During the warm months in Chicago, almost half of our residential garbage consists of compostable materials such as leaves, grass clippings, and food wastes. That so-called trash can be treasure. By creating a compost pile you can transform your discards into "black gold" that can be produced simply, indoors or out.
The first three things you’ll need for a successful outdoor compost pile are the same things you’d need for a successful business. Location, location, and location. Find a shady spot in your yard that drains well and is somewhat cool. Under a tree but away from any structure such as a house or fence is an excellent choice. Once you have found your area, which should be at least three square feet, remove all the grass.
It’s not necessary to have a bin, but it may help to keep your pile looking neat and it’ll help keep backyard pests away. You can create a compost bin to surround the area with chicken wire, or make four walls with a discarded wooden pallet, if you prefer.
Now, you are ready to start building a pile. Erin Keane of the City of Chicago Department of the Environment recommends 60 percent "brown" materials such as dead leaves, and 40 percent "green" materials such as grass clippings and kitchen waste. The percentages don’t have to be exact, but a good mix will help your pile "bake" faster. "It’s good to have slightly more brown than green," Keane says, "because brown helps keep air circulating and when you don’t have enough air that’s when you get odors." Also, leaves are high in carbon and the grass and weeds are a good source of nitrogen, both great for plants.
Egg shells, vegetables, coffee grounds, cardboard egg cartons and even vacuum cleaner bags can be added to a healthy pile. Feces can benefit a compost pile, but until you gain expertise, you should avoid them. No compost pile should contain feces from a cat, dog, horse, human, or any other animal that might be subject to worm medication. Fruit and vegetable-based table scraps can go into the pile, too. "Avoid meats, bones, and fats," Keane says, "they are attractive to rodents and they also don’t break down very quickly."
Make sure any food scraps are buried in the center to keep neighborhood animals away. And instead of running out to your pile every time you amass a few food scraps, keep a plastic container with a lid under your sink for collecting discards that can be added to the pile later. Before it starts to decompose, your compost pile should be at least one yard long and one yard high. Water it so that it’s damp, but not soaked.
Now let nature take over. The only things left for you to do are to aerate the pile by mixing it twice a month and to water it once a week in the absence of rain. Worms and microbes will begin their feast, leaving behind a rich compost. As the contents begin to decompose, the activity of the microbes should cause it to bake at a temperature near 160 degrees. A good compost should not have a foul odor to it. If it does, try adding more leaves and going easy on the grass clippings.
If you live in an apartment or condo and don’t have a back yard you still can compost your kitchen scraps, using a simple method known as vermicomposting. Vermicomposting allows red worms to turn your food into compost. The red worms and their accompanying bins can be purchased from quite a few sources, but even a regular plastic bucket from the hardware store will make a good make-shift bin. Worms with a bin will cost about 125 to 150 dollars, while the worms, alone, will run you about 30 bucks.
If you choose to go with a bucket, though, be sure to punch air holes in it; wrap it with a screen (also available at the hardware store); and place it on a tray to collect the excess moisture. Cover the bucket with an opaque plastic lid and you’re ready to begin.
Plan your vermicomposting by weighing your compostable kitchen wastes for a week. You will need one square foot of bedding and two pounds of worms for every pound of scraps you collect in that week. The bedding should consist of dried leaves or shredded newspaper and about a handful of soil.
Dampen your bedding, making sure not to overwater. Then add the worms and your kitchen waste to feed them. Keep the food scraps in the center in order to keep fruit flies away from the container.
As in yard composting, the right temperature is important to your worm bin. "You will need to store your bin where the temperature is over 50," says Chris Curtis-Todd of Worm’s Way. "Under that temperature the worms become susceptible," to illness. The ideal range is between 64 and 72 degrees.
Due to temperature restraints your bin may need to be kept indoors, under the sink, perhaps, or in a broom closet. To avoid a foul odor, be careful not to exceed the worms to food scraps, two-to-one ratio — and stir your compost every other week to keep it aerated.
After a month or so, if you use a bucket, you will need to separate the worms from your compost in order to reuse the worms and use your black gold. You will know it’s time to separate when the mixture has an earthy smell and you can no longer make out any food particles or bedding. Separation is not a complex task; commercial containers have built-in separators. Alternatively, you can push the compost to one side of your container and place new bedding and food on the other; the worms will gradually leave for the new bedding and you can remove the compost. An even simpler means of separation is to pour the contents of your container over a screen so your compost runs through, leaving the worms on the screen (Remember to reserve materials for a new bin, so the worms can eat).
If this seems like too much work or you don’t want to bring worms into your house, you can do a mini-compost procedure in your kitchen. Take your food scraps and blend them on the purée setting. Then put them into a bucket with an equal amount of dried leaves and a handful of soil. As with any method of composting, keep damp and stir occasionally. As your compost breaks down, you can continue to add the same 50/50 mixture. Finished compost will have an earthy smell.
Now that you’ve made your compost you’re ready to reap the benefits. You can start by spreading it over your lawn. It not only fertilizes your grass organically, it helps your lawn retain moisture. Compost also makes an excellent garden bed. Organic Gardening magazine recommends "mixing one to two inches of mature compost into new garden beds, four to six inches deep." Sprinkling compost on the surface of your vegetable garden as a mulch is a safe, effective way of protecting your plants from weeds and disease while holding in moisture. If you don’t have a lawn or a garden of your own, you can spread it around local trees or develop an indoor paradise; compost makes an excellent potting soil.
Then congratulate yourself: with minimal effort you have nourished the plant and animal life around you, produced an organic substitute to chemical based fertilizers, and lessened the amount of garbage you throw out each week. In short, you’ve become part of the solution.