Compost

I make compost all year round from kitchen waste, grass clippings and any other plants/cuttings that stand still long enough but there are two problems: some weed seeds manage to sneak into the pile; and adding a little every week means that the compost decomposes slowly. But, in the fall, you get large amounts of material at once as you harvest crops and plants start to die back and then you can make a big, hot compost pile which decomposes faster and cooks all those weed seeds so you don't spread weeds as you spread compost.

A couple of days ago, our neighbor Basil cut down his runner beans and dropped the remains over the fence for me. There must have been 10-15 cubic feet of stalks and leaves in the pile so I moved the existing compost pile aside and rebuilt the pile alternating layers of fresh material, cardboard and old compost and then watered the pile. The old compost is there to act as a starter but why the cardboard? It seems that decomposition needs a mix of nitrogen (fresh green stuff) and carbon (woody stalks, dead leaves and cardboard). Once it gets nice and wet, the cardboard also provides bedding material for worms and gives them somewhere to flee to if the compost gets too hot for comfort. The worms, of course, come from the old compost which was absolutely crawling with them (as well as beetles, bacteria and other soil-friendly organisms) and will do a great job of breaking down all the fresh material.

A few days later, I have added an insulating layer of fresh grass clippings (which worms don't really like - c'est la vie) and some more top layers of cardboard and the compost is getting quite warm to the touch. I'm hoping that it will get hot enough to cook any seeds that snuck into the compost. Those worms had better dive into the bedding layer in case they cook too!

We do have one wee problem with the compost though - it's been attracting fruit flies which have then flown into the house and are driving us nuts. I guess they must be attracted by the kitchen waste (did we suddenly start eating/tossing more fruit in the last month??) so I'm trying to find a way to keep the flies away from the compost in future. Top of the list is switching to vermicomposting (worm-powered composting) for kitchen waste. I already have lots of worms in the compost so what's different about vermicomposting? It turns out not much: I have to add a lot more bedding material and I need to bury fresh kitchen waste under bedding material (which I'm hoping will keep the fruit flies out). Most important though is I have to pay some attention to the worm's diet. It seems they like to be fed every day or two (so the food doesn't mould before they can eat it), they don't like acidic food, citrus peel, garlic or onions (which Edye doesn't eat either) and they don't like grass clippings (so I'll keep kitchen waste in a separate pile from garden waste). A bit more hassle than normal compost but all the reports I've read say they produce beautiful rich compost that improves soil structure, encourages earthworms to pull material down deep into the soil and fertilizes the plants.