BACK TO COMPOSTING...

THE TREES HAVE TAKEN SERIOUSLY that this is the Fall. In turn, they have dropped their leaves and this means it is serious composting time for me.

After a few days, this task is well in hand; the composting processt starts with things looking like this; it doesn't do to wait for all the leaves to fall as this makes too much work for the mower. First, I set up the mower to mulch. Unless I am collecting cuttings, this is the normal setup. The mower chews up whatever it goes over and returns the cuttings to the ground. One has to mince up the leaves to speed up the action of bacteria already on the material. Leaves left uncut take forever to reduce to compost. After a run of the mower, the leaves look like this.

Composting leaves works best by including grass clippings as each has different balance of nutrients and one is looking for a proper balance of all nutrients in the final compost. In Summer I compost the lawn clippings from time to time but generally leave them in the lawn which grows up around them and returns them to the soil. As Autumn draws near, I collect lawn clippings in one of the bins at the end of the yard. Within hours the bacteria are at work and you can feel the heat of the reaction if you place your hand into the pile. The heap settles quickly and must be turned over to aerate it and prevent anaerobic bacteria taking over.

The next step is to set up the mower to collect the cuttings. When mincing up the leaves, I have the mower set high. With the basket attached, I set the mower lower so that it will also cut and pick up grass cuttings along with the macerated leaves.

Here is the good old Toro mower ready cut and vacuum. In the background, in the middle bin, you can see compost mainly from last year but also from the 2008 spring collection. On the left is some compost that has been working for several weeks (since coming back from Paris). In the right hand bin are cuttings done just the other day.

Here is a close up of the recent cuttings. If you look carefully you will see blades of grass mixed in with the chopped up leaves. All this is a bit dry (the bacteria love moisture) so I spray in several gallons of water for each six inch layer of cuttings.

This really gets things going and the heap becomes very warm by the next day. After a day or so the heat of the reaction dries out the mixture and I turn over the pile, adding water by layer as before.

After this, it is just a matter of turning over the heap occasionally to keep it aerated occasionally adding some water to preserve a moist environment for my bacteria friends. This only takes an hour or so and is good exercise. A garden fork is just fine for this task. I have just discovered that one can compost leaves inside black plastic rubbish bags. Rolling the bag about would make mixing and aerating the compost somewhat easier. If I have a surplus of leaves, more than my bins can hold, I will give this a shot. What does it all look like when the process is complete? Lovely compost like in the final picture. New York state is short on worms so I will look to introducing worm culture to the middle pile.

Now, doesn't it look just lovely! It smells wonderfully fresh and earthy and plants just love to grow in it. The pieces you can see break up easily in the hand into friable, rich dark potting material. During the Winter, the pile remains warm despite a constant covering of snow and, last Spring, I was not surprised to discover evidence of a couple of mouse nests. Bacteria were the first life on earth and constitute the largest biomass by far. The soil is full of them. In fact, they make earth into soil. We too are mostly bacteria and they generally treat us very well. It is nice to have them working for me in the garden and the compost they produce is better than potting mixture and petroleum based fertilizers.