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Grass Clippings
Grass Clippings
Green materials such as grass clippings and fresh picked weeds contain easy to digest bacterial food and are great nitrogen sources.
The fresher the green material is, the more nitrogen will be added to the pile.
Nitrogen provides soil food web organisms with building blocks for proteins, which are used, among other things, to produce the digestive enzymes necessary in the decay process
Autumn Leaves
Autumn Leaves
We are lucky to have an abundance of leaf matter through autumn and winter .
it's just a Brown matter of collecting, Drying and shredding it up. After this we load it up into bags and store it in the shed until grass cutting time.
brown material contains carbon; carbon provides members of the soil food web with energy for metabolism
Wood chip
Wood chip
The Willow on the farm grows really fast and during autumn and winter we prune the branches back and when the cut material dries out, we shred it up and store it ready for grass cutting time.
Kitchen Scraps
Our compost and Worm bins love kitchen scraps and pretty much any scrap organic material gets used.
We try not to over do it with the fats and meats but they do go in now and again and the Microbes seem to take care of them as long as the pile is turned regularly and there is not so much that it attracts pests.
We try to use a rule when using kitchen scraps, if the pile starts to smell horrible its hosting anaerobic bacteria .
The smell you can smell is the good nutrients (that could be locked into your soil ) being gassed off into the air.
Temperature Stages
Composting material goes through three distinct temperature phases.
The first of these stages is the Mesophilic.
The second Thermophilic phase can withstand temperatures of 40 to 60C and over. during this period the complex carbohydrates are fully broken down.
During the Maturation stage the decay of the most resistant plant component, lignin, is complete
Carbon to Nitrogen Ratio
The ratio of carbon to nitrogen has to be right in order to make compost; the ideal C:N ratio for this purpose is somewhere around 24:1 to 30:1.
If you have too much carbon, nitrogen is quickly used up and the decay process slows.
if you have too much nitrogen, organisms snatch it up and then carbon is vented.
Moisture
If a pile is too moist,it wont heat properly. you should be able to take a handful from your pile and squeeze just a few drops of water from it, but no more.
Heat
Heat will be noticeable in 24 hours.
Thereafter you will need to monitor the temperature; it shouldn't get over 65C or cool down much below 40C.
Turning the pile will increase the heat until the pile reaches the mature stage, after which it wont heat up when you turn it.
Air
Air is needed because the benificial soil organisms that break down carboniferous and nitrogenous materials are Aerobic. They breath air which is why it is important to bring air into the pile by turning which will keep the pile Airobic.
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