DIY - Care For Your Microorganisms

by Clifford Johnson     Department: Earth

(This is the second part of a pair of posts about making compost. The first was here.)

We had some remarkable storms here in Los Angeles in early to middle January, and having had no serious rain prior to that in such a long time, I completely forgot that I had my compost container open to the elements (but not critters  - there's a chicken wire cover on the top). Now, a light rain would be fine every now and again  (some had happened before, in fact), but this was a really serious set of downpours, meaning that my compost would be waterlogged to a high degree.

You might be wondering why this is an issue. Well, if you recall from the extended post I did on composting, I spent a bit of time being careful about not adding too much water to the whole thing. Basically too much water just stops the whole business in its tracks. The composting process stops and you get instead a soggy rotting mass of stuff.

Now, you're probably thinking that a compost heap is a soggy mass of rotting stuff anyway, so what's the difference? That way lies madness, in the compost world. (Ok, I exaggerate - that way lies ...error.) The thing to be clear about when having joined the composting inner circle (clear with yourself and, maybe more importantly, with doubting partners and/or house mates who are wondering what you are doing) is that composting is not just a "rotting" process.

You should think of your compost pile as a living, breathing community of organisms thriving happily on the materials you supply them with, with (as pointed out earlier) different organisms taking over at different stages  of conversion of your organic materials into that healthy complex material called  compost. It has a distinct smell and consistency to it that is very different from a pile of wet rotting leaves. Very different indeed. Now  it might simply be a matter of balance, but whatever is going on in the standard wet-rotting process is not what you want in your compost. The core processes that take place (I suspect during the earlier digestion stages at relatively - and surprisingly - high temperatures  that accompanies it) in composting are not going on much when there is a lot of water, and everything is cold and soggy. Presumably the wrong microorganisms are dominating, the whole process is slower, and presumably the wrong products are being dominantly produced. I think that a major reason has to do with another element that's sort of crucial here - oxygen. Many of our friends (aerobic bacteria, in fact) really do need to breathe oxygen. Water everywhere will stop that, and they simply die off, leaving anaerobic organisms to take hold - they don't produce enough of the really good constituents of compost. (This is why its important to mix the compost up from time to time, and maybe beven poke holes in it with  a long stick or handle of your pitchfork or other tool.)

So, got that? Key point - composting is not just rotting.

So after several days of torrential rain, and another few of inertia to go out and deal with it, I went to  examine the containment device and indeed  found that the upper layers were quite waterlogged. I had to figure out how to fix this. One possibility was to spread it all out and let the sun dry it a bit, but I did not like the idea of this for a number of reasons. In any case, I had a secret weapon, which I recommend to you if you take up composting.

The secret weapon is to have a supply of dry leaves. Leaves or other organic matter, and dry. The point is that I gather and store more leaves than I intend to put on the pile at any given time, storing leaves for future piles, or later introduction into the pile. As the Autumn/Fall came to a close, and there might have been the threat of rain, I'd gather leaves and simply store them in a big garbage bag. Predominantly brown ones (my fig tree produces nice large dry brown ones - it gives them all up since it is deciduous), but some green ones, stored separately (not as dry and absorbent, but good to balance in nitrogen against the browns' carbon - remember that it's all about the balance between these two principal players in the botanical game of life.) So I spread it all out (noting with satisfaction that there was great, sweet-smelling, finished compost in the bottom layers and remixed, putting in more leaves, and taking the opportunity to mix in a lot of the kitchen products that had not been very well mixed in due to the confinement of the container.

The bonus for all this was quite a bit more compost, ultimately!  I had made two  containment devices earlier and had only been using one, but now the remix allowed me to stretch to two.  I can let one fully cook down in preparation for Spring planting, while the other will be the one  I will continue putting kitchen products and other new materials in, and let them get to an intermediate stage before handing off to the other one for finishing.

On a smaller scale, if you don't have the interest or space for two outdoors containers and a large supply of leaves, the principles are the same. Don't let it get too wet - let it breathe. Cover your container (there are some composting containers available commercially if you don't want to construct one - buy one that makes sense to you in the light of the things we've discussed in this and the previous post) against the elements (and the critters), and remember that it is a living, breathing community (stick your hand into the center of it one day, especially in early stages of digestion,  and you should feel that living heat) working with you to produce that rather wonderful stuff that your plants will love you for.

-cvj

Tags: biology, compost, gardening

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