Connecticut Audubon Society

The Benefits of COMPOSTING
By Judy Harper, Director, Connecticut Audubon Center at Glastonbury

Wouldn’t it be great if, for free, you could have healthier, bountiful yard plants and reduce your trash at the same time? Composting gives you the perfect opportunity to do both. Composting is nature's way of recycling, replenishing soil and creating enriched life out of things that are typically thrown away. It is a great example of the circle of life.

Compost is excellent enhancement for the soil because it acts as a sponge to retain moisture and gives texture to retain oxygen. Composted soil provides major nutrients and trace elements essential to healthy plants while it offers habitat to the composting organisms within the soil that make things happen.

Anything that was once alive is biodegradable. You can compost paper products - shred them for quicker disintegration. Woody materials, such as brush and twigs (shredded), sawdust, shavings, animal bedding, and ashes can be composted. By-products from the cooking activities such as eggshells, fruit and vegetable remains, coffee grounds, and tea bags all enrich compost. Manure from plant-eating animals makes rich compost. Leaves and clippings are great, especially if shredded. (You can run them over with the lawn mower to break them down even further!)

For residential compost piles, some items are not recommended. Fats attract vermin and smell bad, so don't compost meat products, dairy products, peanut butter, or bones. Feces of meat-eating animals can pass along diseases and they smell. Diseased vegetation and weed seeds will contaminate future gardens. Plywood and pressure treated lumber and sawdust contains toxins and is not recommended for compost. In fact, anything that has had pesticides applied to it will kill composting organisms and future plants.

It is important to note that 50% of waste from households is yard and kitchen wastes. You can reduce your trash significantly by composting. A good mix of ingredients makes the best compost. Green materials such as fresh leaves, grass clippings and salad remains contribute nitrogen and should make up about 1/3 of your bulk. Brown materials such as dead leaves and broken up twigs contribute carbon and should make up about 2/3 of your bulk. Due to the fact that many tiny organisms are doing the decomposition, they need water for life. Water and air are essential to the successful process of composting. Lack of air causes the pile to smell and slows the process. (Too much water or thick layers of grass clippings can create anaerobic conditions.)

Connecticut has a mostly acidic soil and plant state, so adding lime to the compost pile will balance the chemistry. If your pile sits on the ground, the decomposer organisms will find it. Otherwise, add soil or finished compost to introduce the organisms. Bacteria starts the decomposing process and are followed later by centipedes, millipedes, beetles and earthworms. These microorganisms require the carbon for energy and the nitrogen for growth and reproduction and, of course, air and water.

Mother Nature's way of composting is to leave it where it drops. There are many techniques for composting that range from the simple, minimal effort to "the compost connoisseur." The more finesse you put into it, the faster the process results in fertile compost.

The simplest approach is to throw your ingredients into a heap as you accumulate them and leave them to decompose (it’s wise to place the compost pile somewhere near your garden so you won't have far to move the materials into the garden soil!). You should start a new compost pile each year. An even easier composting technique is that during the off-season, you can throw materials directly on your garden and then plow them into the soil the following spring. If you dig a trench between rows of garden plants, gradually fill in the trenches with compost material and then cover. (If you like this lazy method, don't add thick layers of grass clippings, for they mat. Grass clippings left on the lawn feed the lawn immediately.)

There are other methods that involve a little more work and planning. Lay some long sticks on the ground to provide air spaces at the bottom. Throw the ingredients in a heap on the sticks with some attention to alternating browns, greens, and other miscellaneous materials. Mix up the pile now and then. A simple bottomless container, such as a tube of chicken wire makes a simple frame for compost. Just fill it with some attention to alternating materials and mixing occasionally.

A more involved method includes building or buying an efficient compost container. While it is important to layer the compost materials thoughtfully, some people check the compost for a balance of nitrogen, carbon, water, and air, and turn the materials regularly. The materials added can be adjusted to create a desired balance the compost recipe. Chipping and shredding everything before it goes into the compost pile is more time consuming but the composition decomposes more quickly.

Remember that compost is not a complete soil. It needs to be mixed with soil whose base is decomposed rocks, which supply the mineral components. Remember, too, that compost continues to decompose. Use it when it is not quite completely uniformly smooth for prime advantage. After awhile, all its goodness leaches out.

Composting is the earth's way to keep itself enriched. We can take advantage of this efficient cycle and benefit from the wonders of nature as we apply our own compost and help create healthier yards and gardens.