Compost for a gardener is like black gold. The richer and more full of life the better.
I compost as much as I can. This means that not only do I end up with a fantastic soil conditioner for my gardens, but I reduce the amount of waste going into landfill.
To maximise the compost production, I try to add everything and anything into the composter that I can.
So not only do all the kitchen food scraps and leftovers go into the compost bin, but so does a lot of household waste too.
Envelopes (with the plastic window torn out), paper bags (like flour and sugar bags), junk mail, coffee grounds, chicken bones, egg cartons, shopping receipts, paper towel, old bills and invoices, tea bags, cardboard (like cereal boxes), used printer paper, vacuum cleaner dust, wooden toothpicks and kebab skewers, spoilt foods (like old cream cheese or yoghurt), cotton balls and buds (but only the ones with non-plastic sticks), corks and toilet paper rolls … these all go into my compost bin.
I also toss in weeds, leaves, some grass clippings, spent potting mix and a bit of horse manure when I have some.
My household waste compost bin is a black bin with no bottom. It just sits on the ground so that worms can come and go beneath.
The best system is to use the aerobic composting process, where you dig and turn over the materials inside each fortnight. This gives all the good bacterial and fungi a chance to do their magic.
But because of its design, it’s a bit too hard to reach into and dig about (and I’m becoming a little lazier in my old age) so I tend to use the anaerobic process of composting. This is where you just continually toss everything in on top and it breaks down slowly without turning.
Then when it’s all full, I put a 5-10cm layer of garden soil (or spent potting mix) over the top and leave it for about six months. I have two of these bins, so then I start the next one while waiting for the first bin to compost down.
After 6 months, I dig it all out and use it around plants as a health tonic or to add life back into garden beds where I’ve been growing vegetables.
But one thing I have noticed more and more is the insidious invasion of plastic into everyday items that don’t look like they contain plastic.
As I was last digging out the compost bin, I sifted through it all and picked out the plastic that was obviously in or on the paper and cardboard I’d tossed into the compost.
From the photo you can see that from the barrow load of compost there ended up being an astonishing amount of hidden plastics.
Most of it was either a thin plastic coating on the outside or a thin liner on the inside. The paper and cardboard had all composted down, but the plastic film remained.
If I put the unsorted compost into the veggie garden, all that plastic would be sitting in the soil and leaching out all sorts of petrochemicals.
So my take-home message is that composting as much as we can is a good thing to do; but be aware that hidden plastics will creep into the compost.
But it’s a quick and simple thing to just pick it out before spreading into the garden.
This barrow load of compost was dug into the ground where I planted beans. In another column I’ll show you how I raise, plant and grow my beans.