Compost: The Starting Point

Beginning with the basics — materials, balance, decomposition, and what a compost system needs to work.

• Compost
• Garden
• Regenerative Agriculture

When I decided I was going to garden (or micro/hobby-farm?) I thought I should start at the beginning: with the soil. I’m sure the soil in my backyard is mediocre at best (though I had seen worms and bugs and grubs), so I figured the best place to start was with a compost pile.

I watched several videos on how best to start a compost pile, what to put in it, what not to put in it, things to watch out for, and so on, but after a while it seemed like it boiled down to a few rules:

1. Only organic material goes on the pile (but no meat and especially no bones that wouldn’t decompose quickly).
2. Don’t overwhelm the pile with “fresh” matter (greens). (It will rot/ferment and smell)
3. Don’t overwhelm the pile with old matter (browns). (Nothing will happen)
4. Don’t let it dry out (the bacteria that compost need moisture)
5. Don’t waterlog it.
6. Mix it regularly.

Initially, my pile was pretty small because I just had coffee grounds and other kitchen scraps to add. I don’t have chickens, cows, or goats to provide additional organic material; and it was winter so I wasn’t cutting the grass yet (another thing I’d learned was that grass clippings were nearly the perfect compostable material).

But once I started mowing the lawn, my pile started growing. And growing. And growing.

At times I thought it would overgrow the chicken-wire enclosure I’d built for it, but then the grass clippings would compact and dry out and (as it turns out) actually compost. It’s now large enough and dense enough that it’s hard to mix and “turn”, but when I do I can tell that the middle is truly composting. It doesn’t matter how hot it is outside; I can still see steam rising from the core. Unfortunately this does mean that the outside probably won’t compost quite as fast as the middle, so this is still a work in progress.

I also have a couple new bins that I will use for next year’s compost pile that should make it easier to turn/mix and mean that I can use the current pile for next year’s plants and eventually work my way to a three-pile setup: one that I’m adding to, one that is composting, and one that is “done” and being used to fertilize the current year’s gardens/crops.

This year, since I didn’t have any “finished” compost, what did I do to plant? I just bought topsoil. Ultimately, you still have to start somewhere and for a small garden a few bags of topsoil is worth it just to get started.