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RE: Help!!!! for newbie gardener, and compost pile advice

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

Thanks so much, Frank, for your advice.  So, as I am such a neophyte in
things pertaining to gardening, I need to:
1.  Make or buy some sort of enclosure for a compost pile.
2.  Start putting lawn clippings, other greenery as well as leaves and
vegetable food scraps into this pile.
Questions:
Can I use torn up newspaper in this compost bin in lieu of leaves?
Can I put some peat moss into this mixture to help the composting process?

Thanks so much for all your help, Richard, rfdillon@hal-pc.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Teuton [f*@total.net]
Sent: Friday, October 23, 1998 6:13 AM
To: rfdillon@hal-pc.org; sqft@listbot.com
Subject: Re: Help!!!! for newbie gardener, and compost pile advice


Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

Richard Dillon wrote:

we would like to garden
>on a much greater scale next year, and would like to know how to start a
>compost pile, and the steps involved in setting up a square foot garden

First the compost pile, there are lots of good references: Make Compost in
14 days, a pamphlet by the Rodale folks, will activate your composting
imagination; The Rodale Book of Composting, 1991 is more complete; Let it
Rot by Stu Campbell is a nice read, and the best picture book on composting
is Easy Composting by Jeff Ball and Robert Kourik, an Ortho book (!).(There
is only one sentence that even tries to sell you a fungicide and the rest is
very good indeed.)

In a nutshell, composting involves bring greens and browns together under
moist but not wet conditions where there is air, and letting the microbes
work it down into rich dark humus. Greens are the nitrogen (protein) source
and browns are the carbon (energy) source for your microherd. Typically
greens are wet and browns are dry; examples would be grass clippings and
autumn leaves, which if mixed will almost always get you off to a running
start. I'd recommend two parts leaves to one part grass clippings by volume,
mixed together; Ideally the leaves should be somewhat shredded, and a
rearbagging mower is ideal for this shredding and mixing biz...

Kitchen wastes are also welcome in the compost bin, but need to be balanced
with browns. Shredded leaves are presently available in large quantities;
other options include straw, sawdust, wood chips, and even peat moss, which
absorbs odors and aerates well.

Some sort of container for your compost pile, while not strictly necessary,
may prove convenient. I use big shipping pallets and have a row of 4 foot
composters thirty five feet long along my back fence! But then, I am a
certifiable compostaholic...:-)

To aerate the pile, the tool of choice is a piece of rebar 3-4 feet long.
Make vertical holes in the pile every six inches to a foot, to let air in
and excess heat out, along with the CO2. Your pile will shrink considerably;
this is as normal as death and taxes, so don't be surprised.

After the initial hot phase, you may wish to add compost worms to your pile;
vermicompost is even better than regular compost!

For the Square Foot catechism it is hard to beat Mel's books; one thing to
consider if you wish a larger garden is to elongate your beds; you conserve
wood this way. For example, if you want 160 sq ft of beds, instead of having
16 4x4 beds you could have two 20x4 beds; this also conserves land, by the
way (less lost pathspace).

Good composting and gardening,

Frank Teuton


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