Compost a Must Have Skill on the Homestead

svfarms (54)in #life • 7 years ago (edited)

There are some must have skills when homesteading, being able to kill your food, ability to grow plants and vegetables, and bartering or trading for what you need. Let's get down and dirty with what you need to know about making compost!

Our Current Compost Pile

We subscribe to a permaculture life-style and while we are not enlisting all the concepts of it, we use "healing the land" as our base in all decisions that concern our homestead. One of the major components of any permaculture homestead has to be the ability to make compost. Compost is naturally occurring process that uses the macro- and micro-organisms to breakdown the organic material like grass clippings, wood chips, fall leaves, vegetable scraps and so on.

Row of tomatoes

As these organisms break down the organic materials it forms the black rich organic matter and when you add it to soil it turns your brown thumb, nice and green! So let us show you how to make great compost and in turn grow nutrient dense vegetables, trees, bushes and so on…..Compost is made by mixing carbon materials such as leaves and wood with nitrogen materials such as grass clippings and manures. The trick is to get the right amount of each material into the compost bin. So let’s break it down, no pun intended! It’s all about the Carbon to Nitrogen ratio:The Carbon should be 60%, this includes wood chips, sawdust, fall leaves, newspaper (no color or film), paper towels (wipe your plate down after eating with your napkin then compost it), Straw, hay, grass clippings (good for nitrogen too), wood ash and so on. Pretty much anything that was living and is now brown.The nitrogen source (greens) should be 30%. Use lawn clippings, vegetable waste, table scraps, all those weeds you pull, and coffee grounds, even egg shells, if you don't have chickens to feed them to..You will also need a high nitrogen source 10%, that will be your manures such as cow, horse and chicken waste. You can use raw meat, blood and road kill, these items will jump start your decomposing and attract all those beneficial organisms

One of our Lettuce / Greens Bed

Do Not Use the Following, pet manures, bananas, peach or orange peels or black walnut leaves…….Now to build your pile. It should be at least 3’ wide by 3’ deep by 3’ high. There are plenty of YouTube videos on how to build a compost bin, we use old wire fencing, but using old pallets works great too! Layer the ingredients like you are making lasagna for dinner. You want to keep a moisture content of 50%. To check for moisture content, squeeze a handful and if nothing comes out there is not enough water, if it oozes between your fingers you have too much, if it cakes up that is about perfect. Covering your pile help keep heat in and rain out, a cold or wet pile will drastically slow the process.You will notice the pile start to heat up quickly, this is good! A good rule of thumb is to maintain 130 to 165 degrees for 3 to 5 days, make sure your pile doesn’t get too hot. anything higher than 170 degrees will use up the needed oxygen and stall the process. After the five-day period turn the pile. The top goes on the bottom and the bottom ends up on the top, repeat a minimum of 3 times, you will know when it is done, it will be very dark, it will have lots of worms and other critters in it! Sift and use in your garden, around your trees and bushes.

Compost sifting screen

A little note: Just because winter happens doesn’t mean you should stop composing, just get a pile started and just keep adding those table scraps, newspaper and soiled paper towels all winter long, save some leaves to cover the pile as you go, no need to turn just let it sit and compact, come spring time you will have some great compost to start with.Look for future post on how to use that great compost you just made!