living organism, seething with microbial activity, producing gasses, providing food for earthworms, literally consuming itself and leaving behind a product you would otherwise have to pay good money for.

Wherever you put the compost, it will immediately begin to benefit the surrounding area in your garden by drawing and nurturing the gardener's most indispensable friend, earthworms. They will eat through anything organic, reducing leaves, stems, muck and the lasagna you couldn't finish, and leaving behind a rich, fertile blend of their own castings (the wonderfully nourishing product of their digestion), and the precious nitrogen and cellulose that plants are composed of.

In order to prevent unpleasant odors, you'll want to cover food scraps and rotten fruit, etc., with a layer of straw, leaves, or clippings. These will absorb the odors while keeping the interior of the heap out of the light, so those earthworms and smaller organisms can do their work. As each layer begins to break down, you'll want to blend it in, then add another layer. You'll be amazed at how quickly the bulky goods break down.

It's a very good idea to work the compost on a regular basis. A common spade or pitchfork will work perfectly well to turn the pile over, once a week or once a month, depending on your schedule. It's important for oxygen to come into contact with the rotting material, as this will speed up the decomposition process. Clever marketers have developed a variety or rotating drums with air-supplying PVC pipes and other strategies for ventilation, but they, like those rascals at Monsanto, are only trying to sell you something you don't need to do what you can do just as easily without it.

The best reason to buy one of those contraptions is so you'll have something interesting to show the neighbors when you're having them over for a barbecue in the backyard. I'm not saying they don't work, but if they require manual operation, they're not gong to be much less trouble than attacking your compost with a spade on the same schedule would.

To prepare your compost for the garden, you'll want a heavy wire screen such as can be found in any hardware store. It's usually found in convenient 24 inch widths. Again, you can buy pre-made screens of the same material already bound to a rigid wooden or aluminum frame, but it's really not worth the trouble. Place the compost on the screen, use a shovel or hoe to scrape the material across the screen, and whatever drops through is your finished product. The rest goes back onto the compost to continue the process of decomposition.