Too Many “Don’ts”

Pity the beginning gardener who dares to read about how to make compost. (Please dare to read on, in this case, even if you are a beginner.)

Compost, good stuff for your garden

What novice could not be intimidated by the complicated instructions often given, as well as alleged. Or what about the need for exotic or hard-to-find ingredients. When I was a novice, I read too many British gardening books and almost tossed in my pitchfork and gloves in despair trying to find soil for my compost pile. Yes, soil! 

True, soil is almost everywhere. But many of those British “authorities” recommended laying down a one to two inch blanket of soil on top of every foot or so of other ingredients. I planned on making lots of compost. Where could I get all that soil?! Hand dig a pond?

I have since learned that soil is a nice, but not necessary, addition to a compost pile. My compost piles still get soil, but only sprinklings. And not always, except for being what I do with old potting mix and any soil still clinging to roots of pulled weeds and spent vegetables and flowers.

It’s All Good

Instructions that caution against composting diseased plants or plant parts are among those most likely to steer anyone back to using plastic trash bags or kitchen Insinkerators. The same could be said for warnings against composting plants or plant parts harboring insect pests. You might similarly be instructed to keep weeds out of your compost piles. Is any of this possible or desirable?

Unless you regularly douse your property with a slew of insecticides and fungicides, you’re unlikely to find any leaves, stems, fruits, or roots that do not host at least some insect or disease pest. You might find a clean leaf here and there, but nothing in quantity, and surely nothing worth picking through.

Everything (compostable) goes into my composts

And if you follow warnings against using weeds, you miss out on the sweet revenge of reincarnating them from agents that rob plants of nutrients and water, perhaps also light, into compost. A single teaspoon of compost can harbor billions of beneficial microorganisms, release nutrients for plant growth, fluff up sticky soils, and cling to water in sandy soils. 

So I say balderdash to all this talk about keeping pest-ridden plants and weeds out of compost piles. Not because I don’t care about these problems, but because throwing any and all plants into my compost should not — and has not – caused problems.

As I said, everything goes into my compost; here are my daughter’s old jeans

Heat or Time

What spells death to insect, disease, and weed pests in a compost pile is a combination of heat and time. Pile up compostable materials in a big batch, with attention to the mix of ingredients, air, and moisture, and intense heat soon follows. The dial on my long-probed compost thermometer has spun as high as 160 degrees, which is hot enough to do in virtually all pests in short order.

A casually made pile, built gradually over a few weeks, especially this time of year with weather turning cold, will generate little heat. But let any pile of living or once living material sit long enough and it will eventually turn dark brown and crumbly. Along the way, pests will have expired or have been gobbled up by other microorganisms. A  week at 100 degrees could have the same killing effect on some pest as an hour at 140 degrees.

Any “bad guys” in the original ingredients that don’t succumb to the heat or work their way in as a pile cools are put to rest by being outcompeted for nutrients, by natural antibiotics, by parasitism, or by predation by an army of fungi, bacteria, actinomycetes and other beneficial organisms. No need to hire these “good guys” in — that is, purchase them; they show up naturally, as needed. Also, no need to purchase special enzymes or other “compost activators.”

(In my opinion, the most important ingredient in composting isn’t even in the compost. It’s a bin, which could be home made or bought. A bin keeps everything neat, holds in heat and moisture, and deters scavengers.)

You can’t do much better for your garden than to lavish it with compost. And you need plenty of raw materials to make plenty of compost. Don’t waste any compostable materials — including weeds and pest ridden plants — by carting them away to the landfill or burning them.