Making Dirt-Where to Start

Homemade Compost Bins

Making Dirt or “composting” if you want to feel fancy is something that can as challenging or as easy as you want it to be. It has been a process that has been going on for literally the entire history of the planet and all humans have done is co-opted the process for our benefit.

The process is as simple as combining browns (carbon rich materials), greens (nitrogen rich materials), moisture and bacteria in a one location and sitting back and relaxing. Ok so it may not be as simple as I am making it out. It is true that natural composting and decomposition happen all the time without the influence of humans. But with just a few simple steps you can vastly improve the output of the natural composting process and provide yourself with nutrient rich mulch for your lawn and garden.

Passive Approach

The basic approach is to layer the brown, greens, and bacteria laden materials such as manure, previous years compost, or even rich black dirt into a pile or bin. The layers of materials combined with oxygen and moisture maintained in a balance provide the perfect environment for compost to form. Over time usually a year or more you will begin to have compost forming at the bottom of your pile in which the materials are no longer distinguishable from each other. If you stop adding material eventually it all will break down into the rich mulch that is so useful around the lawn and garden.

The approach used above is one of the most common that people use because it requires a minimum of work to build and maintain. The downside of course is the turn around time for the compost when it can take a year or more to get compost you might need many piles to keep up with demand.

Active Approach

The other option is a active approach in which you actively manage your pile by monitoring a few key factors like

• pile temperature
• material ratio
• moisture level
• aeration

By providing the optimum levels of each of these factors you can potentially turn a pile of organic

Letting it rot

matter into compost in as little as 3-4 weeks rather than the year it takes with a more passive system. Having a turn around like that can be very useful if you are a tight schedule or you need to make a lot of compost over a growing season.

If you are unsure where to start but you really want to start composting then I would suggest getting a pile of vegetable, fruit, shredded paper, cardboard and a little black dirt and place it in a pile in a out of the way corner of your yard and just let nature do its work.