composting 101

I bought a compost bin, thinking it would be a good idea to make the most of the piles and piles of food scraps we have after cooking each family-of-four meal. I had read a few articles about the difference between hot and cold compost, and how to go about it, but I was surprised to see that the bins were actually bottomless! It seems so obvious now, in hindsight; the moisture needs to drain back out into the earth, and earthworms need to be able to wriggle their way in. 

As Costa mentioned in a weird kids TV show (called DirtGirl), composting is basically an imitation of what goes on in a forest floor. Layers upon layers of organic matter fall to the ground and are decomposed by microbes and worms, and that gets transformed into nutrients for all the plants in the forest to allow them to grow. As with a composting bin, layers upon layers of organic matter are combined together to allow for this decomposition process. However, since this process is "man-made", we need to take care with how this layering happens: brown, carbon-rich organic matter needs to be interspersed with green, nitrogen-rich organic matter, at more or less equal volumes or layer heights. Too much green and the bin will start smelling foul and attract flies; too much brown and -- I'm not sure actually -- I think too much brown is fine, though it might decompose more slowly. 

What's also crucial is that the pile stays moist and airy -- water and air are the other two of the four crucial ingredients to good compost. Making sure there is good moisture in the bin allows the decomposition process to happen. If it's just dried leaves and cardboard in the bin, they'll stay like that for quite a long time. On the other hand, if the organic matter is drenched in water (and becomes anaerobic, i.e., there is no air), things will start to get too funky, in a bad way. To keep the compost pile well aerobic and speed up the process, it's best to give it a regular tossing and turning; but ensuring there's "holey" brown matter (such as corrugated cardboard chunks, shredded paper in heaps rather than laid flat) is also fine. 

Let's see how long this bin takes to fill up, and how long before the compost is ready to use. Exciting! 

[insert pun about compost-Ella]