Those of us with prior slimy, buggy, and disgusting mess compost experience are understandably thinking negative thoughts at the moment about the previous post. But composting has come along way in the intervening time; so can we.
Composting is actually a gift to anyone with yard debris and kitchen waste. Both of these waste streams just keep coming and coming at us. It’s a real chore to handle them both all the time in the way we’d like to be most responsible for them. Sure the recycle trucks in some places come by and pick up yard waste in bags or bins on the side of the road for you, but you have to time it right to get it collected, in the receptacle, and up to the street in time for the rigid pick up schedule. This means more obligatory stresses.
On the other hand our Dwarf Fruit Tree is happy if we just give it a nice dressing of rich compost anytime in early spring on a day that suits us and check on it throughout the growing season to see how that compost fertilizer is holding up. Similarly the constant stream of waste from our landscaping and out of our kitchen can make into a compost pile at irregular times according to our inspiration rather than a “utility” company schedule. This is a happy confluence.
There is a bigger impact than we may see at first. A subtle magic is at work here. Mother Nature, and a closer connection to her seemingly infinite majesty, has arrived in the form of our Dwarf Fruit Tree.
Could the source be a new or renewed inclusion of our daily habits into the cycles of Nature yielding benevolent stress reduction and task overwhelm amelioration?
Let’s examine: Dealing with kitchen waste suddenly gets a little thought attached to it when the food scraps go into the big stainless steel soup pot with lid that we use for compost around place - the thought carries an anticipation that in 9 months time that bannana peel, or half eaten oatmeal, is fertilizer for the joyful little fruit bearing tree that graces the veranda.
This is not like fertilizing roses bushes. Don’t get me wrong - i’m in love with roses and don’t begrudge them their compost, but there is a more definite conscious linkage to composting food knowing that the fertilzer it becomes via composting is growing new food as fruit yield of our Dwarf Fruit Trees. Harvest and eat in the future and repeat the cycle. Anyone who has composted at home for any length of time will confirm this sense of being connected to the natural world daily through the composting habit.
Let’s examine: how does this reduce the feeling of overwhelm? Our yard is surrounded by lovely mature trees both evergreen and deciduous. The evergreen trees don’t dump all their leaves every fall, instead they drop them in smaller amounts almost continually. Thus creating a never ending litter with ongoing work to keep the grounds in order and at the same time a constant supply of covering material for our kitchen scraps going on the compost.
The Secret Sauce Successful Compost Every Time:
Dissimilar Layers + A Covering Layer for all Kitchen Waste
The master key to hassle free and effective compost, as well as alleviating the burden of kitchen waste, is to layer different types of organic material in your compost pile, using yard material (or anything organic and compact- even sawdust - that works to cover up the kitchen scraps. The other layers are a mix of whatever green (like lawn clippings and evergreen leaves) and brown (like autumn leaves or hay) material at hand. Be sure to layer in some structure with material that doesn’t compact as much creating air spaces in your pile. No branches, small twigs no bigger than a childs little pinky finger are ok.
Final step - leave it until next year.
Wow - is that all there is to it? Pretty much. Everything else is fancy footwork and over-thinking the job. Fine if you like but not required. The main thing is getting started and having some goals and thoughts in mind that inspire follow through.
The annual spring fertilization of our Dwarf Fruit Trees is the perfect goal for letting our compost “cure”. We know there’s nothing to do to that compost pile other than keep piling on more layers of material until the pile reaches maximum size (about chest or shoulder high after several settlings) in spring each year.
The stream of kitchen waste keeps me inspired to find “cover” for it from my yard debris all year long. Compost will never smell or attract flies if you simply cover it with a nice layer of yard debris each time you make the trip from the kitchen with the compost bucket (or pot in our case) out to the pile. In synergistic and beautifully complementary fashion the key to an effective compost pile is different types of material in layers. Thus every few days when the kitchen receptacle fills there’s an opportunity to be inspired to seek out a different “layer” from last week’s debris from the yard. Use it to cover on top of the kitchen waste on the compost pile.
Replacing the deadline of getting all your yard debris up to the street in time for the recycle truck to waste more fuel hauling it away, we can be tuned into our Dwarf Fruit Trees gift of connection to the natural cycle. By thinking of their upcoming need for fertilizer next spring this attention leads naturally to the inspiration to compost. The every few days trip out to the pile with the bucket from the kitchen leads naturally to cleaning up the yard waste to keep the compost pile well covered and properly layered.
We all know how good it feels to get the landscape in top shape. Now doing so is not only a chore -it’s part of our own ecosystem cycle of connection to nature right within our own lifestyles.
A complete and natural cycle minus any of the stresses of “modern living” right here in our little city yard. Composting is not just for farmers and neither is growing fruit! We can do it too. And we love it.
For a fuller explanation of how layering in the compost pile effects the build up of heat via keeping the bacteria and other micro-organisms and worms etc pick a good book on composting - well worth the investment or the library trip.
We recommend The Complete Compost Gardening Guide by Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin. These green thumb gals “turn the compost bin upside down with their liberating system of keeping compost heaps right in the garden, rather than in some dark corner behind the garage.”
A synopsis of our approach to composting comes down to this:
- the upper part of the pile has layers that bring both brown and green material together (brown such as dead leaves etc) green being kitchen waste, lawn clippings etc)
- these layers also include layers of compact versus structural stuff - ie grass clippings are compact - broccoli stalks are structural. small twigs are ok but have to be tiny branches. branches any bigger than a young ladies little finger are too big to compost.
- the structural layers keep enough oxygen around for the pile to heat up and get hot enough to break down material in hyper-speed
- the bugs do an incredible job of heating up the mid to upper part of the pile.
- there is no need to turn the pile…. just leave it alone for a year and the worms will find their way in and help the micro-organisms do their job of “curing” the compost and turning it into mature fertilizer over the next year. The lower half of the pile stays cool for the worms to be happy. you keep adding to the upper part of the pile with layers that allow for the heat to build up from the other micro-organism that do the fast break down work.
- the mid and upper hot part of the pile breaks down so fast and settles so much that the pile shrinks before your eyes - keep piling on more until the shrinkage gets to the point where it stays about about chest high or so.
– start a new pile and leave the first pile for a year to “cure” into fertilizer for your Dwarf Fruit Trees and other plants. The worms work their magic over the year at which time you’ll be astounded by the richness and number of worms inhabiting your rich new fertilizer. Your Dwarf Fruit Trees will love this concoction of compost, worm castings, etc.
My wife, the Feng Shui genius in our family, has just added two Bearrs Dwarf Lime Trees to our must have list of additions to our growing orchard of Dwarf Fruit Trees. Tonight she positively glowed with excitement to show me an entry from a Feng Shui book by Lillian Too about putting Dwarf Fruit Trees of the lemon-lime persuasion at your main door entry for some major feng shui good luck. The entry in Lillian Too’s book is called Fruiting lime trees bring ‘gold’ 
