A Post on Compost

I have a problem: every time I'm in a public restroom and I see an empty roll of toilet paper, I'm tempted to pocket the cardboard cylinder to add it to my compost pile. I no longer just see trash - I see carbon or nitrogen. A 2:1 balance of carbon material (brown leaves, paper, stale bread, straw and wood shavings) and nitrogen material (fruit rinds, vegetable scraps, dead flowers, coffee grounds and tea bags) is essential to a successful compost heap. I've realized how difficult it is to get my hands on abundant sources of carbon in the city. I don't have enough fallen leaves in my yard nor do I waste enough bread to rely on those sources of carbon to feed the microbes in the compost. I'm also reluctant to use pages from newspapers with colored inks - just don't trust it. So I've taken to begging neighbors for their discarded phonebooks (when was the last time you used one?) - being careful not to use the colored pages, of course.

I've actually got two compost bins: a tumbling one and a stationary earth machine. Tumbling bins turn your waste into rich soil far more quickly than stationary heaps (about 1 month rather than 3 months plus). Even though my Suncast tumbler is turning out copious quantities of earthy gold, I've got a few bones to pick with the manufacturers. I nearly sent a letter of complaint after struggling to put the dern thing together - yeah, I'm a contractor and I had trouble assembling this highly unwieldy apparatus. I had to read and reread the instructions and wield some fairly uncommon tools. The contraption also has a rather unfriendly latching lid which requires too much torque for my wife's tiny wrists. So if you're looking to avoid garden work or at least share the load with family members who can't bench press 200 pounds, this device may not be your best bet. I must say though, that the Suncast tumbler gets the job done in a jiffy and is an excellent choice for the apartment dweller since it needn't sit upon dirt.


So I've vented and now I'll just gush. I'm like a pig in poo - checking on the creatures who spend their entire lifespan in this bin. I've never seen so many fruit flies! It's completely fascinating to feel the heat coming off of the pile, which is supposed to be caused by the oxidation of carbon materials - but I'm not really quite sure what all of that means. I do know that my compost will be a nice addition to my clay soil for many reasons though: it's a soil conditioner, a fertilizer and a natural pesticide. I know compost piles are never perfect and I'm constantly adding a little more of this or that, leaving the lid off so that heat can escape... rubbing a rabbit's foot and standing on my head... Though composting has been around since the Romans threw their first toga parties, this is a fun experiment that's only just begun for me. As soon as I get the hang of this whole thing I think I'll try my hand at making my own compost tea. Perhaps I can coerce my daughter, the tea lover, into taking on that challenge - wishful thinking. Here's a picture of her with her fingers in the puddin'.