By Bill Bergfeld

Many people who maintain gardens have a large amount of organic waste coming from grass clippings, leaves, and dead plants. Unfortunately, most people waste money and time having these wastes picked up and transported to a landfill. It isn’t just a waste of good compost; it’s a waste of everything that goes into the process of transporting it (the garbage man’s time, the money you pay for the removal, etc).  There is a better alternative.

All this garbage that people are trying to get rid of can be a comparable or sometimes even better supplement for your garden than any fertilizer or chemical. If you properly facilitate the decomposition of all of the garbage, it will alter itself naturally until it is in such a state that it can be nothing but beneficial nutrition for other plants. Therefore you can turn all the stuff you would have normally thrown away into top grade fertilizer for your garden.

Usually compost is maintained in a pile somewhere in your backyard. Usually the thought of a compost heap brings disturbing images to ones mind; heaps of rotten garbage emitting a horrid odor. However, if you maintain it correctly you’ll be able to produce great compost without producing an offensive odor.

When you are choosing a composting, your objective should be horizontal square footage rather than vertical. Having a really deep pile of compost is not a good idea, because generally the deeper sections won’t be exposed to anything that is required for the process to work. It is better to spread it all out over a large area. (One really clever compost area is the roof of a shed, tool shack, or an out building of some sort.  You can spread your compost material over the roof with boards to keep it from falling off, of course. This keeps the pile out of the way, but presents a problem in routine aeration and care.

A compost heap can consist of any organic garbage from your yard, garden or kitchen. This includes leaves, grass, any leftover food that won’t be eaten, or newspaper (no more than a fifth of your pile should consist of newspaper, due to it having a harder time composting with the rest of the materials). Usually if you have a barrel devoted to storing all of these things, it will fill up within several weeks. It is quite easy to obtain compost raw material, the hard part is actually getting it to compost or degrade.

After you have begun to get a large assortment of materials in your compost heap, you should moisten the whole pile. This encourages the process of composting. Also chop every element of the pile into the smallest pieces possible. As the materials start to compress and meld together as they decompose, frequently head outside and aerate the pile. You can use a shovel to mix it all up, or an aeration tool to poke dozens of tiny holes into it. Doing this will increase the oxygen flow to each part of the pile, and oxygen is required for any decomposition to take place.

If maintaining a compost pile sounds like something that would interest you, start considering the different placement options. The hardest part about maintaining a pile is choosing a spot that provides enough square footage without intruding on the rest of your yard or garden. While odor prevention is easy, compost piles just aren’t a pleasant thing to have to look at whenever you go for a walk in your garden.