My new obsession

Compost is my new obsession.

Every time I see organic material on the garbage that isn’t going to be composted, I think about the lost opportunity. This is mostly because of a book recently read called “Let it Rot.”

It is a home composting guide from the 1970s that explains, in plain English, what compost is and how to make it as effectively as possible. More or less, it has become a new philosophy.

Have I caught myself picking up fruit and vegetable peels on the side of the road? Maybe.

Have I been seen lugging huge bags of vegetable skins from the central market to compost piles throughout town? I can neither confirm nor deny said accusations, but I will say that there are very few Jewfro-sporting compostniks in this town.

Do I spend time at the slaughterhouse for the manure and blood meal? I will not answer that question.

For me, the book has changed the way I think about compost. Instead of thinking about it for the end product, I have started to think about the process. And in reality, all you are doing when you make compost is providing the optimal environment for the microorganisms and macroorganisms that break down the food.

So you have to start thinking about what these organisms need to thrive. (This is more or less a summary of the book — or any conversation I have had in the last three weeks)

1. Oxygen — the organisms need to breath. So you need to expose them to oxygen. There is a notion around these parts that the only way to make compose is to dig a hole in the ground, cover the sides with cement, pour organic waste in the hole, and then cover it up.

The material will decompose, but it will stink and take a long time. You got to put the compost above ground so that it can breath (Otherwise, you get anaerobic decomposition, which smells like death)

2. Water — When staring your compost pile, you want to make sure that the entire pile is nice and moist. From then on, you just want to make sure it has the moisture content of a sponge — not wet, not dry.

3. Nutrients — The organism need nutrients. And this is where the organic material comes in. You can just throw your vegetable peels on the pile, and they will decompose, but there are things you can do to improve the organisms’ access to this food.

The solution is to chop your organic matter into smaller pieces, so it is easier for the organisms to access them. Think about a cube. If you have a cube, there are only six sides that the organisms can use to access the organic material. If you cut it in half, there are 12 sides. If you cut those in half again, that makes 24 sides. And so on.

And with this in mind, I gave a workshop to the emloyees in the tree nursery about how we are going to improve the compost-making process in the nursery. We mad this fun little cartoon about the happy microorganism.