Ongoing Care for Your Compost Pile

Unless you are using a cold composting method, your compost pile is going to need regular care and maintenance.  You need to monitor it for any foul odors, heat generation, and moisture levels.  You will need to rotate or turn the material on a regular basis.  You should know when to stop adding materials and let the process finish.  And the final step is to use a screen to separate any larger materials that did not fully break down.

Turning a large hot compost pile (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If there is a bad smell coming from your compost pile turn the pile over more frequently to increase air circulation.  You should also add more brown food (leaves, straw/hay, or small twigs) and make sure the top layer of your pile is only brown food.

You will learn the trick of adding water to your pile to make it moist without making to wet with some trial and error.  Inevitably you will make the pile too wet at one point during the process.  If you do, try rotating the material to soak up any extra water and if that doesn’t work, add more brown food.

You can purchase a thermometer that is made especially for composting.  You want the pile to retain a certain temperature to work properly (105-140 degrees Fahrenheit) but if it exceeds 155 degrees, it is too hot.

Routine turning of your pile is necessary to add oxygen, cut-down on odors and to aid in the breaking-down process.  You should turn your pile every other day or at a minimum two times per week.

After the heat phase, the compost pile needs some time to cure and finish the decomposing process.  You can add red earthworms at this point to aid in the curing the humus.

Before you use your finished product, you should put the compost through a screen to catch any larger items that did not compost properly or enough. You can add those to your next compost pile to add beneficial organisms and help start the composting process.

Using Coffee Grounds for Organic Gardening

While some people would declare coffee to be the staff of life and will enjoy several cups of their favorite brew throughout the day, there really is more to coffee than just drinking it. It turns out coffee can actually play a part in organic gardening. So not only can you drink it, but you can use the coffee grounds to make your garden soil and plants happy.

Brewed coffee is acidic, but the grounds produced from the brew are not. The brewing process removes the acid and they become neutral and nitrogen-rich. This is good news and lends itself to practical applications in your garden.

Coffee grounds. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Probably the easiest thing to do with your coffee grounds is to add them to your compost pile. They are considered a "green" material just like vegetable peelings and grass clippings. Being rich in nitrogen means they will help heat up your compost and aid in a faster decomposing time. As with any composting, brown materials such as dry leaves should be included in your bin as well.

Another way to use your grounds is to work them well into the soil before you plant your garden. Or consider lightly sprinkling them around your garden before a good watering as if they were a slow-release nitrogen fertilizer.

Consider making a compost tea with the remains. Try grounds and water for a weak mix and let it heat up. Strain it and spray on the plant leaves. You might want to do a test run first to make sure it's not too strong. Otherwise, you can make a full-blown tea with other compost material too and aerate the mixture with a pump and bubblers before straining and spraying it.

Some people like to spread coffee grounds around their acid-loving plants, but since the coffee's acid was depleted in the brewing process, it may not really give extra help to these plants. There are those who swear by it though.

If crawling pests are a problem, try spreading grounds and crushed egg shells around plants in an effort to deter pests such as slugs.

A handful of healthy worms in coffee compost (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Feed the worms, they like coffee too! If you have a worm bin you can feed it to them in small doses mixed in with your other kitchen scraps. If you don't have a worm bin, working them into your compost pile or directly into your soil will benefit the wrigglers who will, in turn, benefit your soil.

You can keep a container in the kitchen for your grounds after you brew your coffee and then dump them all into your compost bin at the end of the week. Alternatively, you can get larger quantities by visiting your local coffee shops and asking for their grounds. Consider making arrangements to pick up their waste on a specific day each week and they'll keep you "grounded".  Do watch your ratio though, as it should not be more than 20-25% of your total compost material.

The next time you have coffee, save the remains for the benefit of your garden. Put them in your compost pile, feed the worms, work into the soil, or use in a tea, and watch your plants thrive!

Video - Hot Composting Step-By-Step

Here is a video with step-by-step instructions for making a hot compost. If you don't have a lot of space, you can use a series of compost bins or tumblers as shown - these are smaller but easier to turn and don't take up as much room - in fact, you could easily fit several of these on a small patio. (Some examples of composting tumblers are shown below the video.)  (Note: If video does not appear below, click the link to view.)

How To Hot Compost
Hot Compost. Composting is nature's way of recycling and hot composting is a method of accelerating the process by regularly digging through, or turning, the decaying matter.


Composting Bins & Tumblers:
   

Cold or Hot Composting?

The heat that is generated from the active breaking down of organic matter into compost is known as hot composting.  There is also cold composting, it doesn’t take as much of a commitment from you to upkeep or manage but it does take quite a bit longer to yield results.

Image via WikipediaHot (or active) composting uses microbes to breakdown the matter.  Some experts will recommend you inoculate the compost with live organisms purchased from a gardening supply store in order to get the process started.  While others will recommend adding in healthy top soil as it also contains live organisms that will convert your organic matter into compost material.  Either way, once the process is started your compost pile will generate heat.  You should tend or check on your pile every second day to ensure good air circulation is maintained and that the right level of moisture is kept.

If you do not have the desire or time to maintain a regular compost bin, starting a cold compost (or slow compost) may suit you better.  In a cold compost, you are only using your yard waste and grass clippings instead of a combination of Image via Wikipediaoutdoor material with your kitchen scraps.  All that is required of you is to pile your leaves and grass clippings into a pile and wait.  The process is slow and long – it will not yield usable compost for up to one year.  Be careful not to put in any weeds or other undesirable plants, as there is no heat they will survive the composting process and can grow again when you use the finished material.

If you generate quite a bit of yard waste and it is too much to include in your regular compost bin consider using both methods - you will have some compost that is ready sooner, and some building that you can use next year.