CoComposting Made Easy..mposting Made Easy..

Hey community, today we want to talk to you about compost, that deep dark dirty stuff that makes everything grow better. And I'm here with Joyce McMinniman who's a composting expert. She's been doing this for a long time and really what we want to share with you is why we should support our microbiome of our healthy soil, how we can build up these cultures, some of the best ways to do that, and just why this is such an important thing when it comes to growing quality food and building abundance for ourselves to thrive on this planet. So thank you Joyce for joining me, I'm excited to be here and learn from you. Pleasure to have you here Yarrow, we're looking forward to talking about compost. All right let's get started. So I see you got some kitchen scraps, rid of the compost? We are too, yeah I mean kitchen scraps everybody produces them, they've got to go somewhere. And rather than them going into a landfill where they create methane, which is a super powerful greenhouse gas, it should go right back into the soil where it feeds all the organisms that are in the soil, the worms. Yeah makes sense to me. Yeah and then all those bugs in the soil feed the plants which feed us. That's that whole sort of cycle of life and I think we don't give it enough value to the the preparatory steps that are required for that healthy microbiome of the soil right? Yeah yeah you're right. And kitchen scraps are perfect for that. Easy fix I know and everybody has them. Right that's right. So what else would we add? So we start with kitchen scraps and what else do you like to add to compost? Yeah and then the kitchen scraps are high in nitrogen so we need to balance them with something that's high in carbon. Right. And leaves are the most natural, the gold standard there. Yeah because they're abundant, they're already wanting to break down, they're full of minerals, they're the ideal addition to the nitrogen, the high nitrogen material in your kitchen scraps. So do you suggest like kind of layering between leaves and kitchen scraps? Anything else? Maybe leaf or cuttings or trimming the plants? Yes all the yard waste can go into your compost. The smaller the pieces the faster they'll decompose so it's best to chop them up if you can. Even if you have big like maple leaves they're a little bit too big they can make layers so best to scrunch them up, chop them up. Chop them up. Well how do you, like do you, I saw out front you have like a chopping block for chopping some of your plants up. And a machete. Oh it's fun. Great great. Okay so um let's let's let's get composting. Okay I'll show you how we make compost right here. One of the biggest challenges I see about composting is that it's smelly and ooky and people don't want to touch their molding vegetables. How do you mitigate that to make this more user-friendly and easy for people to do? Yeah that's a big reason that people don't compost at home and uh but it's it's easy to make it not smell and it's all about burying all the stinky stuff in there, covering it over with. So you cover over every time? Yeah cover it over with your dry high carbon material so that it doesn't smell. And um yeah. Have a good bin like this something that's easy to carry. Yeah make it easy for yourself. Have your composter close to your house. It's nice to have something uh to contain. Yeah it's like a bin or a container. Yeah to contain your compost so that it so it doesn't spread everywhere. And yeah and then uh also it's good to have your high carbon material handy. Close by. So you've got another bin to put sort of like an outhouse with the ash kind of thing out of her right? Yeah make it make it easy on yourself. Have your composter set up close to your house. You want to have good drainage under it. You don't want to have puddles under. That's important because your compost breathes from the bottom as much as anywhere else. I never thought about that. So yeah good drainage. That's right. It's not a big bog. Yeah exactly not a bog. You don't want to have puddles under it. Yeah. And what about pests right? You want to have the bin or whatever it is protective right? From like rats and raccoons and all that stuff can get into compost. Yeah rats are probably the main reason that people don't compost at home. And uh so yeah so there's ways to get around that. We've made a metal bin so that they can't get in. But also you can um build a bin with that quarter inch hardware cloth. Yeah. And that will keep them out. And do you have like mesh on the bottom? I think that was what I saw in your bin was like there's mesh on the bottom. Yeah there's mesh on the bottom. There's a quarter inch metal mesh on the bottom. So because otherwise the rats will tunnel right into it. So it's imperative that you have a base under it as well. But also you want one that breathes right? So that the water and all those bugs and stuff can transfer it right into the soil. Okay. In fact what we do is we put it right in a raised bed. Because your best. So inside of the garden already. Yep. Yeah. Because your best soil will be under your composter right? Because all that leachate. You want to move that to a garden later. Exactly. And then once a year or every couple of years move it to a different bed. That's what we do. Amazing. It works great. All right so put it in the garden. Make sure there's no muck or wetness underneath. Protect it from critters with a metal grin. Keep it solid. Make it easy for yourself. Yeah. Add some leaf litter. Lasagna it. Yeah. And make whatever you're bringing out your compost in. Just something easy that can keep clean. Easy peasy. And then it's good to go. Yeah. So we want to make it easy in the kitchen. So what I recommend is a pail like this. I really like this stainless one. Just so that it's easy to take it out to your compost when you're ready. What I do is put a piece of paper on the bottom and it just helps for it to slide out. And also often I will put water in there. Because you want to keep your compost damp. And so a really easy way to do that is put a cup or three of water right into your compost pail before you take it out. So now you're it makes it easy for all that goop in there to slide out. And your water and your compost at the same time. Okay. So now we will make some compost. And yeah. There's another notch. There's a nice little hinge on there. Yeah. Go back even farther. Okay. What I do is I will just to keep it like you can see it. Stick your face in there. It smells good eh? Smells nice and earthy. So dig a little hole. Wow. I mean look at the life in there. Look at this. Holy jumping. And and these are the things you can see. Right. But also like. All the fungi and bacteria. Yeah. Like probably the camera doesn't show. But these tiny little white things right there. Those are called springtails. And they're really good decomposers of high carbon stuff like leaves. Which we've got lots of. So if you were to look at that under a microscope it would blow your mind. The life in there. Wow. They're having a good time in there. This is a very active little biome. Yeah it is. And so this is where I want to put all the fresh stuff right? Yeah. So you dig a hole. You go deep in. So dig a hole and then put in all the stinkies out of the kitchen. And then cover it over. And so now it's right in the heart of the compost. So it'll go super fast right now. So the idea is you keep adding like the soils to the edge of the compost and dig the compost into the center. Yeah. Well actually. Or the fresh compost. Yeah. What I do. There's only two of us. So I'll add to one side and take out of the other side. Okay. And so that way I've always got compost that I can use. And I've always got a spot to put it in. For every pail full of kitchen scraps that I add. I'll add a handful of leaves. Because you want to balance that high nitrogen material with some high carbon material. And leaves are the best. They're wanting to break down. They're full of minerals. They're the ideal thing to add to your compost. Amazing. So we've got your bin of leaves here. Yes. Compost in the house. Digging it into the center or to the edge. Yeah. And then adding in right in the heart of where all the life is happening in the compost. Exactly. And one more little trick that I'll show you. From time to time I'll add just a scoop full of soil out of the garden. And that'll have lots of decomposing microbes in it. It'll probably have some worm cocoons. And also the worms need the grit for their digestion. And so it's good to add a little bit of soil out of your garden from time to time. All right. So just like I might make a sandwich with a whole different kind of multi textures. Adding multiple textures to the compost can enhance that microbiological breakdown. Right. To build that faster. So in a composting system like this like how fast do we make soil? I guess that's the golden question. Yeah. And the golden answer is it depends. The smaller the particles the faster it'll break down. It's a bit temperature dependent. You'll notice in the winter the worms are a little slower. Things just take their time. But in the summer I'll come out a week later to add more kitchen scraps and whatever I put in is gone. Like it's amazing. It goes super fast. When you put it right into the heart of the worm city in there. But could we guesstimate that like within a year of composting we now have soil? Oh yeah. In the summer it's a few months. Wow. And you've got something that's usable. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Great. But also that's a pretty high nitrogen material that we're putting in. Right. I found that in the if I'm just adding a lot of yard waste that's high in carbon it takes longer. Okay. So by adding more nitrogen in the house waste. That's right. In fact that's one way if you want to kick start your compost put some manure in it. Okay. Yeah. I see that you added the soil adding manure. So you could really like lasagna this in a few different ways. Now how do we make sure we get the right pH or we have the right kind of mix of nutrients to go back into our garden. We're not burning it or what. Yeah. Well from exactly what we've done which is layering it and making sure that there's plenty of high carbon material. The bugs in there will figure out the pH that makes them happy. That's a reason that I don't like to add wood ashes to compost. Okay. Because that will affect the pH and now all this environment that they've built for themselves now it's changed a little bit. Right. Best to put ashes straight on your garden. Just a thin layer. You don't want to make gyprock. Yeah. But that can go straight on to your. So a little layer of ash on the garden. Yeah. But not on the compost. Yeah. A tiny bit in your compost is not a bad thing. But you don't want to add a lot because it will like you say change the pH and you don't want to do that. You don't want to upset all the life in there. I'm just super impressed with how many worms and microbiomes in there. And I love that this bin has like a front you can pull up. And you can see the different layers in here. Like look at this gorgeous compost back here. It's just yeah it's phenomenal. And this is. How old would you say this is? It's less than a year because I haven't had this here for more than a year. But look at that. You just can't buy. No. You can't aligned with your own landscape. I mean the whole concept of permaculture these days is really like how to build back the soils in our own land. Exactly. I just think that there's something about your microbiome of your land regenerating itself and how healing that is. And this is what plants want. This is what they're craving is this beautiful black gold. That is black gold. So you really grow it within a couple of years have some amazing soil with this. It's beautiful stuff. Look at that. Right. You'd never be able to buy that. No. I mean it's kind of funny to get so excited about good soil. But when you know what you can grow out of quality soil like this you have to start composting. It's like just an essential. I mean we've been growing a garden for a while now and it's amazing how beneficial quality nutrients and living organisms are to these plants. It's not a sterile world. It requires a little messy life but we can contain it in a way like this. Yeah. It's easy for us to do. And it's kind of like your food. Like the bigger variety of stuff that you put in there the better. Yeah. If you ate only hamburgers forever you would look like this. Develop a whole bunch of health imbalances. And so if you put a big variety of materials into your compost then you'll get more life in there. All the bacteria that are needed to break down whatever it is that you just put in don't multiply. Bacteria multiply like every 20 minutes. Right. They double in population. Popcorn. Yeah. And so whatever you put in there that's what's going to multiply. So all in all I think composting is pretty intuitive once you have the basics of the right kind of container for it all. A little bit of mixing but then adding in the layers. This becomes a pretty intuitive process with what you actually have laying around already. Yeah. Another important thing that we need to discuss is to keep it damp. If it dries out everything stops. All the bugs in there they move around on the meniscus of the sand grains and and the organic material that's in there. So it needs to be kept damp. Worms breathe through their skin. Right. So yeah if you have ants in your compost it's too dry. Right. Good tip. Yeah. So it needs to be kept damp even if it means in the summer you're watering it. That's imperative otherwise everything stops. I'll remember to water my compost. Yeah. One thing I like is that Joyce always puts the bins in the garden themselves. And tell us a little bit about why you do that. I like to do that because the best soil is what's right underneath your composter. And so what I've done here is I had this bin here in this bed. Right. And then it got to the point where it's finished composting. And so I emptied it out, moved the bin to the next bed along, put back the material that's not decomposed yet. And now this stuff which is beautiful black compost. Isn't that lovely? And so it's ready to spread out onto this bin. So it's ready to use. Good stuff. Yeah. All right. So then you spread it out. I see that you also like to have ground cover on a lot of your beds. Yeah. Just to kind of keep the moisture in and keep the microbiome healthy. The enemy is bare soil. Right. You don't want to have bare soil. You want to have something on it, especially here where we get a lot of rain. It can wash all that good nutrition out of the soil. And raise beds is to just build up that soil, healthy soil underneath. Yes. Especially in a place like this where the soil is quite soggy. You want to raise them up so they get their feed out of the wet soil. And also for me, I find that it defines like this is garden, this is pathway. Right. And so that I never stand on the garden. Got it. Got it. Yeah. So it just defines it. I noticed with some of these other beds too, there's a lot of what you told me before, chop and drop, where you really like, you take the material from the actual garden and you compost it back into that same bed. Exactly. So what we're doing is we're taking the old plants and literally chopping them up. Yeah. The smaller the pieces, the faster they'll decompose. So it's nice if you can whack them up a little bit and then just leave it right on the soil. So now you're mulching the soil with what you've just grown. So you don't have to buy mulch. Yeah. Yeah. So there's no need to buy anything for your garden really. Exactly. Other than a good compost bin. Thank you, Joyce. I appreciate your enthusiasm for composting. I just think it's just one of the best things. I mean, it makes me happy, you know, actually quick, quick little thing. There's been some recent studies that say the dirt on the food actually makes you happier and it works with winter depression and blues and all that. So the quality of our dirt is not just good for our physical health, but our emotional health too. Beautiful. Yeah. I've heard that there's antidepressants in soil. In good soil. Yeah. And so if you get nice dirty hands, then you just feel better. Right on. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing with us. I hope you are all out there composting. And if not, this is inspiring you to do more composting. Remember that this is how we build resilience on this planet. This is how we build back regenerative practices is in growing our own food in creating healthy biomes and so much more. So thanks Joyce. And let us know how can we get hold of you if we want to learn more about composting. Lots of information at speedybin.com. Awesome. All right. Thank you. See you next time.