The word compost' comes from the Old French composter,' meaning stew, and the word can be used as a noun or a verb. Today the word describes a pleasant smelling, partially decomposed organic material similar to topsoil and, when properly made for your garden, acts like chicken-soup-for-the-soil! Sorry, girls, but I couldn't resist.
Compost is no trouble to make but you can only make it with waste that does not contain animal flesh or yard chemicals that ends in cide. So, most people who compost make it largely from grass trimmings, leaves and newspapers because that's the bulk of the plant waste around the house. Yes, newspapers are fine if you don't use the colored pages. Don't worry about the ink. All black newsprint used today is vegetable based. Wood ashes can be added in small amounts, as well as egg shells and coffee grounds as they accumulate. Throw in potato and carrot peelings, apple and peach cores, asparagus and broccoli stems, and any other vegetable garbage you have.
Now, I've hinted that making compost is easy. Almost all of the effort is expended in the beginning and you will have to spend a few dollars for a ten-foot length of three-foot wide chicken wire fencing and a cheap plastic tarp large enough to cover your compost when it rains. The goal, here, is to have your husband connect the ends of the chicken wire so that you have a cylinder. Find a nice, out-of-the-way place and set it on the ground, oriented with the open sides vertical. Let's go compost!
Tell your son to layer the grass clippings into the compost pile with some fireplace ash and/or garden dirt sprinkled in every 3 or 4 inches of clippings. The dirt is very important because it contains the microbes that will decompose everything and will help to prevent the grass from just matting down into a gooey mess. Tell your husband to really reach down into the pile as he mixes and crunches into the compost pile the leaves he just raked up. See how easy it is? You've hardly lifted a muscle!
The pile will have to be hand mixed with rubber gloves on and then LIGHTLY watered every three days or so. The microorganisms do require some moisture and aeration. In a few weeks you'll notice that the center of the compost pile feels awfully hot as you mix it. This means the bacteria and fungi are working overtime! The temperature can reach over 140. Four to eight weeks after beginning, the pile will have collapsed to about half its original size and the vegetative waste will have been transformed into clean, black, odorless humus ready to dig into the garden, place around your nursery and bedding plants to keep weeds down, or use as a potting soil in which to start seedlings.
