Your Garden's Best Friend

The compost pile

 

It's hard to imagine having a greater ally in the world of vegetable gardening than a compost pile. For those of us who enjoy watching nature work, composting is hard to beat. Not only can we get rid of all sorts of yard/barn/garden waste, the final product is nothing short of nature's perfect fertilizer for your garden. The pile in this picture is one I built this weekend as a hot compost, meaning the pile was built all at one time in order to "cook" to perfection. Using this method a mixture of greens (think fresh grass clippings, vegetable scraps, etc.) and browns (think dried manure, leaves, wheat straw, etc) is required. Forget about getting exact with your "ingredients." Use what's available. This pile is from materials I got from a friend who has cattle. I shoveled a mixture of cow manure and straw, probably 70% straw, mixed it all together, dampened it all as I went, and within hours had a hot, steaming pile. This will only take a few weeks to complete the hot composting process, stirring it every 3 or 4 days. I like to work and I need the exercise! Use whatever materials you have. Access to a farm is not necessary! My favorite hot compost mixture is fresh grass clippings with chopped leaves. In other words, find some grass to cut where leaves have fallen in it. When piled and moistened, you're well on your way. Much more on this later.

 

 

9/29 Update:

 

After baking for about a week, I turned this hot pile for the first time. Someone commented the above picture had a "face" in it! Compost ghost, maybe? But I digress... pile still looks about the same after first stirring but it's very hot and shrinking slightly.