Piping Hot Lasagna Compost

Hey all - finally got Jason to write us up a post!!! Here's the second part of the series on composting...

As I was wandering up in the hills of coastal California today, I could not help but think about lasagna. I was not thinking of that wonderful Italian American dish that my grandmother used to make with those delicious layers of sauce, pasta, cheese, meat and more cheese. Although, now that I am writing this I am getting hungry. No, I was thinking about part 2 of a 2 part series on compost. If you are an avid follower of our blog (c'mon its ok to admit it) you would know that we previously wrote on the wonders of vermiculture, or worms eating your food waste and turning it into superfood for plants. Today, I will give you a brief outline on building a 'hot' compost pile.

In regards to compost, it is always important to remember everything breaks down eventually. For instance, it takes Mother Earth about 75 years to build up an inch of top soil through good old fashioned natural processes. If you don't have that long, there are ways of speeding it up. Such as creating compost piles. Which brings us back to lasagna.

The concept is that you are creating a compost pile that is based upon alternating layers of carbon and nitrogen. The goal is that you end up with a combined ratio of 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen. It is important to keep in mind that that is the ideal, and not the rule. Compost, can be a very exact science, and require all kinds of subtly. Trust me, I have personally observed that there are all kinds of really thick books on the subject. Just check out the bibliographies of many gardening books. Then go out and build a compost pile, and don't really worry about it too much.

So you might be asking, how do I tell what has carbon and what has nitrogen? Simple, carbon is brown and nitrogen is green. Now granted it really is not that simple, but for our purposes we'll say it is. This is a good way to think about whatever plant matter you might have kicking around your yard. Those grass clippings after you just mowed the lawn are a great source of nitrogen, and the big pile of leaves makes a good source of carbon. Food waste that has not yet broken down makes a good nitrogen source, as well as animal manures (horse, goat, chicken). In fact if you want to make a really good hot pile, and you have a source of manure, it makes a great addition.

So what is a "hot" compost pile and what is a cold pile. Composting is a process of creating an environment for microorganisms to break down organic matter and turn it into humus. A hot pile is when you create your "lasagna" layers all at once which allows the nitrogen to heat up the pile to a temperature high enough to allow the micro-organisms and fungi to multiply and break down their food source, the carbon material, faster and potentially kill any pathogens or weed seeds in the pile. A cold compost pile is just piling up your carbon and nitrogen material as you collect it. This process does not immediately trigger the nitrogen to activate the pile, therefore, the carbon will take longer to breakdown.

How to make a layered hot compost pile:

Take your time and make some soil!

Placement

• Pick a spot in your yard that you don't mind things rotting and perhaps smelling a little (if you make it right and maintain it, it should not smell too bad )
• Think about access to the pile. You will want to get future materials to the pile and the ability to distribute the pile back on your garden after it has become humus
• Access to water. You want to have the ability to water your compost periodically if it dries out.
• Ideally it is on bare ground, which allow earthworms and other critters to come up and eat and contribute to the process.
• If you have a chicken coop, you might want to think about all the wonderful nutrition they could get from feeding off the bugs and worms that live in the pile.

Size

• To create fully functioning 'hot compost' you need to start with a minimum of a cubic yard. 3 feet wide, 3 feet deep and 3 feet high. Or a little under a meter if you are metric minded.

Materials

• If you are making a hot pile, it is recommended that you have a system in which to contain it
• The three bin system is popular and works well. The idea is 3 adjacent boxes, that are 4 cubic feet (or bigger). Pallets work really well for this and you can often get them for free or cheap.
• You can also build a frame and then use chicken wire to contain the compost material.

Making the pile

• Start with a layer of small branches and or brush and twigs. Something that allow air to get under the pile and circulate in. Make sure that your base footprint is 3 square feet.
  
• Then put down your first layer of carbon. Maybe those leaves you raked up last fall. You want your carbon layer to be about 4-12 inches. It depends on whether it will compress with additional weight (ie leaves you might want to go pretty thick).
  
• Add some water. Not too much, but you are going for the consistency of a rung out sponge. If your materials are already wet, then don't add water
• Then you add a layer of nitrogen about 2-3 inches. Grass clippings, wet food waste, manure (dry food waste tends to lose most of its nitrogen).
• Then add another carbon layer
• Then more nitrogen etc.
• Water every layer or every other layer as appropriate
  
• Do this until your pile is a a minimum of 3 feet high
• Top it of with some straw or leaves or something to suppress any smell.
• Add some soil to the top to prevent the nitrogen from escaping.

Turning the pile

• If possible, track the temperature of your pile ( a meat thermometer works well) . You are looking for a temperature of 131-150 degrees. Anything higher means you have too much nitrogen and are losing it as methane gas and killing the beneficial micro-organisms. After three days above 131 degrees, it is beneficial to turn the pile to re-ignite it. You should turn the pile several times a month for the first 2-3 months. Once the temperature cools down to ambient air, then it is time to let the pile sit.
  
• Turning the pile will continue the process that you have started. Using a pitchfork you want to move the pile to the adjacent bin. Because the middle of the pile is the hottest, it is important to activate the entire pile so turn the material from the outer edges into the middle of the new pile and the hotter material to the edges. If you need to add more nitrogen sources it is good to layer them in.
• Turning will aerate the pile and restart the microbial activity

When is it done?

• Composting is a very variable enterprise. It can take from 1-6 months or longer
• You know that you are done when you have a rich dark brown humus instead of a bunch of identifiable rotting parts.
• It's a good idea to put it through a sifter before using in soil.
• Keep it covered if it is raining so valuable nutrients don't leach out and the pile does not become saturated and stop the composting process.
  

A few notes

• If you have manure, it's better to put it in the middle layers or towards the top
• Keep your pile moist, but not soaked. You are trying to create an ideal climate for microorganisms. Like plants, too much water and they drown and too little and they die of thirst
• If you are putting weeds in your pile, make sure that they have not gone to seed. If they have, you may get your pile hot enough to kill them off, but you might not.
• A great time to build your pile is after harvesting in the fall. You will have plenty of great nitrogen (from the freshly pulled plants) and it will have the winter to break down.
  

So get out there and start composting!

Hot to Rot

We are very excited this week to have received our first request for advice - we feel we are moving up in the world (nice that we don't really take ourselves that seriously). First off, we'd like to thank you for reading, and second, we'd like to thank Anna from Chicago for writing in about a particularly rotten topic - compost:

"I'm a regular reader of your blog, living in an extremely suburban suburb of Chicago. We do have a backyard and our own little garden, but what we REALLY want to do is start composting. I've been looking at a lot of commercial composting systems (mostly on Gaiam.com) but there has to be a cheaper way... right? One that won't have the neighbors smelling what we had for dinner last night?"

So...we have decided to answer this question with a two part series on small-space composting. First, let us say that our commitment to recycling and sustainability lead us away from commercially made products in general, and we feel that one can create a satisfactory composting system (or systems) using reclaimed materials. We are not saying that commercial composting systems are bad - just that we prefer not to use them.

The first rule of compost is that everything breaks down eventually (including that computer you are on, but we don't recommend composting that), but that the practice of using a compost system is a means of speeding up the process. What is the process you ask? The verb of composting is that microorganisms, bacteria, fungus, worms, and other various critters consume organic matter, breaking it down into simpler components. These components comprise the elements in soil (phosphorus, nitrogen, potassium and more) that plants need in addition to sunlight and water to survive and thrive.

So it would follow logically that if you engage in backyard gardening, that a great low-cost way to get nutrients for your plants is through composting. Today we are going to highlight one way to compost that takes up a small amount of space and works relatively quickly - worm composting (vermiculture - no pun intended).

You can engage in worm composting indoors or out, large scale or small. What it takes to get started are the following materials:

- A container (minimum 4 cubic feet). It can made out of just about anything, but needs an outlet in the bottom to drain liquid. In the past we've used a bathtub for an outdoor worm farm, but an old sink would work, or just a plastic bin with holes punched in it.
- Means to prop the container up off the ground or surface on which it is placed. This needs to be high enough to place the third element, a smaller container into which any liquid can drain.
- Newspaper or office paper. This should line the bottom of the container in a 'fluffy' way either through shredding or crumpling to a depth of 1-2". Once you have this in place, moisten it with water.
- WORMS!!! There is debate about what worms you need. Know that before you go digging up your backyard for nightcrawlers that you should probably do some research about what kinds of worms work best for your situation and climate. We recommend red wiggler worms because they are able to withstand the heat generated by the microbial activity in compost. Jason got his worms online through Uncle Jim's Worm Farm. The worms came in the mail ready to go! You can also check bait and tackle places for red wigglers. You don't need a lot of worms to start - they will reproduce to the size of the container you get.
- Put the worms in the container and start adding kitchen scraps, grass clippings etc. (no meat) Over time pay attention to what the worms do or do not eat and adjust what you add accordingly.

As you add food to the container, put it in one end and push what is already there down towards the other. This allow the worms to eat, leave castings, and move out toward the new food so that you can scoop out what is left and apply to your plants. It helps to tilt the container downward in the direction of the drain. What drains out is called 'worm pee' or 'compost tea' and also can be applied to plants for nutrients. Worm castings (what is left after the worms are eating) are higher in nutrients than other compost, so this a great way to generate high nutrient compost with a small amount of space.

Some people put their worm farms under their sinks. Others in garages, and still others outdoors. Our suggestion is to try out different ways of doing it to see what works best for you. If you put the worm farm in a place where there is light be sure to cover it. This will also cut down on any smell you might deal with. Check your worms to see that the material is moist but not saturated. If you find you are getting a very smelly worm farm it means you are putting in food faster than the worms can eat it, or you are giving them too much water. In this case back off on water and consider either starting a second composting system or expanding the worms to fit your needs.

Once you have it going, have fun. Use the castings, get rid of kitchen waste, and name your worms.

Next posting: bin systems and other small-scale composting.

FYI: We LOVE the book, Let it Rot, by Stu Campbell.

Mo Mo Sheet Mulch

Our sheet mulch posting has thus far been the most visited on the blog (we are small but mighty at this point, and celebrate any page that gets more than 10 hits!) so...we decided to do a follow-up on the project with some great pics so you could see what we were up to.

We started with the frames that Jason built out of reclaimed lumber from the Benton Habitat for Humanity Store. The frames are 8'x3' and made mostly out of sections of 1"x6". We chose that size so that a) we could stand off of the beds and reach across them, and b) so we could fit them nicely into our humble backyard with room to spare for the large black raspberry bush (pictured here), and for the dog to have a play space.


You can see in the above picture that we dug into the ground in the farthest bed. This was part of the experiment that led us to choosing to sheet mulch. Once Jason got into the soil we discovered that it was too high in clay content to till and use as is. That is what led Jason to research ways to improve the soil...and voila! We discovered the sheet mulch concept. In some ways it ended up being a much better way to get going - digging up the sodden ground in the yard was the very definition of back-breaking.

Instead I spent some quality time chopping down the grass inside of each frame, first going at it with scissors, but finding my hands much more effective. Next we broke down old cardboard boxes and laid them on top of the grass clippings like so. Make sure if you are doing so that the paper and boxes are wet.


Next came the really fun part. I don't think had anyone asked Jason or I five years ago if we thought we'd ever haul around goat poop that we would have said yes. However, there we were in the Pacific Northwest drizzle team-carrying Tupperware totes filled with partially composted goat manure, straw, and sawdust.


Sheet mulching is composting in place, so it is necessary to alternate layers of green matter (for nitrogen) and brown matter (for carbon) in order to start the microorganism frenzy leading to decomposition. It is important to note that all dead, organic matter will break down eventually. Organizing compost in this way simply serves to accelerate the process.


After spreading poop came the straw cover and a layer of topsoil made of mostly-composted fir trees - a great way to take advantage of the byproducts of the local lumber industry.


Finally we capped the beds with a layer of leaves. It is important to have a layer that is free of seeds and will block sunlight from the other layers to hamper weed growth.


In the end we created 96 square feet of raised-bed garden in about 2 hours. We are now rooting for the rainy season to help accelerate the decomposition while we prepare our starts indoors.

Sheet Mulch

So its time for us to actually start that whole gardening thing. We spent some time talking, dreaming, scheming about it about 2 weeks ago, and now we are finally getting it to action.

We decided to put in 4 framed beds out back - each is 8'x3' and made out of reclaimed lumber we got from the Benton Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Jason worked this week getting the frames built, and we are going to spend some time this weekend turning the ground and starting to get things ready for seeds.

Upon digging into the yard (thanks to our landlady who is OK with this!) we found that the soil is mostly clay. This is great when we are talking about making plasters or cob, but for gardening it worried us a bit, hence the framed beds so we can import some other materials without having to till up the whole yard.

We looked into ways to get ahold of good soil. This included all kinds of ideas from going to the woods and getting some to purchasing it at a local store. We decided hauling soil seemed pretty energy inefficient and labor intensive, and discovered the route of buying soil would put us out over $200 minimum (ouch). So Jason got on the horn and started researching other options.

What he landed on was sheet mulching. This was an idea he'd originally had, but rejected because he did not think it was feasible for immediate planting. Sheet mulching is an incredible soil-building technique, especially if you have 6 months to let it break down. Fortunately, Jason pursued this idea deeply enough to discover that it is possible to plant almost immediately if one takes certain steps.

Lets take a moment and talk about what sheet mulching actually is. It is rooted in the concept that tilling is actually not beneficial for sustainable gardening (or agriculture for that matter) in that it will initially promote plant growth, but in the long run leeches nutrients out of the soil and leaves in barren (anybody remember the dust bowl?). It is essentially composting in place. To do this we are going to:

• Trim the grass short, leaving it in place.
• Covering the grass with newspaper and cardboard to prevent grass growth.
• Layering on top of the paper and cardboard from the bottom up, these four layers: partially composted goat manure and straw from a local farm, completed compost from the local municipality, straw, and dead leaves.

The net result is a striated combination of materials that will break down into fluffy, humus-rich, healthy soil. This process would have been best started back in October of last year. Of course last October Jason was living in a tent at an earth-building worksite, and I was watching football and drinking beer in Flagstaff. So, we are starting a bit behind, but developing a plan for being able move forward nonetheless.

While Jason builds his 5-layer dip of poop and other organic material in the backyard, I have been saving old containers to get our starts going. The plan is to get the sheet mulch up and decomposing while the plants get rolling indoors. Stay tuned for an article on starting plants as well as updates on the backyard beds. We are slated to get our plants into the ground on April 15, thus turning tax day into happy-gardening-fun-plant-dirt-day.

We must certainly give a nod to Toby Hemenway, author of "Gaia's Garden" for inspiration, ideas, plans, and instruction.