Compost and Morality

Compost is still on my mind.  Our pile is finally heating up, even without the addition of manure.  I’ve not had time to pursue the manure yet, and we don’t have animals appropriate to the manure/compost scenario, although the dogs certainly poop enough.  

But the reason that compost is still on my mind is because I’m reading Michael Pollan’s “Second Nature.”  I had to ILL the book because neither the University or the city library had a copy.  I’m about half-way through the book, reading it mainly when I’m in those spells of downtime–the hour for Em’s ballet lessons on Wednesday nights, waiting for food in restaurants, those minutes between picking up one child from school and the next.

Pollan has a chapter on compost, and I’d not thought about the philosophical nature of the humus until I’d read his thoughts.  I instantly knew where he was going with the chapter, and I agreed–Americans do imbibe a moral element to compost and composting.  Those who do are “better” than those who don’t.  Composting allows us to feel noble, as if we are achieving a moral perfection by collecting all our scraps and bits of refuse and recycling them into something whole and perfect.  We are heroic, perhaps even God-like in our ability to turn debris into gardening gold.  I’m not sure if I feel righteous for trying to compost more and better.  I’m doing better about throwing my kitchen scraps in the pile, although I shoved the egg shells left over from a chocolate pie I made tonight into the disposal.  I was in a hurry trying to get supper finished before the football game got too far along.  I hadn’t felt guilty about that until just now.  While I completely understand what Pollan is arguing, I’m not sure I fit into the level of righteousness about my pile that he describes.  I see it more as a means to an end–at least for now.   

Then again, I do like the idea of my composting.  Maybe I should check out Pollan’s theories by dropping the word “compost” into sentences.  Like tomorrow in the office when folks say, “what did you do this weekend?”  I can respond, “I planted three fruit trees, built three raised beds, and worked on my COMPOST pile.”  

Wow.  I do feel righteous.  How good am I?  LOL.  I mean, the beds are ok–you can see a picture of them here.  We made one to test out my pattern and then knocked two more together.  They are essentially a box without a top or bottom.  I did add metal straps to the corners to help hold everything together.  I put weed cloth on the bottoms because the beds are sitting directly on our bermuda lawn.  I’ve tried killing out bermuda in the past to make beds and it’s IMPOSSIBLE so I’m trying this approach to see how it works.  The beds are about 18″ deep, plenty deep to grow what I want to grow in them.  My only concern is how fast they will dry out.  I’ve filled them with some dirt we got from a neighbor, but it is very heavy and clay-like.  My plan is to add some of my compost (yea!) and some peat moss (maybe some manure) and stir all that together.  I hope that will help to retain moisture. Otherwise, they may be water hogs, but we’ll see.  I’ll probably put the cold frame in one of them next week and plant from lettuce and radishes, just to test things out before the summer planting begins in April.  

Raised Beds in the backyard

Compost Bin

Our compost pile had grown completely out of control, and we could no longer turn or work it.  We had initially created it by bending stiff wire netting into a 3 foot circle, held in place with rebar.  But we generated a huge amount of garden waste one summer so my husband decided to more than double the bin’s circumference.  That was fine at first, although from the start it was impossible to actually reach across and get to the middle.  But we kept piling more into the circular bin and soon we couldn’t even turn the pile at the edges.  Enough was enough!  Not only was the thing becoming an eye sore, but the materials weren’t breaking down as they should, and I wasn’t getting any good soil from the pile.  

So we’ve started over and managed to get the entire pile into a three-bin system.  It’s not what I want, especially considering that the bins are suppose to hold compost in varying states of decay and ours is in a single state–brown but still intact.  But the materials are bound together better, and I think that we can turn the stuff.  Plus, we didn’t pay a dime for the new bins.  I had my brother drop off some old pallets from where he works, and we reused the wire from the original bin for the front “gate.”  The pallets were heavy and the wood old, which made it difficult to set screws, but we took turns working the drill and got the job done.  

Recycled compost bin

Now I need to find some materials to add to the piles to get them cooking.  I think I’ll try and get some manure from someone I know who has horses but in the meantime, I’ll be more vigilant with getting my green kitchen waste buried into the piles and keeping them moist.  

I’ve been reading a lot about composting lately because I feel like my “dump-it-in and see what happens” approach has not been working (ok, I know it’s not working–at this rate, I’ll be dead before I get rich earth!).  I need good soil to add to some raised beds I have planned for the spring, and I’m afraid that my materials are not going to decompose in time.  Some good books that include the topic are Malcolm Beck’s The Garden-Ville Method:  Lessons in Nature and Barbara Damrosch Garden Primer.  There are good composting blogs, too.  Checkout the Compost Bin and the Beardsley Farm blog.  Beardsley Farm collects compost from a variety of places around Knoxville.  I love this idea!  Once I’ve got a farm, I’m going to grow our composting to include this kind of large-scale gathering.

But for now, I’m happy that we are into a manageable system that I can keep turned.  I’ll keep folks updated on how the heating-up of the pile goes and if you have thoughts or ideas, let me know!