Why Does Compost Make Good Sense?
Compost improves soil structure and aeration, increases its water holding capacity and adds beneficial microorganisms.
You Need to Compost
by Ron Krupp
Whether you make it at home or purchase compost from a reliable source, it is the key to fertile soil, and good soil is the key to healthy fruits and vegetables. Compost or what I call Black Gold improves soil structure and aeration, increases its water holding capacity and adds beneficial microorganisms. These microbes break down organic matter and convert nutrients into a more available form for plants. Finally, compost infuses the soil with natural antibiotics.
You can use old compost as an inoculator just as you would do with sourdough bread or yogurt. No need to buy those expensive compost starters go over to the compost pile you started last fall or spring. The compost that was piled so high has now shrunken down. The organic material on the top hasn’t broken down too much, but the stuff halfway down and on the bottom is ready to place on your garden. Spread it generously on your fall garden and dig it in lightly. Save some of the older compost that sits at the bottom of the pile. Mix it with peat, vermiculite and or perlite for potting and germinating mixes in the early spring.
Did you know the average American throws away almost four pounds of garbage every day? A third is kitchen waste that could be used in a compost heap. In other words, most people could have bins of compost cooking in their backyards. Moreover, when you can add in leaves, old mulch, animal manure, strips of newspapers, fresh green lawn clippings, weeds, your neighbor’s vegetable wastes, wood ashes from the woodstove and more, there are many potentials for compost to heal the earth.
A compost pile can be started any season of the year. The basics are easy: collect the organic matter, pile it up, and let it rot. All you need to do is to keep the microorganisms in a pile well supplied with the proper proportions of food, air, and water and follow some simple rules described below:
Compost Makes Good Sense – According to many gardeners, composting is easy when you use your sense of sight, smell, touch, and taste.
Use your eyes. Well-ripened compost is a black-brown crumbly material, colored somewhere between chocolate and spice cake.
Use your nose to smell when the sweet compost has completed its cycle. Use your hand to feel the wetness or dryness inside the pile. It should feel like a wet sponge that doesn’t quite drip. If the heap is too hot, you can tell because your hand will burn. In this case, open up the pile and add some hay. It’s good to turn the pile at least once. If you can’t turn it, that’s okay but turning it too much is a waste of time and effort, and it upsets the natural process of decomposition.
Finally, there is the sense of taste. Once I had a friend who liked the taste of well-ripened compost. Hm! He said it was sweet to the palate and he used to taste to tell him when it was time to spread it on the garden — each to his own.
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About the Author
Ron Krupp, teacher, writer, entrepreneur, and community organizer has been farming and gardening in Vermont for more than thirty years. He has a master’s degree in teaching from Antioch University and a master’s degree in agriculture from the University of Vermont. He studied biodynamic gardening and farming at Emerson College, U.K. In the 80’s he edited The Green Mountain Farmer. In the mid 90’s he had a garden column in The Vermont Times and a garden commentary show on Vermont Public Radio. He is a frequent guest for features on the Vermont Public Broadcasting System and does garden and farm commentaries. His book The Woodchuck’s Guide to Gardening is going into its tenth printing revised 2013 with over 20,000 books sold). His second book titled Lifting the Yoke: Local Solutions to America’s Farm and Food Crisis is in its second printing. He is working on a third book titled The Woodchuck Returns to Gardening
