Permaculture blog #4: Making compost in the city

As I was sweeping my porch yesterday I heard the lawnmower around my condo complex and it triggered a memory. Several years ago when I was going strong with my garden on my balcony I was going full steam ahead with growing fruits, vegetables, and composting.

Photo taken with my iPhone

I discontinued my garden for a few years because of my focus on other priorities. It was mostly due to the arrival of my youngest child and at the same time in the midst of my doctorate degree. The one weekend trip my family and I took several years back that was the straw that broke the camel’s back was the long 4-day weekend of triple digit temperatures. This weekend resulted in about 80-90% of the plants on my balcony roasting and dying in the pot. With that, and little time to keep at it and start over, I made the decision to scrap the garden. I mean… I had school and a new baby. Note exactly events that provided me abundance in spare time.

Fast forward to now. I have been graduated from my studies since about March and I now have some extra time to focus on my spare time.

Now, we are back to yesterday. I hear the lawn mower and it triggers the thought of my compost bin from long ago. It used to be a used baby diaper box. And the compost bin was thriving with earthworms that would eat through my left over vegetables in less than 3 days. They also ate through my diaper boxes I used. So, here we are and I’ve made the decision to get my compost going again.

The first step of knowing about composting is to know the background of how it happens. Composting revolves around bacteria, heat, water, green, and brown. The most successful composting I have is when I am able to get my layers going. Composting requires the green. Green can be any type of salad greens, and pretty any type of non acidic leafy greens. Banana peels work really well. I also use lawn clippings. A treasure trove of clover also makes my bin thrive. I just scrape the clover because it’s in damp soil along with being water dense.

Images taken with my iPhone

After you have green, you need brown. Brown consists of dirt, dead/dry leaves, pine needles, paper, and other similar items. Things you DO NOT include are meat items, dairy, or things that are not plant based. You can also use egg shells, but they must be clean and dried. Calcium is the main ingredient in the shells and you need to make sure all the egg residue is gone. Atleast that has been my experience.

Image taken with my iPhone

Dirt, then green, then dirt, then green… is how it goes when getting your compost going. I’ve heard folks call this the lasagna method or layer method for composting. And it makes sense. The reason you have the layers is fairly important. Dirt or soil is already dead plants and plant matter that has decomposed. Soil already has beneficial bacteria that help with composting. So, by layering with dirt you are layering bacteria over all the green material. This bacteria goes to town and gets to breaking down the material in the compost bin. And, the green material provides the water to help feed the bacteria and moisture to get the heat going in the compost bin.

Another secret ingredient are earthworms. They will roam the compost and eat and breakdown the material. Plus, the worm casting are AMAZING for the compost bin. The easy and cheap way I find my earthworms are during very rainy days. The earthworms will come to the surface and will lay out on the side walk. I just get a handful and put them in a jar. They should look like the red wigglers you might have read about. The one’s that are pink and have that segment in it. With about 4-5 earthworms, that’s really all you need. Earthworms will reproduce and you will have thousands of baby earthworms in not time. The baby earthworms look like little white wiggly things. That’s a good sign that the compost bin is working well.

After the worms have eaten, bacteria broken down all the material you wind up with cheap and amazingly wonderful new soil. You can add it to your garden and it will be amazingly beneficial and help make the garden extremely healthy and productive.

Image taken by my iPhone

Now, I begin. My compost bin is a 15 gallon plastic garden pot. I plan to keep adding material over time and I expect to have some pretty amazing new composted material that will my make my balcony garden flourish once more.

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