Organic gardeners consider compost to be black gold, the ingredient above all for healthy soil and healthy soil means healthy plants. It is fairly simple to acquire the materials for a good sized backyard composting system, but what if you are preparing a new, large garden in poor to nominal soil? In such cases a layer of compost 3"" thick is desired and in some cases 4".
Consider a 25 foot by 50 foot garden plot. A 3" layer of compost can be considered one quarter foot and 25 times 50 times one quarter gives us a volume of 312.5cubic feet or 11.57 cubic yards of compost. Call it 12 for simplicity. Assuming we lose a third of the volume of compost material in its manufacture as carbon dioxide gas and moisture are released, that means we need 18 cubic yards of compost material or a pile 3 feet by 3 feet 54 feet long. Perhaps we would like to compost half the plot the first year and green manure the rest. Still we need 9 yards of compost material, half in green and half in brown matter.
Starting in the fall of the year before, begin to collect brown matter. The easiest to find is leaves in most areas. You may have a few oaks or maples and all those leaves are great. In fact, any leaves you rake up are good. Some may avoid walnut leaves because of the juglone in them which inhibits plant growth, but a hot compost pile should take care of that.
Your neighbors will likely help you in your quest for leaves. Just drive around on the evening before garbage pick up for compostable materials and you will likely see lots of bags of leaves waiting for you. Any of them on the curb are fair game. Leave them in the bags and stack them for the winter. They will start to break down for leaf mold. In fact, you can do yourself a favor and get lots extra to make leaf mold for the garden.
The next spring start to do the same thing on collection day for compostables by looking for bags of grass clippings. People actually gather clippings, some in bags on the mowers, and throw them away. This is lawn fertilizer at its best but these same folks will apply commercial fertilizers at a high cost after the work of collecting all those clippings for you. Ignore the strange looks and grab the bags. Try to avoid any from lawns that have applied chemical weed killers in the last couple of weeks but you should have seen the required warning signs on the lawns around you.
Build the pile by matching the number of bags. Lay down so many bags of leaves and put the same number of grass bags over them. Then repeat the layers until you run out of material. It should be three feet wide and high by as long as you can get. Immediately turn the pile, mixing it well. This is a lot of work but it will be worth it in the end. Turn every three to four days for two or three weeks. The pile should be finished and ready to use by then. Next year you will need a lot less and likely the home supply for compost material will be enough.
Darrell Feltmate is an avid gardener who has been composting and gardening for over 25 years with gardens up to 1/2 acre and compost piles for each. His composting site may be found at Compost Central. You can be a master composter in no time at all.
Much of his compost uses wood shavings from his wood turning hobby. The site for wood turning may be found at Around the Woods.
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