SOYOUWANNA MAKE A COMPOST PILE?

So you've lived your life according to environmentally responsible principles - you haul your cans and bottles to the curb, you reuse wrapping paper, you recycle your newspapers, and you try to buy products with the least amount of packaging. Proud of yourself, eh? But wipe that smug "greener-than-thou" look on your face and take a gander at your curb on yard waste collection day. Between food scraps, leaves, garden mulch and other organic material in your garbage, you're creating a tremendous amount of waste. Quick! Somebody call Greenpeace!

Have heart. You can help you save environmental face (and help your garden grow) by composting your waste. Yard and kitchen waste account for around 30% of the US waste stream. If everyone composted, landfills would be that much emptier. The world would be a greener place, a happier place, a shining ball of glee! You don't want to be responsible for de-glee-ifying the world, do you?

1. DETERMINE HOW MUCH YOU WANT TO SPEND ON RENT

First of all, what is compost? Short answer: turning your garbage into garden fertilizer. Long answer: it's when you gather your yard mulch (leaves, grass, branches) and kitchen waste (banana peels, leftover scraps) and let the properly decompose instead of throwing all the stuff into a garbage can. Composting not only saves landfill space, but also serves as a great growth stimulant for your lawn or garden. You can make compost by piling it up in a bin in your yard, or by buying an indoor bin and filling it with worms. But we're getting ahead of ourselves; you'll learn all about this in step 2 and step 3.

Like most good things, the more effort you put into composting, the more pleasurable your experience will be. Ultimately, your goal is to create finished compost: a pile of organic material that's so decomposed, it has transformed into something way beyond "a bunch of rotted stuff" and into a useful commodity. If you have a use for that commodity (that is, if you have a vegetable garden, a lawn, or houseplants -- or if you want to get into the compost-supply racket to make some extra cash), you'll definitely want to do it right. However, if your needs are purely to save the environment, you don't have a lot of time, and you don't mind the smell, then you can invest less time into the process.

So before you begin your march down the righteous composting path, you'll need to ask yourself what you want out of it. Here are the main types:

• Cold composting. Some of you out there are probably not interested in maintaining a full-fledged compost pile. In fact, you might just through your coffee grounds and banana peels on your leaf pile and leave it at that. Hey, more power to you. You can spend as much or as little time, energy, and money on your compost pile as you want. Throwing things together in a pile and ignoring them until they rot on their own means that you're engaging in passive cold composting. It's easier than hot composting, but it's also much smellier (hey, it is garbage).
  
  
• Hot composting. Hot composting is when you take control of the process to maximize the potential of your pile -- you'll be able to keep your pile neat and decent-smelling, and come away faster with a finished product. This SYW will teach you how to make a hot compost pile.

Think of composting as controlled rotting. The more you control the process, the less you have to put up with the nasty rotting side effects, like having a pile of smelly rotten stuff in the middle of your yard attracting flies.

2. PICK A NEIGHBORHOOD OR SUBURB

No matter what your approach, you've got to put the stuff somewhere. You have two options: indoor composting or outdoor composting.

You may not have a yard, but don't let that stop you from composting your kitchen scraps. Vermicomposting (that is, using live worms -- yes, worms -- in a little bin to create compost) is actually less work than outdoor composting; there's less mess to deal with, and you get easy-to-care-for pets. Here's how to set up an indoor compost bin:

• Most of the standard composting guidelines apply, except you'll need to have a good place inside to put the bin. A storage closet or kitchen cabinet is fine, as long as the temperature there stays between 40 and 90, with 60 to 70 being optimal.
  
  
• You can use one of those big-lidded plastic storage containers as a compost bin, as long as it's around two square feet big and at least eight inches deep.
  
  
• Punch holes in the bottom for drainage, then elevate it over some sort of tray to catch the leakage.
  
  
• To keep the worms and stuff from falling through the drain holes, cover the bottom with some type of sturdy screen like fiberglass cloth.
  
  
• To properly fill your bin, fill it halfway with worm bedding made from moistened browns like dead leaves or shredded newspaper.
  
  
• As you add kitchen scraps, always make sure there's a good bit more bedding browns than scraps, or it'll get stinky and won't aerate correctly.
  
  
• Now for the worms. You can get brandling worms or red worms (also called "red wigglers") at bait shops and some nurseries (that is, garden nurseries, not baby nurseries). These worms are special types of earthworms that love to eat your kitchen scraps. Earthworms from your yard will not work, so don't try it.
  
  
• To start a bin, buy about two pounds of the squirmy critters and dump them on the top of the bedding.
  
  
• At first, stuff your kitchen scraps underneath the bedding until the bin gets established.
  
  
• After several weeks, you can start just digging a hole and burying the scraps in the activated compost/bedding to keep away smells and flies.
  
  
• Keep the lid of the bin ajar to ventilate but hold in moisture. If it gets too soggy, take the lid off completely. Too dry, wet it down with a spray mister.
  
  
• You don't have to keep a worm bin all stirred up like you do an outdoor bin, but you should stir it around with a plastic spoon on occasion to keep the mulch loosened up.
  
  
• Once the compost is done, you can keep your newfound worm friends by piling everything to one side of the bin and starting some fresh bedding and food scraps on the other side. After a couple weeks, most of the worms will have migrated to the new digs, and you can remove the compost for use.

3. CONSIDER USING A BROKER

If you happen to have a yard, you're probably considering building an outdoor compost pile. Good decision. Here's how to set it up:

• Until you get the procedure down to a science where it's not attracting rodents or smelling up the neighborhood, try a location at least a few feet from your house (and your neighbors' houses), but close enough so you don't have to trudge too far to add to it or maintain it.
  
  
• Since you'll be controlling the moisture of the pile, it'll need to be well-ventilated (meaning, at least two feet from fences, walls, trees, etc.). It also has to be within reach of a hose. If you live in a desert region, put it in the shade if possible, so the sun doesn't bake the stuff into a nice sculpture o' rot that'll take years to decompose. If you're in a rainy climate, you might want to cover the pile so it doesn't get soaked all the time. A too-wet pile won't get enough air to properly compost, and cause the gunk to smell bad.
  
  
• Don't locate it too close to your vegetable garden (if you have one), since you don't want it to be a pest-beacon for your tempting tomato vines.
  
  
• While a literal pile on the ground will do just fine, enclosing it in a bin gives you a heck of a lot more control over its maintenance. So be sure to check your local ordinances for the legality of recycling food scraps. Most urban areas don't allow open composting because of the potential to attract pests, but some areas allow outdoor composting in special containers you can buy at a nursery, hardware store, or online. These bins usually range in price from $60 to $100 depending on their durability and rodent-proofness.
  
  
• Many commercial bins are designed for "ease of use" and provide handy-dandy features like rotating drums, but these are usually too small to allow for hot composting, so make sure you get one that's big enough to make hot compost.
  
  
• For the pile to be able to reach the temperatures it needs while still allowing the center to breathe, the bin should be between three and five feet cubed (that is, three to five feet wide, long, and tall).
  
  
• If the city or county says it's okay and you don't think you'll have a problem with rats, raccoons, or bears, it's easy to build your own bin out of chicken wire, wood, cement blocks, straw bales, or a combination of the above. If you want to cut down on the manual labor of aerating the pile with a pitchfork every few days, chicken wire or hardware cloth is best for the sides.
  
  
• It's a good idea to give the bottom breathing-room too. You can enclose the bottom with wire and elevate the entire bin on bricks or wood, or you can simply lay a groundwork of sticks on the bottom of the pile to allow some airflow.
  
  
• While you're at it, you might want to build a second bin right next to the first. Though it's not absolutely necessary, having a spare bin cuts down labor when you're "turning" the pile (which we'll discuss later).

4. FIND AN APARTMENT YOURSELF USING THESE TECHNIQUES

Now that you've got a place to put your gunk, you're ready to start tossing it in. Here's where it's time to recall that decision you made in step 1: what's your goal again?

Here's the science of it: the compost gods demand a 30-to-1 ratio of "browns" to "greens" for maximum performance. Greens are mostly fresh plant matter or animal by-products that supply nitrogen, protein, and some moisture to get things going. Browns are carbon-rich dry or dead plant materials that add bulk and fluff to the pile so the composting microbes can breathe. As a general rule, just add more dry bulky stuff than fresh or green dense stuff. Most of what you'll put in is plant matter: if it's fresh, it's a green; if it's dead and brown, it's a brown. Here are some examples:

• Greens: Grass and other plant clippings (the fresher the better), coffee grounds, fruit and vegetable parts, eggshells, tea bags, milk, wool, human hair, fresh manure.
  
  
• Browns: Wood, sticks, sawdust, dead leaves, dry straw, shredded newspaper, dead plants, rice, pine needles.

Some biodegradable things seem like they'd make good compost but should not go into your pile, especially if you're going to use your compost in your garden:

• Do not add diseased plants and pernicious weeds, or they could spread through your garden.
  
  
• Charcoal, coal ashes, and treated lumber break down slowly (if at all) and will leach chemicals into your compost.
  
  
• Meat, bones, and cheese might seem like a good idea, but they're extremely slow to decompose and tend to attract critters with their stink.
  
  
• Do not poop or pee on your pile. Yes, yes, we know it's natural, but spare your neighbors the vision. Even feces from cats and dogs are bad, as they can carry diseases and cause all kinds of weirdness to the food you might grow from the compost. So no litter-box dumping.
  
  
• Do not through your boyfriend or girlfriend into the pile as a joking display of love. In some countries, that is grounds enough for him/her to kill you.

The best way to get the proper mix of types of ingredients is to stockpile your garbage separately until you can mix then together in larger portions. For example, when you're mowing the lawn a lot in the summertime, keep a pile of dead leaves, sticks, pine cones, shredded newspaper, or straw handy so you can mix them with the grass clippings as you add it to your pile. Or if you don't think you have enough browns, create some by allowing a couple week's worth of grass clippings to dry out in a pile (turning them into browns) before adding the new fresh clippings to the pile. In autumn, try to save your kitchen wastes in a closed container for a few days, and then add them all at once when you're piling in the leaves.

It's also a good idea to chop or shred as much as you can before piling it in. Run over the leaf pile with a lawn mower. Break sticks into smaller pieces. Chop plant stems and vegetable rinds into one-inch segments so they'll mix better and rot faster.

5. VISIT POTENTIAL APARTMENTS

As you add materials, make sure to spray it down with the hose every few inches. Optimum conditions require the compost pile to be moist, but not wet. Periodically after the pile is assembled, dig into it a few inches and stick your hand in (if this part grosses you out too bad, maybe composting isn't for you). If it feels moist to the touch, but not so wet that it would drip if you squeezed it, it's perfect. If it's too dry, spray the hose on it and then mix it up with a pitchfork or shovel to evenly distribute the wetness. If it's too wet, stir it around some to aerate. If it's really wet, throw in some dry browns to help absorb the moisture as you stir. Also make sure it's not located in a hole or depression where water tends to collect. This is all pretty much common sense on keeping it moist but not soggy.

It can take anywhere from six weeks to two years to produce healthy compost, depending on the materials you use and how much attention you give your pile. What will happen in a pile that's actively composting is that the center of the mass will heat up. This is a result of all those millions of little microbes munching away at your materials. But you don't want just the inside to get warm; you want the entire pile to decompose. For the love of God, what can you do?!

Answer: "turn" your pile. Mix your pile up so that the outside stuff is on the inside, the top is on the bottom, and everything is mixed up as thoroughly as possible. Here are some ways to turn your compost:

• Dig the materials out into separate piles, and then throw it all back together mixed up.
  
  
• If you built the spare bin mentioned in Step 2, you can simply shovel from the full bin to the empty one. Your bottom stuff will naturally end up on top (funny how that works).

While your turning your pile, it's a good idea to moisten it as well, spraying every six inches or so with the hose to maintain the right balance. If your proportions are correct, your pile is evenly moist and aerated, and your microbes are working at full force, then you can turn the pile a couple times a week and get fast results. If you don't turn it at all, the same healthy pile might take a year to decompose.

If the center of your pile is not getting hot and nothing's happening, it's possible that you need to do some troubleshooting. For instance, your pile might be too small to insulate itself. Or you might be low on greens. (By the way, if you're low on greens, you can sometimes use an activator to boost the process. Activators are nitrogen and protein-rich elements like blood meal, alfalfa meal, fresh manure or fresh grass clippings that speed up the composting. Make sure to mix the stuff in well so that it's dispersed throughout your dormant browns enough to make a difference.)

6. BEFORE YOU SIGN, KNOW YOUR RIGHTS AS A TENANT

After a few weeks (or more) of maintaining your controlled rotting process, you'll start to notice that the pile is shrinking. By the time it's finished, it will be around half the size of the original pile. When it smells earthy and looks more like really dark soil than like all the scraps and stuff you've put into it, you've got yourself some compost. You can now add it to your garden or compostplants as needed.

Compost is as easy-going a phenomenon in its application as it is in its making. No hard and fast rules -- this stuff is magic. It'll help sandy soils retain water and clay soils to drain it. It'll add and distribute nutrients to your plant roots. You can even be a little slack about how you apply the stuff; lay it on top of the existing soil and all those crazy worms and natural occurrences like rain and erosion will work it down to the roots. Here are some tips for how to use compost:

• If you're planting a new growth, then go ahead and mix the compost right into the soil so it can work immediately. The best ratio is about 1/3 or 1/4 compost to soil.
  
  
• For trees, spread an inch-thick blanket one foot from the trunk to beyond where the branches spread.
  
  
• For lawns, gardens, and other plants, a quarter-inch to a half-inch of compost will do.
  
  
• You can use mostly-finished but not-quite done compost as mulch to hold back erosion, keep in moisture, and keep the soil from baking in the Summer. Put the mulch around the plants but not right up against the stems, as unfinished compost might feed on the green that is your plant. Dosages are two to six inches for trees, a half to three inches for flowers and other outdoor plants, and a half to one inch for gardens.
  
  
• Finished compost can also be made into "compost tea" to act like chicken soup for sick plants or seedlings that need a quick fix of pick-me-up. To make the tea, mix equal parts compost with water and let it settle. The tea will be amber, and the compost dregs at the bottom can be used later as mulch. You can pour the tea directly over the root area of adult plants but water it down a little before you give it to seedlings. Please, just be sure not to drink the tea. (You laugh now, but we've heard stories)

And now when you neighbors tell you that you have a dungheap in your yard, you can merely tell them that you're being environmental. And if they keep bothering you, just sic Greenpeace on their ass.