Ruud Kleinpaste: The compost gardeners science quiz

I’ve always thought about creating the Greatest Hits (or Greatest Myths) for gardeners. There are so many things you should and shouldn’t do when gardening and creating compost. 

Starting a compost system: Do we really need a “Compost Starter” to kick it off? 

The easiest way to make compost is by sticking (roughly) to a ratio of Carbon to Nitrogen of something like 30:1. If you chuck a big heap of chipped wood (C) in the bin, you will need some grass clippings (N) to fire it all off. Even a simple pee on the heap will do the trick, or some Urea fertiliser, or even some old soggy lettuce. 

Crushed egg shells around your vegetables are said to stop the slugs and snails as they won’t be able to cross the sharp egg-edges with their soft and tender “foot”. Molluscs do not actually come in contact with the sharp substrate as they glide over the slime they produce themselves! 

And if you put the crushed shells into the compost bin, the calcium will eventually turn into useful calcium – eventually means “a few years later at least”, so don’t bank on a quick-release fertiliser!  Besides: they don’t really add a lot of value to your compost. 

Ah! To speed up composting waste material, do we need to turn the heap every now and then? 

Good question! Aeration will indeed help the process a bit… but so do mice and rats digging tunnels for their nests. Perhaps the question should be: how much time do you, personally, have to “turn” the compost? Every 3 or 4 weeks. 

Cooked food in the compost bin?  

Why not? It’s basically the same as un-cooked food, so why chuck it in the rubbish bin? 

Dead Animals or left-over meat in the compost bin? 

Everything that once lived is compostable – simple as that. Animals and old meat will take longer and it might start to smell somewhat, but it certainly will compost. 

Can weeds be composted? 

Of course! Weeds are simply plants too and when you pull them out, they will decay and form compost, just like any other organism, but should you? 

That depends on the kind of weed it is and if it has set seeds or survives on a vigorous root-system. 

How fast can you make compost? 

Depends on what you make it from; You’ll need C and N plus support from fungal organisms and microbial life-forms. In general, it’ll go quicker when you are in a warm part of the world and slower in a cool area. 

Here’s another bit of science: a compost tumbler is usually quite a bit smaller than a wooden compost bin, sitting on the soil. That means the tumbler won’t heat up as much (or at all!) as the larger bin and that may slow the process down – but it certainly will work albeit not so fast. 

What can we Learn FROM Nature making its own compost? 

Leaves fall down; twigs and sticks break off and join the leaves. Fruit and seeds join the party and every now and then a big branch with deliver a lot of Carbon. 

“Recycling insects” and Microbes help the compost process out; worms transport the end-product to deeper layers in the soil where it’s needed by the roots… and it just carries on in its own tempo… 

LISTEN ABOVE

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks at b Tell.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
You what is the weekend for anyone who enjoys a
bit of the outdoors. So if you like counting things,
you don't want to count sheep, but you want to
count other animals. Good news the whale and dolphin count.
The official whale and dolphin count is this weekend. So
if you happen to be out on the water and
you come across some migrating whales, make sure you take
part in the Whale and Dolphin count. But of course

(00:33):
the annual garden Bird Survey begins this weekend as well.
It goes for about a week or so, I think
maybe nine days or so. So yeah, lots happening this
weekend on that front. Now, man in the garden root
climb past, I'm sure we'll be counting everything every which way.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Good morning soon, I certainly will. Good morning Jack.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
By the way, they're also doing spoon bill counts here
in Lake Ellesmere.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Oh you go very good, just say it. Yeah, nothing,
they're not counting really, yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
No, that's right now.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
Why don't we start counting in nigrogen and carbon for
a change, let's make some compost.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Okay, very good, Well that makes it.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Do you have a compost? Then?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
I do have a compost bin, but it's mainly it's
very grass clippings heavy. I've got to be honest.

Speaker 4 (01:17):
Yes, I would expect so. And then after a couple
of months it becomes quite slimy and yucky.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah it does. And I just shove it out the
bottom and then go and chuck it on the garden basically,
but leaves in there as well, a bit of nitrogen,
yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:29):
Yeah, yeah, but hang on the grass. What do you
think the grass is?

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Nitrogen leaves?

Speaker 4 (01:35):
Yeah, you got it.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
So you're quite heavy on the nitrogen.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
So what I want you to do is go and
see somebody who actually knows how to cut trees and
chip them down. Yeah, and put those chips in your
bin as well, because generally speaking, and a lot of
people don't realize that, for if you have a ratio
of carbon to nitrogen, you need thirty carbon to one nitrogen.

(02:00):
That is about how so two much NuGen becomes really
slippery and slimy.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah right, Actually that's so that's quite an important one.

Speaker 4 (02:08):
So if you're talking about compost starters, for instance, you
know you can buy compost statists. Yeah, do you think
do you think nature used to use status?

Speaker 2 (02:16):
No?

Speaker 3 (02:17):
No, I don't think so.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
If you keep your thirty to one, if you got
twenty five to one carbon to nitrogen, you've got to
start to basically built into the whole thing.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
And I love that sort of stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:29):
Here's another one I've just I've actually been doing all
the myths. You can now get it. They're the greatest
myths for gardeners. Crushed shells. If you've got problems with
slugs and snails, you put crushed shells down, because that's
of course a very sharp material on which which the
on which the shells that what do you call it?

Speaker 3 (02:48):
The oh, my goodness, shells, eggs, shells. You got that
sort of stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
So what you then get is you everybody says slugs
and snails can't stop go over that because it's too
sharp for them. Sorry, doesn't work, because these slugs and
snails will not go on the surface directly. They actually
go on the lime that they produce. Huh, So they're
never in touch with those shells. So forget about that.
And if you then put that same stuff, for instance,

(03:14):
these crushed shells into your compost bin. It takes a
lot of time for that to become a little bit
of of fertilizer, and be quite honest, a lot of years.
That is absolutely the time it takes to literally get
those fertilizers into the system. And on the other hand,
you don't really get much calcium and things like that

(03:35):
from those shells, so you might as well not bother
too much. Just chuck it in and forget about it. Yeah, hey,
speeding up composting. A lot of people say you need aeration.
That's right, and we need to turn the heap, you know,
with a fork or a spade, So every now and
then you turn it off. To be quite honest, check,
I've just done my back in. Oh no, I fell

(03:56):
off the second story of and ofn what do you
call it? The double bed you know, bed double bed
bug bed?

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (04:05):
Yes, and yeah, so I can't really dig much at
the moment, And besides I don't have time to dig.
And what does nature do? Nature chucks things down and
basically it will mix itself, right, especially the creatures that
live under the compost, can I say, rats and mice
that make tunnels, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
Yeah, they're doing a really good job. There are there's
the point. Yeah, you got it. So there's so many
of these different things. Have a look on the website
that they be put together for you, and you'll find
all the things about can you put cooked food in
the compost bed? Can you put pool in the compost bed,
dead animals, left over meat? Of course you can, because

(04:47):
everything that once lived can be composted. Very good.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Okay, thank you. Yeah, that device is all up on
the news Talks he'd be website, News Talks, hed b
dot code on indd Ford's last Yet you get well rude?
How you feeling a bit better?

Speaker 1 (05:01):
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