Lining the curb with bags of garden refuse on trash day definitely negates any green karma points you’ve earned by growing your own lettuce. Gardening may be “green,” but with regular pruning, deadheading and mowing, it can produce an astonishing amount of waste.
If you aren’t already recycling garden debris into compost, why not celebrate Earth Day this year by doing so? Making your own compost repurposes just about every scrap of organic matter a garden produces. A bin, whether low-tech (cobbled together out of wood scraps) or high-tech (spinning barrels, etc.), is the traditional way to go.
My husband, Randy, built two 3-by-3- foot, side-by-side bins out of a really ugly fence that originally surrounded our backyard. He made walls by piling and nailing together 4-inch cedar fence posts approximately 30 inches high on the sides. The only parts he actually constructed were sliding gates made out of fence boards.
Those bins held up for 23 years, but eventually, the same organisms that decay garden detritus also eat wood. So this past fall, Randy built new boxes from Trex, faux wood made from recycled plastic bags, recycled wood and used pallets. This material should last forever. (We cut up the old bins for firewood.)
Bins are convenient, but because they readily dry out, they aren’t necessarily the best way to compost in our arid climate.
Years ago I experimented with pit composting, where you dig a large hole and simply toss stuff into it. Everything in the pit stays moist, and so it decomposes very quickly. Organisms move in from the soil, creating compost that is teeming with life. The downside is forking the finished product out of a large hole. (Eventually, our pit morphed into a pond.)
Small holes work too. Just cover the material with soil, and then dig a new hole nearby. This method is a great way to amend the soil around established perennial flowers, shrubs and trees.
Trench composting is a variation on the same theme, in which you dig foot-deep trenches alongside paths or meandering through beds and fill them with clippings, trimmings, etc. When they’re full, the finished compost can be covered with mulch and left in place, or removed to use elsewhere in the garden.
Sheet composting is something like large, wide trench composting. Excavate a garden path a foot deep or so (if weeds are a problem, line the path bed with a thick layer of newspapers) and lay material along its length, topping off with organic mulch as you go.
After a year or two, move the garden into the path and start a new walkway to one side. This is as passive as it gets, with no turning needed.
Whatever method you use, material that is chopped up rots faster. Run a lawnmower over fine trimmings and leaves. Randy puts everything through a chipper-shredder, but you can also snap or cut branches into small pieces. Add unsalted kitchen waste, as well (no meat or fat — they attract pests and smell bad).
It’s easy to pick out the composters on the block. We’re the ones who, on trash day, can barely rustle up enough garbage to fill a single can.
