For Immediate Release:

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

How to make the best live compost ever!

If you have been following my column here, you would have noticed that I talk a lot about composting about the topsoil and how crucial it is. Many of you make your compost, and many will buy. So today I will speak to you about how to make the best live compost ever.
The first thing depends on where you live if you live on a farm or in the city.
Living on a farm, of course, makes it really easier to make compost. Living in a city environment means there are rules to follow since each city has different rules about making compost. Here in Malibu since it is more country, you can make compost in your backyard provided you use compost bins and not make compost via piles. You can, of course, make compost via piles if you own enough land and have animals.
So to make compost using bins or piles is determined by how much land you have available. Homeowners without much land who want to use compost can either make using bins or merely buy compost made locally. It is a good idea to know what the person is making his or her compost from and what is being added.
If you have the land, then I would make compost using piles. The main reason one would make compost from piles beside needing lots of compost is simple. The compost pile is better suited to produce the required heat required to 1. remove all pathogens, parasites and 2. destroy any weeds.
The temperature of the pile must reach 140 – 160° F; that way you will be above the minimum range of parasites and below the temperature that affects the good bacteria.
Eggs of parasites, cysts, and flies can survive in compost piles for many days when the temperature in the interior of the pile is around 135° F or lower. The whole pile should, therefore, be exposed to a temperature of at least 150 to 160° F for at least a week to make sure these are destroyed. Too high temptress will kill all the beneficial microbial life.
If the pile is too big it can become too hot (170°-200° F.) for beneficial bacterial activity. When the pile is decomposing, the temperature falls during turning, but will return to above the previous levels due to more oxygen but will return to its average temperature within the next 24 hours or so. Bigger piles cause more evenly spread higher temperatures distribution, and more material is exposed to the high temperature at any one time. The size of the pile is essential in providing proper high temperatures, and this is the main problem I have with compost bins which are too small to allow proper temperatures.
The carbon-nitrogen ratio
The decomposition of organic matter is affected by the presence of a proper carbon to nitrogen. The C:N ratio tells us how much carbon and how much nitrogen is available to be used by the microbial life.
Micro-Organisms decompose organic matter using carbon as a source of energy and nitrogen for building cell structure. I explained many times, how carbon is taken out of the soil, out of the air and stored in the ground.
Micro-organisms in the soil and the compost pile need more carbon than nitrogen. Too much carbon is terrible and decomposition slows when the nitrogen is used up, and the micro-organisms die. The amount of carbon is always reduced while the nitrogen is recycled. Decomposition takes longer if the C:N ratio is above 30.
Robbing
In the soil, using organic matter with too much carbon creates problems for plants. The nitrogen cycle and decomposition require microbial cells to use any available soil nitrogen to use any available carbon. This is known as “robbing” the soil of nitrogen, and will then reduce the availability of nitrogen to the plants.
When carbon, is less than that needed by micro-organisms in the compost pile for converting available nitrogen into protein, these micro-organisms will make use of any available carbon and will release any excess nitrogen as ammonia. This release into to the atmosphere produces a loss of nitrogen from the compost pile and is not good.
A C:N ratio of 20-30, is best to reduce the danger of robbing the compost pile of nitrogen.
Ok, enough the high tech stuff now for some basics.
You should make compost starting with what you have available to you in your environment. Start with any animal manures you have (no cat or dog poop). You will then need anything that is brown. Try leaves. Then anything that is green. Try grass clippings. The brown is your carbon source, and the green is your nitrogen source. The manure is your source for everything else. You will need to add rock dust. I would buy several different sources to make sure you have all the trace minerals covered. I would also add various sources of microbial organisms. There are many on the market.
You will need to decide how you are going to make it if using a bin or a pile is for you. I would like to say that if you must use a bin, that I would buy the compost from a local that is making it correctly using the pile system. Many folks are not really making compost when they use the small bins since the temperatures are not hot enough.
Learning how much of what to add is a growing experience and will take many attempts before you get it right. Try to control the amount of water you add since it only needs a small amount and too much water is dangerous.
Feel free to email e with any specific questions, and I will answer in the following column.
 
Any questions?
please leave below in comments
andy Lopez
Invisible Gardener
andylopez@invisiblegardener.com