Homemade compost Recipes

Hello beautiful people! I'm super new to this adventure and I'm glad to be here. I bought land in Evia, Greece and I'm working and learning to build my own agriculture project.

My question though has to do with Composting recipes that you use in cities. I live in Athens and I want to make some compost for my balcony flowers and veggies. So, I'm asking for compost recipes that works for you.

Thanks a lot
Ilias

Welcome Ilias!
I have found in my urban setting that anything less than a square meter of compost (and in some cases, even more) is not enough to get hot and make compost, and I just don't have that space to set aside for a pile, so I'm a big proponent of the bokashi method using buckets.
BUT, that said, it really depends on what you have. I use bokashi because I produce serious amounts of organic matter in my kitchen and urban garden that need to be broken down-- and I also don't have much access to the "browns" used in compost, not many decidious trees where I live. If you only make small amounts of organic waste, it may just be easier to blend it up in a blender and water your plants with it than to try to make compost. What's your setup like?

Thank you for your response, Tereza!

I was also wondering about the volume. In the workshop, we worked with more than a cubic meter of compost. I’ve seen those compost tumblers or barrels (I’m not sure what they’re called) that are around 160 liters, which is much smaller than a cubic meter.

Even though I can bring brown material from the forest, I can’t manage such a large compost bin in the city. So, I might go for the Bokashi method as well. Any advice there? I have a lot of fruit and veggies waste.

Ilias

Hi Ilias,
Welcome to Permies!

There is a saying that you don't want a drill bit, you want a hole. I wonder if this is one of those situations? Must you have compost? Or do you simply want fertility for your plants?

I think of vermicompost. This can be done on a small scale in the city, probably with the scraps you have around the house. It would provide some very fertile worm castings as a result. It is not the same as compost, but provides fertility and biological life... which is why we use compost.

Another thing to look into might be Fermented Microorganism Concentrate (which I believe is part of the Korean Natural Farming realm). Which is another way to produce a lot of fertility in a small space.

Well, Matt, you are right! I want fertility for my plants, as well as try in practice these methods just to see for myself how they work.

I guess I'll check some tutorials on Vermicompost and FMC and try those. I heard that even an expired milk diluted in water does the job too. 10 to 1, water to milk.

You guys respond really fast here! I'm so grateful I found this community!

Ilias

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Ilias,
Welcome to Permies!

There is a saying that you don't want a drill bit, you want a hole. I wonder if this is one of those situations? Must you have compost? Or do you simply want fertility for your plants?

I think of vermicompost. This can be done on a small scale in the city, probably with the scraps you have around the house. It would provide some very fertile worm castings as a result. It is not the same as compost, but provides fertility and biological life... which is why we use compost.

Another thing to look into might be Fermented Microorganism Concentrate (which I believe is part of the Korean Natural Farming realm). Which is another way to produce a lot of fertility in a small space.

I second the suggestion Tereza for Bokashi.

there is also something that you can make that will go a long way to give your plants fertility.

This method is called Compost Tea.To help understand what Compost Tea is I found these threads that you or others might enjoy:

https://permies.com/t/53922/composting/Compost-Tea-easy

https://permies.com/t/138592/composting/Compost-Tea-Nutrient-Cycling-Homesteads

https://permies.com/t/117604/composting/Types-Compost-Teas-Exist-Favorite

I would also like to say that Compost Tea can be made as easy as filling a pitcher with some weeds or vegetable scraps and let it sit overnight or for a few days and then use that water to water your plants.  All the technical stuff in those threads is really not necessary. It is all about what the end goal is.

https://permies.com/t/118581/composting/Easiest-Compost-Tea#960038

I routinely do small scale hot composting of about 0.25 cubic meter with leaves and food scraps. It takes about 10 days when outside temperature is above freezing and the maximum temperature can reach 65 degree Celsius. Here is how and why I do it,

1) gather lots of leaves and shred them, sieve through a 2.5 cm screen. Getting the brown materials to a small particle size is very important. For example, with the dry oak leaves I commonly use, a loose pile of 1 cu meter leaves will pack and stack to half of the volume over time, yet if I run it through the mower and sift, the volume reduces further to 1/6 of the original. For this crumbled leaves, the air filled porosity is still at 60%, a ratio optimal for hot composting. One reason many compost piles won't heat up is there is too much air space.

2) make the nitrogen rich food scrap as fine as possible too. Run through a blender is even better and keep them in a liqidy form in a big tub. Just like turning a potato in to mashed potato, the mass and volumn is the same and the total surface area increases hundreds of times. It can take a while to gather enough food scraps for composting. It is fine when the slurry goes anaerobic temporarily. Add manure, urine, spoiled milk etc if needed.

3) mix 2 part shredded leaves with 1 part water volume wise so that the nitrogen rich slurry is coating the surface of each leaf fragment without excess water dripping, the moisture level will be about 50%. This way, microbes are thriving in the aqueous layer with easy access to food source and oxygen.

4) pile the wet leaves in a mound on the ground. The dome shape has minimal surface area to reduce heat loss. For 1/4 cu meter, the diameter is about 1 meter. Cover the sides with over lapping cardboard. It's critical to provide insulation for retention of heat and moisture.

5) monitor the temperature. Usually after 12 hrs I can feel hot air coming up placing my hand on the top. Due to the small size of shredded leaves, air is drown from the bottom and travel through the pile. Flat and matted leaves will block air flow and create anaerobic pockets. If the initial pile has high C:N ratio, the temperature rise in the next 2 days will be slow and low; if the ratio is too low, it is hot and long lasting, with considerable volumn reduction. If the ratio is optimal (30:1), it will peak at 60 to 65 in the center in the third day and the greyish filaments from actinomycetes are visible. I usually turn the pile at this time point to remix, and it will heat back up, turn the pile from outside to inside when it cools down. The peak temperature goes down with each turning. 10 days later, the pile turns into something dark, soft and earthy smelling.

It can be time consuming at the early stage (about 1.5 hour for me, 1 hour gathering and shredding leaves and 0.5 hour mixing, draining and building the pile ), subsequent turnings are easy and quick taking 5 minutes each. I don't try to calculate C:N ratio carefully but give a rough estimate based on my experience and use the products in different ways: high C:N ratio compost for mulching, low C:N ratio compost ( which turns out denser and sticky microbial biomass) for liquid fertilizer and the best quality one for potted plants.

I have a thread here with photos https://permies.com/t/243075/composting-biochar. He is doing large scale composting but the general principles are the same.

Canadian soil scientist John Paul has many great videos at his YouTube channel Transform

I've never composted in a really urban setting, but in the suburbs I always had room for two piles of cold-moldering kitchen scraps. I just tossed all organic waste onto the pile until it was too big, then started another one. Once the second one was too big, the bottom half of the first one had transformed into wonderful humus. Then I'd start piling waste on that pile and keep repeating. I can totally imagine not having enough space for that.

My dad's partner just tucks her scraps into the mulch in the yard like Ruth Stout did and they disappear. (Where I live, that's asking for critters to come out of the woods and dig up the planting beds and I'd rather they dig around in the compost piles.)

Christopher Weeks wrote:I've never composted in a really urban setting, but in the suburbs I always had room for two piles of cold-moldering kitchen scraps. I just tossed all organic waste onto the pile until it was too big, then started another one. Once the second one was too big, the bottom half of the first one had transformed into wonderful humus. Then I'd start piling waste on that pile and keep repeating. I can totally imagine not having enough space for that.

My dad's partner just tucks her scraps into the mulch in the yard like Ruth Stout did and they disappear. (Where I live, that's asking for critters to come out of the woods and dig up the planting beds and I'd rather they dig around in the compost piles.)

That's for sure the easiest way if you have a yard ... I used to take the screen out of the kitchen sink window so I could toss stuff right through the window.   Bonus ... stuff starts growing from seeds thrown out with the compost.    

The vermiculture is a great idea too for anyone with a lot of green layer stuff and no browns.   I liked what I saw on youtube using just 3 plastic totes with holes in the bottom.  New scraps go in the top tote, worms hang out in the middle and move up whenever they are done eating.   You harvest the casting from the bottom tote and move it to the top, and let the cycle repeat

Another guy does composting by using his lawnmower to grind up leaves, small branches, and even cardboard.   Then he puts it all in a black plastic bag with the green layer stuff.   It heats up from the sun shining on the bag ... not from bacterial activity.   still, its good compost on small scale and works better than those tumblers

Great responses, thank you all. I’ll give it a try as a beginner and let you know what I figure out.

Ilias

Ilias, in case you decide to look at bokashi we've got some great threads here, such as https://permies.com/t/78784/Bokashi-Composting
https://permies.com/t/105926/composting/bokashi-bucket
https://permies.com/t/11246/bokashi
(there are plenty more)

And pleeeeenty of discussion about making the starter yourself, no need to buy it.
https://permies.com/t/210180/composting/Homemade-EM
https://permies.com/t/54482/Homemade-Lactobacillus-Serum

Thanks a lot, Tereza! I’ve already bought a bokashi bucket, so I’ll start with that for now. I’ll explore homemade Lactobacillus more deeply later this year.

Ilias

Tereza Okava wrote:Ilias, in case you decide to look at bokashi we've got some great threads here, such as https://permies.com/t/78784/Bokashi-Composting
https://permies.com/t/105926/composting/bokashi-bucket
https://permies.com/t/11246/bokashi
(there are plenty more)

And pleeeeenty of discussion about making the starter yourself, no need to buy it.
https://permies.com/t/210180/composting/Homemade-EM
https://permies.com/t/54482/Homemade-Lactobacillus-Serum

I am making some potting mix from composted leaves so I took the chance to show the procedures. Here you can see how much volumn is reduced by shredding leaves and the determination of air-filled porosity and density. The number in real compost will be slightly different because the slurry is thicker than water.

Weight of dry shredded leaves with a volumn of 1000ml: 123g
Tare
Weight of water to fill the dry leaves: 760g
Drain the water
Weight of water adhere to the leaf surface: 172g

Taking water density of 1000g/1000ml

Air-filled porosity of dry shredded leaves:
760/1000=76%

Air-filled porosity of loose unshredded leaves given a volumn reduction of 10 fold:
1-24%/10=97.6%

Air-filled porosity of wet leaves (aka, initial compost mix) is
(760-172)/1000= 58.8%

Density of the wet leaves:
(123+172)÷1000= 29.5%

Both numbers are within the optimal range for hot composting. If the density is too high or porosity is too low, bulking agents can be added. I like to use biochar and commercial operation in John Paul's video uses 1" cedar chips. The chips can be sifted and reuse to inoculate new batches.