Building Compost at Serendipity Gardens

I told my grandson once that compost was one of the reasons I believe in God.

“Only God can take a mess like this” I said, pointing to my compost corral topped with a recent addition of eggshells, potato peels, and the innards of a couple of green peppers, “and turn it into black gold.”

Right now, Serendipity Gardens is smothered by the deepest and longest-lasting snow in its nine-year history. But underneath all that snow lies its most important component, the soil in which all the plants grow. And the very best way to enrich and nurture that soil is to add compost. Here, in this photo, we have a wheelbarrow full that will become part of the soil in the herb pots.

If you want to bring your backyard to life, making your own compost is an important step. 

How We Did It

My husband built our compost bin, called a “compost corral” according to directions I found on a P. Allen Smith website. Basically, it consists of 16 eight-foot-long  landscape timbers laid together in a square somewhat the way you build with Lincoln Logs. (You could cut the timbers to a shorter length if this size is too big for your garden.) The spaces between the logs allow for good air circulation.

Rebar inserted into holes drilled at each end of each post hold the structure together. It’s also mounted on leveled concrete blocks to allow for access to the compost at the bottom. See the video to YouTube that shows the building in action.

We made the mistake of putting our corral in a corner.  As a result, we are able to access the compost only from two sides. I would recommend putting the corral  away from a corner for free access to all four sides.

The compost corral remains open to the weather year round. We do not add much to it in the cold months, but we add loads of garden and food material in the warm months. I would say that over a summer, if the compost heap did not decompose, it would be 20 or more feet high by the end of the season. However, it does decompose, so the height of its contents remains at a fairly consistent four to five feet deep.

The shift to the black, crumbly sweet-smelling mixture we shovel from the bottom is truly an amazing process.

What to Compost

Many garden resources  offer guidance for what to compost and what not to, how often to turn and water, and the correct ratio of carbon to nitrogen. A number of books are available on Amazon if you want more detail. As for me, I keep it simple.

I regularly add these things:

• All our vegetable and fruit peels and fresh leftovers
• Stuff that has gone bad in the vegetable drawer 🙁
• Paper, including paper plates
• Cardboard
• Garden waste other than limbs and branches more than a quarter to half an inch thick, including leaves (not too many) and algae from the pond
• Lint from the clothes dryer

I cut large items such as watermelon rind, long stems and big leaves into smaller pieces so they will decompose more quickly.

What Not to Compost

I never add any of these materials:

• Waste from cats or dogs
• Meat products
• Fat products
• Ashes
• Bread and other cooked leftovers
• Big sticks
• Plastic or paper with brightly colored inks

I do not spend a lot of time worrying about whether my corral contents are the proper ratio of green to brown, yet the items above seem to work out about right. I do not bother to water the pile. I figure that the rain it gets is sufficient. Nor do I turn it regularly all the way to the bottom, simply because it is too difficult to do so. Despite all this, however, the pile regularly produces beautiful finished compost.

In the end, Mother Nature — or perhaps God — is definitely in charge.

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