Composting for dummies

Hi Permies crew,

my partner and I are very new to gardening and especially composting, although, we’re getting out there every week and slowly making gains in our backyard garden.

Just a question re. our existing compost bin, and the bugs and funghi that are in there. We’re wondering if this is a good sign or bad sign.

I’ve attached some photos. The photos titled day 1 are taken with the bin having not been tended to for a week or so - it didn’t smell too great.

I added our kitchen waste, a bunch of newspaper, turned the compost and aired it out.

Photos titled day 2 are the next day with it seemingly much healthier.

You will notice the little pests/ mites/ flea looking things in all the photos. Is anyone able to cast some light on what they are, and what it means that they are there?

Thanks in advance.

From a very confused, beginner composter

It looks good to me, bugs, fungi all those things help break down the compost for you.

Does the bin have any ventilation? If it doesn't you may have problems with it getting to wet and losing oxygen, it will still break down but you will get some bad smells and those lovely worms will die.

I agree, looks nice and healthy!
The little critters are helping to break down your organic matter.
If that's just a trash bin you can drill some holes (finger-diameter) into the bottom and the size, in fact that is exactly what i use to compost my bokashi leavings. You really do need ventilation, and if you're in a dry climate you may need to water it unless you're getting regular moisture in there. And sometimes compost is smelly in the beginning. You're starting with stinky stuff. If you don't have drainage holes, the stuff might have gone anaerobic, but as you mix it around that will sort itself out (as you've found).

You can't expect too much over the space of a day. I find that checking it weekly is good, and I see real change in a 2-week period.

I have extremely limited experience with making compost, but I do watch youtube and read books from people who have been composting longer than I have been alive. So take these couple thoughts with a grain of salt.

If you have enough material, maybe you could make a bigger pile. A bigger pile is easier to get heated up, which will in turn help with faster decomposition, killing weed seeds, killing pathogens, etc. Most places seem to suggest at least a 3' cube will help this process.

Little crawling bugs are good, but if you have any trouble with flies, I would suggest making sure the top is well covered with "brown" materials. I composted a lot of rotten and half-chewed-on tomatoes and did not cover it well. My back yard had vinegar flies ALL OVER from my compost pile (my wife was not happy). In the pile I made this past fall for this coming summer, I leaned more towards the "browns" in order to reduce the chance of smell and flies, even though I believe that will slow down the process a bit. We will see what it looks like in the spring.

Skandi Rogers wrote:It looks good to me, bugs, fungi all those things help break down the compost for you.

Does the bin have any ventilation? If it doesn't you may have problems with it getting to wet and losing oxygen, it will still break down but you will get some bad smells and those lovely worms will die.

Thanks for your responses everyone. I was buoyed by the worms but concerned about the little bugs - Good to hear that they’re a positive sign as well (as long as they can’t fly, right?).

The bin doesn’t have any ventilation.

I think it is too wet - I was adding water thinking that was the right thing to do initially.

I guess I’ll just keep at it, add some ventilation and monitor the smell and moisture.

How often do people tend to their compost? Is it a daily thing to give it a turn or shouldn’t need to once you get the right balance in there?

something to keep in mind

berkley did a big composting study, basically found with "windrow" composting that turning it is a waste of energy as the oxygen levels drop back to 2.5% roughly 10 minutes after turning (2.5% resting oxygen content)

If you make bigger piles, try to make them "lasagna"style,  then  you don't need to turn it ever and can keep stacking layers on top

ryan morris wrote:something to keep in mind

berkley did a big composting study, basically found with "windrow" composting that turning it is a waste of energy as the oxygen levels drop back to 2.5% roughly 10 minutes after turning (2.5% resting oxygen content)

If you make bigger piles, try to make them "lasagna"style,  then  you don't need to turn it ever and can keep stacking layers on top

I would love to read that.  The only knowledge I have from them is the famous "berkley composting method", and the cornerstone of that is that you have to turn it every day.

Different people do it differently.  I can only pass on what I have learned.  I have to turn my compost weekly for it to turn into what I consider really great compost.  I get really excellent compost in about 3 months with weekly turning.  I always add charcoal to my compost now, and in the past I didn't use enough browns.  

As far as little crawlies in your compost, I don't consider mine to be good compost if it doesn't have tons of little creatures in it.

ryan morris wrote:something to keep in mind

berkley did a big composting study, basically found with "windrow" composting that turning it is a waste of energy as the oxygen levels drop back to 2.5% roughly 10 minutes after turning (2.5% resting oxygen content)

If you make bigger piles, try to make them "lasagna"style,  then  you don't need to turn it ever and can keep stacking layers on top

Ryan, when a person uses the "lasagne style" how do they know when it is ready to plant in it?

For those that might be interested in the "Berkley method" here are some threads:

https://permies.com/t/34737/composting/day-Berkley-hot-composting-method

https://permies.com/t/119013/composting/Compost-month

This one might be of interest to some:

https://permies.com/t/39414/composting/watch-Geoff-Lawtons-day-compost

Chris, just to share something I've found in my experience:
there is great compost advice out there, but when you're doing smaller volumes a lot doesn't apply. I've never had success doing less than a cubic meter at a time (I've heard other people say 1,5 or even 2), which is why I work with a barrel system (looks a bit like yours). Take it all with a grain of salt and keep in mind that nature does it all with no help from us. Happy composting!

I have done small volumn hot composting like 1/3 cubic yard or 0.3 m^3. Lots of things need to take into consideration to get it going: composition, insulation, shape of pile, turning schedule, environmental factor etc. I will come up with a separate thread later but here are some pictures.

Hey everyone,
So I think the compost has come along really well.
There are quite a few worms throughout and it smells nice and sweet!

I've attached some photos.

I think it's ready to use (and I want to get it out into the beds), although, is it better to load the bin up with other material now and try and make use of the critters to supercharge the composting process?

We've just been using kitchen waste to date but I've got heaps of plants from the last harvest that I could use to boost the content in the bin.

Another question I have, is can you leave compost too long? Can the critters then start to eat it down if you don't add more fuel to the bin?

Thanks all. Have a fantastic weekend wherever you are in  the world.

Hi Chris,
That looks like some good compost. If you are impatient like me, you can use it before everything is completely decomposed. I use a screen to take out the big stuff, put that big stuff in the next compost pile and use the filtered stuff.

I wouldn't be too worried about leaving the compost for too long. The absolutely worst case is that you leave it exposed to weather for years, nutrients leach deeper into the soil and the microbe population falls back and you have soil left instead of compost.

While reading through it looks like most of the comments prefer hot aerobic composting, does anyone have experience with anaerobic composting? I've seen a few setups that look to harvest the methane produced for biofuel, but I've not yet found any sustainable methods for dealing with the hydrogen sulfide.

get garbage cans, or plastic ones, drill 3 one inch holes in bottom of trash cans.  Load up with 100% greens, put lid on and park in sun.  Easy composting.

Michael, do you totally do nothing by just keep filling the garbage can, or do you stir or roll the can?

All I can tell you is that you will find that you NEVER have enough compost. We're going to try sawdust toilets (when the weather is warm), and go the "humanure" route, although I understand that you have to let it sit for 2 years before you use it. Even with our small flock of chickens, we don't have enough manure/compost for our needs, and I end up having to supplement with the chemical crap. But I plead mine as a case of "our soil is TERRIBLE". No where near enough calcium or magnesium or nitrogen, even with using horse manure. Most of the nitrogen issue is fixed with diluted urine. We don't eat enough eggs to put a bunch of eggshells in the compost, but that's where they go.

We have to use tumblers here, as the weather is too dry for a compost pile. My husband shreds old junk mail (minus the shiny stuff), and we put that in our tumblers as well.

Does anybody here put urine in their compost pile, or do you just use it diluted around plants? I'm not sure about using it on root veggies, but my tomatoes seem to love it direct from the source. I dilute it and put it around leafy greens, but don't use it directly ON them. Although, I put it diluted directly on comfrey plants, and they seemed to love it. I figured, what the heck, we wash everything anyway, so does it matter?

I have a blast composting because it is always an ongoing experiment.  After the "Back to Eden" phenomena is when I really began to pay attention to what the creepy crawlies, aka microbes, are capable of.   They are responsible for and the perpetrators of all manner of goodness, even if you screw it all up.  I remember picking up wood chips at my local tree service yard, and the wood chips were piled high on a paved parking lot.  What was amazing is as I got to the bottom of the pile I began to encounter earth worms.  Go figure, earthworms doing their thing, composting, in wood chips on an asphalt surface.  So then I knew that putting the chips on my poor sandy clay would work wonders just because the creepy crawlies have a way of showing up.  Kind of like Field of Dreams, "Build it and they will come."  So my input is let the organisms do the work for you.  I put the chips down on my sandy clay and went about my business on other things.  When I checked underneath the chips, viola, worms.  If these guys show up then you are on the right track.

Anaerobic is tough.  My sister would do this and I thought she was out of her mind.  Obviously she had information I didn't because I have come to believe this process can produce goodness as well.  For example, my dad would gather loads of black smelly sediment from the irrigation ditch that ran through his farm and dump it in the veggie garden.  This was definitely anaerobic because it was under the water the entire irrigation season, kind of like pond sludge.  What was good about it was all the critters that had come and gone had accumulated in the bottom of the ditch.  Here again is another example of letting nature do all the work.  Of course our labor input was loading and spreading this stuff, but oh well, we were kids and were expected to work and have a share in the SUPER abundant harvests.

Now, my latest is worm towers.  I made pockets in  blue food grade 50 gallon barrels, installed 36" long by 6" in diameter perforated drain pipe in the center of the barrels, drilled drainage holes in the bottom of the barrels, fixed them atop some corrugated tin on top of cinder blocks with a pan underneath the tin to catch the drippings, filled the barrels with wood chips only, dropped a handful of worms down the tube/pipe and began dropping the kitchen scraps, (including bones, gristle, fat, chicken skins, fish skeletons, etc...you know, the stuff everyone says not to put in your compost); we don't eat that much meat, but all the waste and left-overs go to the worm barrels.  The end result:  I collect the worm tea compost in the pans, about 1 gallon a day from each barrel and pour it directly on everything.  Again SUPER abundant results.  Every spring I dump out the totally composted wood chips and add them as a top dressing to the garden.  Reloading the barrels is simple, just follow the routine above.  A couple of pics are attached that include one of the barrels and our resident deer, boing a boing, (because of how he takes off.)
I supply water to the barrels via the drip irrigation system, the crawlies need water, so its kind of like a fire and forget approach to making worm tea.  Also, I have asparagus growing at the base of these barrels so there in never any lack of nutrient for them.  In the barrel pockets I have found that annuals grow best; sun loving on the south facing side of the barrels and shade tolerant on the north side.  Each barrel has 18 - 24 pockets.  I used a 7 1/4" circular saw to cut slits, then a large weed burner propane torch to heat each slit prior to forming the pockets out of the slits with a 2" pvc pipe cut with a sharp angle in order to force the pipe into the slots.  I used 2 pieces of sharpened pvc pipe so one sits in the slot until the plastic on the barrel cools and re-hardens while I am heating up the next slot.  So far so good, it is a lot of initial work but now I am going on 5 years using this method, and guess what?  No turning!  BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME

I am a lazy composter! I throw kitchen and garden scraps in my bin all year long. I just fill it up over and over and let it sit, It gets watered when I water the garden or it rains or snows. I don't turn it. In the spring I sift the smaller stuff out and put back the big stuff and start collecting again. I usually get a wagon full enough to cover 2 of my raised 12x3' beds about 1" deep. It may not be the best way to make compost, but that is an alternative for people like me...                       I have not sifted it yet as the bottom couple of inches is still frozen.

That's some excellent stuff right there. Some good compost

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Chris,
That looks like some good compost. If you are impatient like me, you can use it before everything is completely decomposed. I use a screen to take out the big stuff, put that big stuff in the next compost pile and use the filtered stuff.

I wouldn't be too worried about leaving the compost for too long. The absolutely worst case is that you leave it exposed to weather for years, nutrients leach deeper into the soil and the microbe population falls back and you have soil left instead of compost.

This sort of answers the original posters question about the worms.   If you take an area in the bin that looks mostly broken down and most of the worms have left for the fresher stuff sift and use that and return the larger pieces and worms back to the bin.  There may be some worm eggs in the finished compost which will start them where you use the compost and if you keep the surface covered like with grass clippings then you have a start to the lasagna method.

I try to keep a kitchen scrap bin like that with some sawdust from the chainsaw and worms.   I seems best after decades of experimenting to keep large scale hot composting a separate process.  Much of the confusion of do's and don'ts  come conflating the different methods.  A well operating worm compost can handle many proteins that are warned against putting in compost.  If you observe that some things are not breaking down in the worm compost then try them in the hot compost.  Some things that only partly break down in the hot compos will then be welcomed in the worm compost.  Some climates require keeping the compost damp others keeping it from getting wet.  

If you are really adventurist try gathering slugs in your kitchen scrap bucket on the way to the compost bin.  After they have have had their fill but the bin in the sun to get hot enough to kill them.

Just getting started making compost is a step in the right direction.

Composting for dummies can be what is easiest for each individual. Just start making a pile and adding to it.

A couple of points. One is that sawdust humanure does not need two years of composting--one should suffice. We have a pair of concrete block bins. One is filling each year while the other sits undisturbed, In the spring I clean out the undisturbed one and switch over to dumping in there (covering each deposit (typically four five-gallon buckets) with leaves). I use it only in my orchard and flowerbed--and run out before I finish there, so there's no temptation to use it in the vegetable garden. I should mention that we have a closed bucket in the house for urine, which I dump on all my compost piles in rotation--I usually have about ten, half of them piles of half-rotted logs and branches in the woods. Note that urine is virtually always sterile, no possible pathogen transmission, unlike manure, and also has most of the nitrogen and phosphorous you pass...the humanure, in my system, is therefore mostly for organic matter. So my humanure composts for between one and two years. But my neighbor empties his pit once a year and does use it in his vegetable garden with no ill result.
I have another pair of bins above my main garden. This compost is mostly weeds, and is usually turned twice--into the other bin, then onto the ground to finish, with assistance in turning from my chickens. It takes anywhere from maybe three months to about eight (over the winter). There is another factor--most of these piles incorporate the bedding from the chicken coop, which needs to compost six months...so even if the pile looks ready before that it probably isn't good to use it unless I'm putting it onto a bed in late fall.

You compost is a step in the right direction . If you have no problem with critters coming into your yard and digging , you could also try trench composting . I dig a few holes every month or so and drop in a big pile of kitchen waste and cover  . Give it three or four months and plant a tree on top . I’ve doing that for forty years !Not just fruit and nut trees but trees for timber , firewood and habitat .  My grandad always planted tomatoes like that but he used unwanted fish heads and guts . Four inches of compost on that, then his tomato seedlings . He grew the best tomatoes . He was all for improving the soil , and compost is our starting point

One question to ask as you begin composting is “what do I want to accomplish?”

If you just don’t want to send food waste to the dump, and you don’t have chickens, then the continuous compost method is fine, you use a aerated barrel, or make abin out of 4 pallets on edge and attached in a square, and you just toss food and yard waste in there.  Water it to keep it moist, make sure the texture of materials that go in have enough structure to maintain air space.  You’ve created a wonderful habitat for plants around the perimeter of your “bin”

Maybe you want a superior soil additive/fertilizer/side dressing, then there’s the time for the recipe of green and brown and since I don’t do that one, I don’t know what else, but I have known some people to make incredible stuff!

When I have had a winter’s worth of deep bedding from goats, (1 foot deep straw and goat feces saturated with urine and amniotic fluid which has been compressed by goat feet, covered with ever more clean straw which has all been a wonderful heat source for my does through a very cold winter) and it has been anaerobic, then I have a few objectives.  One is to get the material to aerobic.  Another is for the dense stinking felted sometimes dripping mass to become light and fluffy and sweetly fragrant.   Many pathogens are anaerobic, and anaerobic organisms create toxic substances, so, I want those substances to be metabolized into something else BEFORE I spread it around my property.  That’s the only time I turn the compost.

As in all things permaculture, there is no one right way, and objectives often guide actions 😊

Composting is miraculous!  Enjoy!

Anne Miller wrote:Michael, do you totally do nothing by just keep filling the garbage can, or do you stir or roll the can?

Just try to park in sun, I have plastic ones where lid was blowing away in house, do nothing.  Even uncovered with rain.  They really cook down.  Keep refilling.

Yes I put urine in mine.   and coffee grounds, and rabbit litter, and food scraps, and yard waste.

I tend it...  when I feel like it.  Or when one bin gets full I turn it.   It's open topped pallet build so rain waters it, and it drains freely.  

Turning compost is a great physical vent when something makes you angry or frustrated lol.    

Mine is never really "finished" so to speak,   when I turn one bit into the other,  when I get to the very bottom I stop and screen and use it,  the bottom 1/4 of the pile or so.  I could add one more bin and have more finished compost regularly but this works fine for my small urbanish gardens!    Although, like someone said, you NEVER have too much compost.

I have a lot of brown grass.  In wire cages, Next year may throw green grass into chicken cages.  Or could start emptying compost, but one dog cage for one rooster is hard to move?  maybe 4 people.

A farmer never has enough compost.

Anne Miller wrote:Michael, do you totally do nothing by just keep filling the garbage can, or do you stir or roll the can?

Ha ha do nothing, park everything!

Anne Miller wrote:

ryan morris wrote:something to keep in mind

berkley did a big composting study, basically found with "windrow" composting that turning it is a waste of energy ....

If you make bigger piles, try to make them "lasagna"style,  then  you don't need to turn it ever and can keep stacking layers on top

Ryan, when a person uses the "lasagne style" how do they know when it is ready to plant in it?

....
This one might be of interest to some:

https://permies.com/t/39414/composting/watch-Geoff-Lawtons-day-compost

I didn't see an answer from Ryan, but

I learned about lasagna style from Geoff Lawton's books
and probably I learned about windrows from him or from this site (been doing that for years)

Anyway I grow a shit load of soil (pardon the pun)

I just start growing on it right away: when I weed, I don't shake out the soil from the roots, but rather take that nice healthy weed and soil and plant it in the compost for cover cropping the pile. I just work my way along, and back, like a typewriter. Fill in the bald spots.

It is ready immediately for field peas as well: a competition between me and the mice who gets to the shoots first, but they regrow.

The next year I will plant more peas and any shallow rooted stuff, crop rotating as it ages.

So windrows, on contour hills, and spirals around some trees (the spirals give me more surface area and work like mini hugelkulture -- my Swiss Chard in the north side of such a hump in the bottom, survived the drought with no watering while I was up north for example, growing alongside rose clippings that survived. That was fresh rose clippings compost on top of last year's neighbors cardboard some soil pigeon poo leaves and pine cones and corn growing.

So when is it ready -- usually like right away!

So here's the secret of composting: if you put a lot of organic matter together, you will get good compost. You can put it in a bin or a barrel or just heap it on the ground; you can turn it every few days or never; you can carefully layer the "correct" proportions of Greens and Browns and exclude meat, bones, grease or not worry about that. You can monitor temperature and moisture levels or not worry about that. In all cases, you wind up with good compost. But you get good compost much faster if you have a good balance of Green and Brown, turn frequently, and have adequate but not excessive moisture levels. In that case you may get a hot pile, which has the virtue of killing weed seeds and pathogen spores/cells and pest bug eggs. I rarely achieve that, but I have multiple piles going all the time. I'm surprised at Berkeley saying Don't bother turning, though--I seem to remember a study like 40 years ago, wasn't it Berkeley, where they said if you chop everything small and turn it every three days you can have compost in three weeks? I've never been THAT motivated--and I wonder whether you don't disturb the organisms at work when you turn the pile. It's still worth doing every couple months, because you have nearly finished compost at the bottom, not getting enough oxygen, and overly dry stuff on top. When you turn it you invert it. I also found once when I put compost in a pit that it seemed to work faster in there, particularly over winter--but I haven't ever repeated that. My limitation is not so much getting compost to work faster as getting enough materials for lots of it.  I mentioned above how I handle humanure; I don't have a question about when it's safe to use in the vegetable garden, because a year's worth from 2 people is just enough for the  orchard and flowerbed. That's partly because I use urine separately, as a kickstarter for all my compost piles; I have several in the woods composed mainly of fallen branches. Those are heavy on the carbon. I also still import manure--my only livestock is chickens and their manure helps but there isn't enough of it. And--I rake most of our mile-long lane and chop a lot of the leaves; I now have three wire bins, each three to four feet in diameter, to dump the leaves in. Chopped leaves turn to leafmold in a year--if the leaves are whole it takes two years. Some parts will not be composted, pockets that remain too dry--that goes into a garbage can for more time, or is used as mulch in my flowerbed. Whole leaves are also a good addition to a compost pile but should not be too prevalent as they are high in carbon. Especially as you're gathering them this time of year, so they're doing a lot of their working in winter when it will be very slow. I make maps of my beds, and note additions. It has seemed that beds that get leafmold do even better than those that get compost. In any case, it's another source of organic matter to feed the garden. An objective is to reduce the amount of outside inputs to my homestead, to aim to meet all its needs from within. I don't achieve that, since I do buy some food and I import some manure

Ra Kenworth wrote:I didn't see an answer from Ryan, but ...

I just start growing on it right away: when I weed, I don't shake out the soil from the roots, but rather take that nice healthy weed and soil and plant it in the compost for cover cropping the pile. I just work my way along, and back, like a typewriter. Fill in the bald spots.

It is ready immediately ...

So when is it ready -- usually like right away!

Thank you for the reply.

So now,  as I understand this, the organic matter is just stacked on top of each other and a person can plant anytime they want?

I assume the first layer will start to decompose.

This reminds me a lot of "chop and drop" and adding "mulch" or "wood chips" to the equation.