Composting is the process of taking organic material and breaking them down into fertilizer. This means instead of throwing your food waste, cardboard, yard waste, or other natural materials into a landfill, you are putting them into a system that will break them down into dirt. Composting allows us to give back to the earth so that we can continue to use her natural resources over and over again to grow the food that we eat every day.
The benefits of composting, especially composting with worms, go way beyond just growing our food. Worm castings also help soil health which is going to be a big problem for future farmers everywhere. To ensure our farmland continues to provide the food that we eat, we are going to have to start changing the way we think about farming. Our soil cannot continue to suffer the way it has these past several decades. Changes are going to have to be made to ensure our soil stays strong and healthy to maintain the amount of food, that we as a community, need to survive.
So you are looking to start making a difference and start composting? Great! There are two ways that you can start composting today. The first one is making a compost pile anywhere outside. This involves making a pile that is roughly 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen. This then helps heat the pile-up and forces the material to eventually break down. I will discuss this in more detail later. The second is composting with worms. When composting with worms, you don’t have to worry about trying to keep your pile at the right mixture of carbon and nitrogen. Worm composting can be a much easier process than having a traditional compost pile. With a worm bin, you just have to make sure that the worms have enough food and water, which means just throwing your food scraps and some yard waste into the bin every now and then, and then letting the worms take care of the rest. Worms help speed the process, of breaking down the material, up, making it so that you can get 100% natural fertilizer much quicker. Let’s start getting into the details.
Household Trash
Let’s say you decide to have a healthy snack and grab yourself a banana. After enjoying your tasty treat, you take the banana peel and throw it into your trashcan. On trash day you take the bag out to the curb and it disappears into the world of landfills and you never have to worry about it again. Right?
Wrong. The United States Environmental Protection Agency says that landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is caused by bacteria breaking down the organic matter in the landfill. Methane is 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide and is linked to many health issues we face today. So how is this different than that same organic matter that’s breaking down in a compost pile?
Just like you, the material in your compost pile needs water and oxygen to survive. There are more microorganisms living in a handful of compost than there are people on this planet. This is what helps give the soil life and also helps plants grow healthy and strong. A landfill does not provide the material that is needed for the organic matter to break down properly like your compost pile or worm bin does.
Compost Pile
Having a compost pile is an easy way to create compost for your garden each year. The first step to having a compost pile is making sure you have the right material. As I said earlier, you need roughly 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen to ensure your compost breaks down efficiently. Does this need to be a perfect ratio every time? No. As long as you are keeping some of each in your bin, and you don’t have a gaseous smell coming from the pile, then you are good.
Carbon comes from brown materials such as dead leaves, cardboard, paper, wood, hay, straw, and sawdust. Nitrogen comes from green materials such as vegetables, fruits, egg shells, grass clippings, manure, coffee grounds, and tea bags. These are just a few examples of each, but you get the idea. When you have a good ratio of each one, this will cause the organic matter to heat up which helps break down the material into compost.
The next step is having a good location to put your compost bin. Keeping your compost bin close to the house will make it so that you are more likely to take your food scraps to the bin instead of throwing them in the trash. You also want to have a setup where you can get a large pile going without the material spreading out. This will help with keeping the material hot and breaking down. What most people will do is take some old pallets and make three walls with the front of the pile open so that you can access it easily. Make sure you also are placing it on the ground instead of on concrete or other kinds of surfaces. This helps allow the bugs and worms to get into the pile and help break down the material even faster.
Once you have the location and material to toss into the bin, you are ready to compost. A couple of things to watch for are the temperature and moisture content. Your compost pile should be kept moist, but not soggy. Think of it as a damp sponge. You want the dirt to feel wet, but if you squeeze and water starts running out then you have too much water in the pile. If your pile isn’t wet at all, then it won’t break down at all. Temperature-wise, you want your compost pile to be anywhere from 135-160 degrees Fahrenheit. This ensures that it is hot enough to break the material down while also allowing the organisms living in your compost pile to survive and help assist in the composting process.
Your next step is to ensure that your compost pile has enough oxygen. The best way to do this is by turning your pile. So grab your pitchfork or shovel and get busy! You can do this in multiple ways. You can fluff the pile a little bit every time you add material to the pile or you can completely turn the pile upside down. The more you can turn your pile the quicker you will get compost.
One thing to be cognizant of when turning your compost pile is the smell. If your compost pile has a bad odor to it, that means there is something wrong. You most likely don’t have the right amount of moisture in the pile or it requires oxygen. This can cause a bad odor which means that the organic material is not breaking down properly, similar to a landfill.
To tell when your compost pile is ready to be moved to the garden, you are looking for three main things. Compost is ready when it has cooled down to normal temperatures, it is a rich brown color, and it looks and smells like dirt. If you are still seeing manure, leaves, or food particles in the pile then it is not ready yet. Depending on how long the compost has been active, how many times you have turned the pile, and what materials you have been putting in it will all play a factor in how long the process takes. If you are seeing the three things I mentioned above then you are ready to move your compost to the garden, or wherever you need some healthy soil.
Composting with Worms
Having a worm bin is a little different than your traditional compost pile. The big things when it comes to a compost pile are your carbon-to-nitrogen ratio and turning the pile once every one to two weeks to allow proper oxygen to get into your bin. This is not the case with a worm bin. Composting worms, red wiggler worms, need the temperature of your bin to be 55-77 degrees Fahrenheit. You also don’t have to turn the worm bin because the worms are doing all the hard work for you. The hundreds, thousands, or even millions of worms, depending on how big your worm bin is, are moving around and helping oxygen get into the bin. This is one reason why we prefer a worm bin over a compost pile.
For the amount of moisture you want in your worm bin, it is essentially the same as a compost pile. You want the dirt moist, but you don’t want it soaking wet or forming puddles in the bottom of the bin. The next thing is you can still take your food scraps or yard waste and add it to the top of your bin. As long as you keep the top of your bin covered, the worms will migrate to the top and break down the food much faster than a normal compost pile would.
There are a few reasons why we prefer composting with worms over having a compost pile.
The first one is that they break down the material faster, which means you get more compost. Add a few worms to your bin and they will immediately start eating and breaking down the food scraps and yard waste. In the right conditions, a worm will eat about half its weight in vegetation each day.
You don’t have the same odor as what you might get with a regular compost pile. The worms break down the matter quickly so that there is less chance of the food rotting. If you do notice a bad smell or the worms are trying to crawl out of the bin, then you have too much food. You want to make sure you give the worms just enough food that they can eat within a few days. Then when they have eaten all of what you originally gave them it’s time to add more to the bin.
A worm bin can be indoors or outdoors. If you are placing your bin outdoors, you want to be sure you are in a location that doesn’t get too cold or too hot. If the worm bin gets too cold during the winter months, the worms could die and you would most likely not have any worm castings for your garden next spring. The same goes for getting too hot during the summer months. There are ways to help keep the bin cooler during the summer or warmer during the winter. Freezing your food scraps and placing them into the bin or keeping the bin under a shade tree are great ways to help keep the worms cool during the summer. For the winter months, you can keep the bin in a shed or just somewhere out of the wind. You can add some sort of insulation to the bin as well. Keep in mind though that worms do not put off body heat similar to what we do. So even in a well-insulated environment, this still might not be enough to keep the worms warm. If you have the luxury of keeping your worms inside, such as in a heated/cooled garage, then the temperature is one less thing you have to worry about.
The last benefit of a traditional compost pile is better compost quality. Worm castings contain the worm’s gut bacteria. These micros have been proven to be very helpful for plant growth. Vermicompost helps make the minerals that plants need to grow, available more quickly. They also help strengthen the plants to prevent common diseases such as pythium aphanidermatum.
Conclusion
No matter which way you want to compost, having a compost pile, having a worm bin, or both (highly recommended) you will be helping create betting farming methods to allow a sustainable food source for generations to come. If you are looking to start your worm bin, check out our page for a wide selection of red wiggler composting worms. We also have vermicompost tea, which is a 100% organic fertilizer that comes from our worm bins here at Hollis Farm LLC. We also have helpful log sheets to help you keep track of other information on your homestead such as egg trackers. You can also show your support by checking out or merchandise available. If you would like to be able to join in on the conversations then feel free to subscribe to our email list! Hope we see you around and happy homesteading!