 Chapter 4 of Organic Gardeners' Composting This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Betsy Bush in Marquette, Michigan, November 2007. Organic Gardeners' Composting by Steve Solomon Chapter 4 All About Materials In most parts of the country, enough organic materials accumulate around an average home and yard to make all the compost a backyard garden needs. You probably have weeds, leaves, perhaps your own human hair—my wife is the family barber—dust from the vacuum cleaner, kitchen garbage, and grass clippings. But there may not be enough to simultaneously build the luscious lawn, the healthiest ornamentals, and grow the vegetables. If you want to make more compost than your own land allows, it is not difficult to find very large quantities of organic materials that are free or cost very little. The most obvious material to bring in for composting is animal manure. Chicken and egg raisers and boarding stables often give manure away or sell it for a nominal fee. For a few dollars, most small-scale animal growers will cheerfully use their scoop loader to fill your pickup truck till the spring's sag. As useful as animal manure can be in a compost pile, there are other types of low C to N materials, too. Enormous quantities of loose alfalfa accumulate around hay bale stacks at feed and grain stores. To the proprietor, this dusty chaff is a nuisance gladly given to anyone that will neatly sweep it up and truck it away. To the home gardener, alfalfa in any form is rich as gold. Some years rainy Oregon weather is still unsettled at haying season, and farmers are stuck with spoiled hay. I'm sure this happens most places that grass hay is grown on natural rainfall. Though a shrewd farmer may try to sell moldy hay at a steep discount by representing it to still have feed value, actually, these ruined bales must be removed from a field before they interfere with working the land. A hard bargainer can often get spoiled hay in exchange for hauling the wet bales out of the field. There's a local farmer near me, whose entire family tree holds a well-deserved reputation for hard, self-interested dealing. One particularly wet, cool, unsettled haying season, after starting the spoiled hay-dickering at 90 cents per bale, asked. Nothing offered but hauling the soggy bales out of the field my offer. I finally agreed to take away about 20 tons at 10 cents per bale. This small sum allowed the greedy blank to feel he had gotten the better of me. He needed that feeling far more than I needed to win the argument or to keep the few dollars. Besides, the workings of self-applied justice that some religious philosophers call karma show that over the long haul the worst thing one person can do to another is to allow the other to get away with an evil act. Any dedicated composter can make contacts yielding cheap or free organic materials by the ton. Orchards may have badly bruised or rotting fruit. Small cider mills, wineries, or a local juice bar restaurant may be glad to get rid of the pumice. Carpentry shops have sawdust. Coffee roasters have dust and chaff. The micro brewery is becoming very popular these days. Small-scale local brewers and distillers may have spent hops and mash. Spoiled product or chaff may be available from cereal mills. City governments often will deliver autumn leaves by the ton and will give away or sell the output of their own municipal composting operations. Supermarkets, produce wholesalers and restaurants may be willing to give away boxes of trimmings and spoiled food. Carbers and poodle groomers throw away hair. Seafood processors will sell truckloads of fresh crab, fish, and shrimp waste for a small fee. Of course, this material becomes evil-smelling in very short order, but might be relatively inoffensive if a person had a lot of spoiled hay or sawdust waiting to mix into it. Market gardeners near the Oregon coast sheet compost crab waste, tilling it into the soil before it goes too high. Other parts of the country might supply citrus wastes, sugarcane baggies, rice hulls, etc. About common materials Elf-elfa is a protein-rich perennial legume, mainly grown as animal feed. On favorable soil it develops a deep root system, sometimes exceeding 10 feet. Elf-elfa draws heavily on subsoil minerals, so it will be as rich or poor in nutrients as the subsoil it grew in. Its average C-to-N is around 12-to-1, making Elf-elfa useful to compensate for large quantities of less potent material. Sacked Elf-elfa meal, or pellets, are usually less expensive, and being stemmy have a slightly higher C-to-N than leafy, best quality baled Elf-elfa hay. Rain-spoiled bales of Elf-elfa hay are worthless as animal feed, but far from valueless to the composter. Pelletized rabbit feed is largely Elf-elfa fortified with grain. Naturally, rabbit manure has a C-to-N very similar to Elf-elfa and is nutrient-rich, especially if some provision is made to absorb the urine. Apple-pomice is wet and compact. If not well mixed with stiff absorbent material, large clumps of this or other fruit wastes can become airless regions of anaerobic decomposition. Having a high water content can be looked upon as an advantage. Dry hay and sawdust can be hard to moisten thoroughly. These hydrate rapidly when mixed with fruit pulp. Fermenting fruit pulp attracts yellow jackets, so it is sensible to incorporate it quickly into a pile and cover well with vegetation or soil. The watery pulp of fruits is not particularly rich in nutrients, but apple, grape, and pear pulps are generously endowed with soft, decomposable seeds. Most seeds contain large quantities of phosphorus, nitrogen, and other plant nutrients. It is generally true that plants locate much of their entire yearly nutrient assimilation into their seeds to provide the next generations with the best possible start. Animals fed on seeds, such as chickens, produce the richest manures. Older books about composting warn about metallic pesticide residues adhering to fruit skins. However, it has been nearly half a century since arsenic and lead arsenate were used as pesticides and mercury is no longer used in fungicides. Bagus is the voluminous waste product from extracting cane sugar. Its C to N is extremely high, similar to wheat straw or sawdust, and it contains very little in the way of plant nutrients. However, its coarse, strong, fibrous structure helps build lightness into a pile and improve airflow. Most sugar mills burn bagus as their heat source to evaporate water out of the sugary juice squeezed from the canes. At one time there was far more bagus produced than the mills needed to burn and bagus often became an environmental pollutant. Then bagus was available for nothing or next to nothing. These days larger modern mills generate electricity with bagus and sell their surplus to the local power grid. Bagus is also used to make construction fiberboard for subwall and insulation. Banana skins and stalks are soft and lack strong fiber. They are moderately rich in phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen. Consequently, they rot quickly. Like other kitchen garbage, banana waste should be put into the core of a compost pile to avoid attracting and breeding flies. See also garbage. Basic slag is an industrial waste from smelting iron, or is refined by heating it with limestone and dolomite. The impurities combined with calcium and magnesium rise to the surface of the molten metal and are skimmed off. Basic slag contains quite a bit of calcium, plus a variety of useful plant nutrients not usually found in limestone. Its exact composition varies greatly depending on the type of ore used. Slag is pulverized and sold in sacks as a substitute for agricultural lime. The intense biological activity of a compost pile releases more of slag's other mineral content and converts its nutrients to organic substances that become rapidly available once the compost is incorporated into soil. Other forms of powdered mineralized rock can be similarly added to a compost pile to accelerate nutrient release. Rodale Press, publisher of Organic Gardening Magazine, is located in Pennsylvania where steel mills abound. Having more experience with slag, Rodale advises the user to be alert to the fact that some contain little in the way of useful nutrients and or may contain excessive amounts of sulfur. Large quantities of sulfur can acidify soil. Read the analysis on the label. Agriculturally useful slag has an average composition of 40% calcium and 5% magnesium. It must also be very finely ground to be effective. See also lime and rock dust. Beet wastes, like vagus, are a residue of extracting sugar. They have commercial value as livestock feed and are sold as dry pulp in feed stores located near regions where sugar beets are grown. Their C to N is in the vicinity of 20 to 1 and they may contain high levels of potassium reaching as much as 4%. Brewery wastes. Both spent hops, dried flowers and leaves, and malt, sprouted barley, and often other grains, are potent nutrient resources with large C to N ratios. Spent malt is especially potent because brewers extract all the starches and convert them to sugar, but consider the proteins as waste because proteins in the brew make it cloudy and opaque. Hops may be easier to get. Malt has uses as animal feed and may be contracted for by some local feedlot or farmer. These materials will be wet, heavy, and frutally odiferous, though not unpleasantly so, and you will want to incorporate them into your compost pile immediately. Buckwheat hulls. Buckwheat is a grain grown in the northeastern United States and Canada. Adapted to poor, droughty soils, the crop is often grown as a green manure. The seeds are enclosed in a thin walled, brown-to-black fibrous hulls that are removed at a groat mill. Buckwheat hulls are light, springy, and airy. They'll help fluff up a compost heap. Buckwheat hulls are popular as a mulch because they absorb moisture easily, look attractive, and stay in place. Their C to N is high. Oaten rice hulls are similar products. Canola meal. Sea cotton seed meal. Castor pumice is pulp left after castor oil has been squeezed from castor bean seeds. Like other oil seed residues, it is very high in nitrogen, rich in other plant nutrients, particularly phosphorus. Castor pumice may be available in the deep south. It makes a fine substitute for animal manure. Citrus wastes may be available to gardeners living near industrial processors of orange, lemon, and grapefruit. In these regions, dried citrus pulp may also be available in feed stores. Dried orange skins contain about 3% phosphorus and 27% potassium. Lemons are a little higher in phosphorus, but lower in potassium. Fruit hulls would have a similar nutrient ratio on a dry weight basis, but they are largely water. Large quantities of hulls could be useful to hydrate stubbornly dry materials like straw or sawdust. Like other byproducts of industrial farming, citrus wastes may contain significant amounts of pesticide residues. The composting process will break down and eliminate most toxic, organic residues, especially if the pile gets really hot through and through. Sea also leaves. The effect of such high levels of potassium on the nutritional qualities of my food would also concern me if the compost I was making from these wastes were used for vegetable gardening. Coffee grounds are nutrient rich like other seed meals. Even after brewing, they can contain up to 2% nitrogen, about half percent phosphorus, and varying amounts of potassium, usually well below 1%. Its C to N runs around 12 to 1%. Coffee roasters and packers need to dispose of coffee chaff, similar in nutrient value to used grounds, and may occasionally have a load of overly roasted beans. Coffee grounds seem the earthworm's food of choice. In worm bins, used grounds are more vigorously devoured than any other substance. If slight odor is a consideration, especially if doing in the home vermicomposting, coffee grounds should be incorporated promptly into a pile to avoid the souring that results from vinegar-producing bacteria. Fermenting grounds may also attract harmless fruit flies. Paper filters used to make drip coffee may be put into the heap or worm box where they contribute to the bedding. See also paper. Corn cobs are no longer available as an agricultural waste product because modern harvesting equipment shreds them and spits the residue right back into the field. However, home gardeners who fancy sweet corn may produce large quantities of cobs. Whole cobs will aerate compost heaps, but are slow to decompose. If you want your pile ready within one year, it is better to dry and then ground the cobs before composting them. Cotton seed meal is one of this country's major oil seed residues. The seed is ginned out of the cotton fiber, ground, and then its oil content is chemically extracted. The residue, sometimes called oil cake or seed cake, is very high in protein and rich in NPK. Its C to N runs around 5 to 1, making it an excellent way to balance a compost pile containing a lot of carboniferous materials. Most cotton seed meal is used as animal feed, especially for beef and dairy cattle. Purchased in garden stores and small containers, it is very expensive. Bought by the 50 to 80 pound sack from feed stores or farm coops, cotton seed meal and other oil seed meals are quite inexpensive. Though prices of these types of commodities vary from year to year, oil cakes of all kinds usually cost between $200 to $400 per ton and only slightly higher purchased sacked in less-than-ton lots. The price of any seed meal is strongly influenced by freight costs. Cotton seed meal is cheapest in the south and the southwest, where cotton is widely grown. Soybean meal may be more available and priced better in the Midwest. Canadian gardeners are discovering canola meal, a byproduct from producing canola or rape seed oil. When I took a sabbatical in Fiji, I advised local gardeners to use coconut meal and inexpensive waste from extracting coconut oil. And I would not be at all surprised to discover gardeners in South Dakota using sunflower meal. Sesame seed, safflower seed, peanut and oil seed corn meals may also be available in certain localities. Seed meals make an ideal starting point for compounding complete organic fertilizer mixes. The average NPK analysis of most seed meals is around 642. Considered as a fertilizer, oil cakes are somewhat lacking in phosphorus and sometimes in trace minerals. By supplementing them with materials like bone meal, phosphate rock, kelp meal, sometimes potassium rich rock dusts and lime or gypsum, a single wide spectrum slow release trace mineral rich organic fertilizer source can be blended at home having an analysis of about 555. Cotton seed meal is particularly excellent for this purpose because it is a dry, flowing, odorless material that stores well. I suspect that cotton seed meal from the southwest may be better endowed with trace minerals than that from leached out southeastern soils or soy meal from depleted Midwestern farms. See the last section of chapter 8. Some organic certification bureaucracies foolishly prohibit or discourage the use of cotton seed meal as a fertilizer. The rationale behind this rigid self-righteousness is that cotton being a non-food crop is sprayed with heavy applications of pesticides and or herbicides that are so hazardous that they are not permitted on food crops. These chemicals are usually dissolved in an emulsified oil-based carrier and the cotton plant naturally concentrates pesticide residues and break down products into the oily seed. I believe that this concern is accurate as far as pesticide residues being translocated into the seed. However, the chemical process used to extract cotton seed oil is very efficient. The ground seeds are mixed with a volatile solvent similar to ether and heated under pressure in giant retorts. I reason that when the solvent is squeezed from the seed, it takes with it all, not only the oil, but I believe virtually all of the pesticide residues. Besides, any remaining organic toxins will be further destroyed by the biological activity of the soil and especially by the intense heat of a compost pile. What I personally worry about is cotton seed oil. I avoid prepared salad dressings that may contain cotton seed oil, as well as many types of corn and potato chips, tinned oysters, and other prepared food products. I also suggest that you peek into the back of your favorite Oriental and fast food restaurants and see if there aren't stacks of 10 gallon cotton seed oil cans waiting to fill the deep fat fryer. I fear this sort of meal is dangerous to my health. If you still fear that cotton seed meal is also a dangerous product, that you certainly won't want to be eating feedlot beef or drinking milk or using other dairy products from cattle fed on cotton seed meal. Blood meal runs 10 to 12% nitrogen and contains significant amounts of phosphorus. It is the only organic fertilizer that is naturally water soluble. Blood meal, like other slaughterhouse wastes, may be too expensive for use as a compost activator. Sprinkle the top soil as a side dressing. Dried blood usually provokes a powerful and immediate growth response. Blood meal is so potent that it is capable of burning plants. When applied, you must avoid getting it on leaves or stems. Although principally a source of nitrogen, I reason that there are other nutritional substances like growth hormones or complex organic vitamins in blood meal. British glasshouse lettuce growers widely agree that lettuce side dressed with blood meal about three weeks before harvest has a better finish, a much longer shelf life and a reduced tendency to brown butt compared to lettuce similarly fertilized with urea or chemical nitrate sources. Feathers are the bird's equivalent of hair on animals and have similar properties. Sea hair. Fish and shellfish waste. These protonaceous high nitrogen and trace mineral rich materials are readily available at little or no cost in pickup load lots from canneries and seafood processors. However, in compost piles, large quantities of these materials readily putrify, make the pile go anaerobic, emit horrid odors, and worse, attract vermin and flies. To avoid these problems, fresh seafood waste must be immediately mixed with large quantities of dry, high, sea-to-end material. There probably are only a few homestead composters able to utilize a ton or two of wet fish waste at one time. Oregonians pride themselves for being tolerant, slow-to-take-offense neighbors. Along the Oregon coast, small-scale market gardeners will thinly spread shrimp or crab waste atop a field and promptly till it in. Once incorporated in the soil, the odor rapidly dissipates in less than one week. Fishmeal is a much better alternative for use around the home. Of course, you have to have no concern for cost and have your mind fixed only on using the finest possible materials to produce the nutritionally finest food when electing to substitute fishmeal for animal manures or oil cakes. Fishmeal is much more potent than cottonseed meal. Its typical nutrient analysis runs 9-6-4. However, figured per pound of nutrients they contain, seed meals are a much less expensive way to buy NPK. Fishmeal is also mildly odiferous. The smell is nothing like wet seafood waste, but can attract cats, dogs, and vermin. What may make fishmeal worth the trouble and expense is that seawater is the ultimate depository of all water-soluble nutrients that were once in the soil. Animals and plants living in the sea enjoy complete balanced nutrition. Weston Price's classic book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, attributes nearly perfect health to humans who made seafoods a significant portion of their diets. Back in the 1930s, before processed foods were universally available in the most remote locations, people living on isolated sea coasts tended to live long, have magnificent health, and perfect teeth. Sea also kelp meal. Garbage. Most forms of kitchen waste make excellent compost, but Americans foolishly send megatons of kitchen garbage to landfills or overburden sewage treatment plants by grinding garbage in a disposal. The average C to N of garbage is rather low, so its presence in a compost heap facilitates the decomposition of less potent materials. Kitchen garbage can also be recycled in other ways, such as vermicomposting, worm boxes, and burying it in the garden in trenches or post holes. These alternative posting methods will be discussed in some detail later. Putting food scraps and wastes down a disposal is obviously the least troublesome and apparently the most sanitary method, passing the problem on to others. Handled with a little forethought, composting home food waste will not breed flies or make the kitchen untidy or ill-smelling. The most important single step in keeping the kitchen clean and free of odor is to put wastes in a small plastic bucket or other container of one or two gallons in size and empty it every few days. Periodically adding a thin layer of sawdust or peat moss supposedly helps to prevent smells. In our kitchen we've found that covering the compost bucket is no alternative to emptying it. When incorporating kitchen wastes into a compost pile, spread them thinly and cover with an inch or two of leaves, dry grass, or hay to prevent wetness and prevent access by flies. It may be advisable to use a vermin-tight composting bin. Granite dust, sea rock dust. Grape wastes, sea apple pumice. Grass clippings. Along with kitchen garbage, grass clippings are the compostable material most available to the average homeowner. Even if you wisely don't compost all of your clippings, see sidebar, your foolish neighbors may bag theirs up for you to take away. If you mulch with grass clippings, make sure the neighbors aren't using weed and feed type fertilizers, or the clippings may cause the plants that are mulched to die. Traces of those types of broadleaf herbicides allowed in weed and feed fertilizers are thoroughly decomposed in the composting process. It is not necessary to return every bit of organic matter to maintain a healthy lawn. Perhaps one-third to one-half the annual biomass production may be taken away and used for composting without seriously depleting the lawn's vigor, especially if one application of a quality fertilizer is given to the lawn each year. Probably the best time of year to remove clippings is during the spring while the grass is growing most rapidly. Once a clover-grass mix is established, it is less necessary to use nitrogen fertilizers. In fact, high levels of soil nitrates reduces the clover's ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen. However, additions of other mineral nutrients, like phosphorus, potassium, and especially calcium, may still be necessary. Lawn health is similar to garden health. Both depend on the presence of large enough quantities of organic material in the soil. This organic matter holds a massive reserve of nutrition built up over the years by the growing plants themselves. When for reasons of momentary aesthetics we bag up and remove clippings from our lawn, we prevent the grass from recycling its own fertility. It was once mistakenly believed that unraged lawn clippings built up on the ground as unroded thatch, promoting harmful insects and diseases. This is a half-truth. Lawns repeatedly fertilized with sulfur-based chemical fertilizers, especially ammonium sulfate and superfosphate, become so acid and thus so hostile to bacterial decomposition and soil animals that a thatch of unroded clippings and dead sod can build up and thus promote disease and insect problems. However, lawns given lime or gypsum to supply calcium that is so vital to the healthy growth of clover and seed meals and or dressings of finely decomposed compost or manure become naturally healthy. Clippings falling on such a lawn rot rapidly because of the high level of microorganisms in the soil and disappear in days. Dwarf white clover can produce all the nitrate-nitrogen that grasses need to stay green and grow lustily. Once this state of health is developed, broad-leaf weeds have a hard time competing with the lusty grass clover sod and gradually disappear. Fertilizing will rarely be necessary again if little biomass is removed. Homeowners who demand the spiffy appearance of a raked lawn but still want a healthy lawn have several options. They may compost their grass clippings and then return the compost to the lawn. They may use a side discharge mower and cut two days in secession. The first cut will leave rows of clippings to dry on the lawn. The second cut will disintegrate those clippings and pretty much make them disappear. Finally, there are mulching mowers with blades that chop green grass clippings into tiny pieces and drops them below the mower where they are unnoticeable. Grass clippings, especially spring grass, are very high in nitrogen, similar to the best horse or cow manure. Anyone who has piled up fresh grass clippings has noticed how rapidly they heat up, how quickly the pile turns into a slimy, airless, foul-smelling anaerobic mess, and how much ammonia may be given off. Green grass should be thoroughly dispersed into a pile with plenty of dry material. Reserve bags of leaves from the fall or have a bale of straw handy to mix in if needed. Clippings allowed to sun dry for a few days before raking or bagging behave much better in the compost heap. Green sand, see rock dust. Hair contains ten times the nitrogen of most manures. It resists absorbing moisture and readily compresses mats and sheds water, so hair needs to be mixed with other wetter materials. If I had easy access to a barber shop, beauty salon, or poodle grooming business, I'd definitely use hair in my compost. Feathers, feather meal, and feather dust, a bird's equivalent to hair, have similar qualities. Hay. In temperate climates, pasture grasses go through an annual cycle that greatly changes their nutrient content. Lawn grasses are not very different. The first cuttings of spring grass are potent sources of nitrogen, high in protein, and other vital mineral nutrients. In fact, spring grass may be as good an animal feed as alfalfa or other legume hay. Young ryegrass, for example, may exceed 2% nitrogen, equaling about 13% protein. That's why cattle and horses on fresh spring grass frisk around, and why June butter is so dark yellow, vitamin rich, and good flavored. In late spring, grasses begin to form seed, and their chemical composition changes. With the emergence of the seed stock, nitrogen content drops markedly, and the leaves become more fibrous, lignanous, and consequently more reluctant to decompose. At pollination, ryegrass has dropped to about 1% nitrogen, and by the time mature seed has developed to about 0.75%. These realities have profound implications for haymaking, for using grasses as green manures, or evaluating the C to N of hay you may be planning to use in a compost heap. In earlier times, making grass hay that would be nutritious enough to maintain the health of cattle required cutting the grass before or just at the first appearance of seed stocks. Not only did early harvesting greatly reduce the bulk yield, it usually meant that without concern for cost or hours of labor, it would have been much easier to keep the grass dry than it would have been if the seeds had been stakingly dried at a time of year when there were more frequent rains and lower temperatures. In 19th century England, drying grass was draped by hand over low hurdles, dotting each pasture with hundreds of small racks that shed water like thatched roofs, and allowed airflow from below. They picked up on that rich spring milk and the first garden greens of the year exuberantly racing each other across the just mowed fields during haying season. In more recent years fresh wet spring grass was packed green into pits and made into silage where a controlled anaerobic fermentation retained its nutritional content much like sauerkraut keeps cabbage. Silage makes drying unnecessary. These days farm labor is expensive and tractors are relatively inexpensive. It seems that grass hay must be cut later when the weather is more stable, economically dried on the ground, prevented from molding by frequent raking, and then bailed mechanically. In regions enjoying relatively rainless springs or where agriculture depends on irrigation, the system may result in quality hay, but most modern farmers must supplement the low quality hay with oil cakes or other concentrates. Where I live, springs are cool and damp, and the weather may not stabilize until mid-June. By this date, grass seed is already formed and beginning to dry down. This means our local grass hay is very low in protein, has a high C to N, and is very woody, little better than straw. Pity the poor horses and cattle that must try to extract enough nutrition from this stuff. Western Oregon weather conditions also mean that farmers often end up with rain-spoiled hay they are happy to sell cheaply. Many years I've made enough compost piles largely from this kind of hay. One serious liability from cutting grass hay late is that it will contain viable seeds. The process does not thoroughly heat all of these seeds. The compost will sprout grass all over the garden. One last difficulty with poor quality grass hay. The tough woody stems are reluctant to absorb moisture. The best way to simultaneously overcome all of these liabilities is first to permit the bales to thoroughly spoil and become moldy through and through before composting them. Next round I spread them out on the ground in a single layer and leave them in the rain for an entire winter. Doing this sprouts most of the grass seed within the bales, thoroughly moistened the hay, and initiates decomposition. Next summer I pick up this material, remove the baling twine and mix it into compost piles with plenty of more nitrogenous stuff. One last word about grass and how it works when green maneuvering. The next stand of grasses is tilled in during spring before seed formation begins. Its high nitrogen content encourages rapid decomposition. Material containing 2% nitrogen and lacking a lot of tough fiber can be totally rotted and out of the way in two weeks, leaving the soil ready to plant. This variation on green maneuvering works like a charm. However, if unsettled weather conditions affect tillage until seed formation has begun, the grasses will contain much less nitrogen and will have developed a higher content of resistant lignans. If the soil does not become dry and large reserves of nitrogen are already wasting the soil to balance the high C to N of mature grass, it may take only a month to decompose, but there will be so much decomposition going on for the first few weeks that even seed germination is inhibited. Having to wait an unexpected month or six weeks after wet weather prevented forming an early seed bed may delay sowing for so long that the season is missed for the entire year. Obstacles like this must be kept in mind when considering using green maneuvering as a soil building technique. Cutting the grass close to the soil line and composting the vegetation off the field eliminates this problem. And horn meal. Did you know that animals construct their hooves and horns from compressed hair? The meal is similar in nutrient composition to blood meal, leather dust, feather meal, or meat meal, tankage. It is a powerful source of nitrogen with significant amounts of phosphorus. Like other slaughterhouse byproducts, its high cost may make it impractical to use to adjust the C to N compost piles. Seed meals or chicken manure chickens are mainly fed seeds have somewhat lower nitrogen contents than animal byproducts, but their price per pound of actual nitrogen is more reasonable. If hoof and horn meal is not dispersed through a pile it may draw flies and putrify. I would prefer to use expensive slaughterhouse concentrates to blend into organic fertilizer mixes. Juicer pulp. See apple pumice. Kelp meals from several countries are available in feed and grain stores and better garden centers. Usually in 25 kilogram, 55 pound sacks ranging in cost from $20 to $50. Considering this spendy price I consider using kelp meal more justifiable in complete organic fertilizer mixes as a source of trace minerals than as a composting supplement. There is a great deal of garden lore about kelp meals growth stimulating and stress fortifying properties. Some garden store brands tout these qualities in charge of very high price. The best prices are found at feed dealers where kelp meal is considered a bulk commodity useful as an animal food supplement. I've purchased kelp meal from Norway, Korea and Canada. There are probably other types of kelp meals from other places. I don't think there is a significant difference in the mineral content of one source compared to another. I do not deny that there may be differences in how well the packers processing method preserved kelp's multitude of beneficial complex organic chemicals that improve the growth and overall health of plants by functioning as growth stimulants, vitamins and who knows what else. Still I prefer to buy by organic because after gardening for over twenty years garden writing for fifteen and being in the mail order garden seed business for seven I have been on the receiving end of countless amazing claims by touters of agricultural snake oils. After testing out dozens of such concoctions I tended to disbelieve mystic contentions of unique superiority. See also seaweed. Leather dust is a waste product of tanneries similar to hoof and horn meal or tankage. It may or may not be contaminated with high levels of chromium, a substance used to tan suede. If only vegetable tanned leather is produced at the tannery in question, leather dust should be a fine soil amendment. Some organic certification bureaucrats prohibit its use perhaps rightly so in this case. Leaves Soil nutrients are dissolved by rain and leached from surface layers transported to the subsoil, then the ground water and ultimately into the salty sea. Trees have deep root systems reaching far into the subsoil to bring plant nutrients back up making them nature's nutrient recycler. Because they greatly increase soil fertility J. Russell Smith called trees great engines of production. Anyone who has not read his visionary book Tree Crops should. Though written in 1929 this classic book is currently in print. Once each year, leaves are available in large quantity but aren't the easiest material to compost. Rich in minerals but low in nitrogen, they are generally slow to decompose and tend to pack into an airless mass. However, if mixed with manure or other high nitrogen amendment enough firm material to prevent compaction, leaves rot as well as any other substance. Running dry leaves through a shredder or grinding them with a lawnmower greatly accelerates their decomposition. Of all the materials I've ever put through a garden grinder, dry leaves are the easiest and run the fastest. Once chopped, leaves occupy much less volume. My neighbor John, a very serious gardener like me, keeps several large garbage cans filled with pulverized dry leaves for use as mulch when needed. Where I a northern gardener I'd store shredded dry leaves in plastic bags over the winter to mix into compost piles when spring grass clippings and other more potent materials were available. Some people fear using urban leaves because they may contain automotive pollutants such as oil and rubber components. Such worries are probably groundless. Dave Campbell, who ran the City of Portland, Oregon and the Windrow of Maintenance Leaf Composting Program, said he has run tests for heavy metals in pesticide residues on every windrow of compost he has made. Almost all our tests so far have shown less than the background level for heavy metals and no traces of pesticides, including chlorinated and organophosphated pesticides. It is very rare for there to be any problem. Campbell tells an interesting story that points out how thoroughly pesticide residues. He said once I was curious about some leaves we were getting from a city park where I knew the trees had been sprayed with a pesticide just a month before the leaves fell and we collected them. In this case, I had the uncomposted leaves tested and then the compost tested. In the fresh leaves a trace of residue was detected but by the time the composting process was finished no detectable level was found. There is no disputing that calcium is a vital soil nutrient as essential to the formation of plant and animal proteins as nitrogen. Soils deficient in calcium can be inexpensively improved by adding agricultural lime which is relatively pure calcium carbonate, CaCO3. The use of agricultural lime or dolomitic lime in compost piles is somewhat controversial. Even the most authoritative of authorities disagree. There is no disputing that the calcium content of plant materials and animal manure resulting from that plant material is very dependent on the amount of calcium available in the soil. Chapter 8 contains quite a thorough discussion of this very phenomena. If a compost pile is made from a variety of materials grown on soils that contain adequate calcium then adding additional lime should be unnecessary. However if the materials being composted are themselves deficient in calcium then the organisms of decomposition may not develop fully. While preparing this book I queried the venerable Dr. Herbert H. Koff about lime in the compost heap. Koff's biodynamic books served as my own introduction to gardening in the early 1970s. He is still active though he is in his late 70s. Koff believes that lime is not necessary when composting mixtures that contain significant amounts of manure because the decomposition of protonaceous materials develops a more or less neutral pH. However when composting mixtures of vegetation without manure the conditions tend to become very acid and bacterial fermentation is inhibited. To correct low pH Koff recommends agricultural lime at 25 pounds per ton of vegetation the weight figured on a dry matter basis. To guesstimate dry weight remember that green vegetation is 70 to 80 percent water. To prevent organic material like hay from spoiling it is first dried down to a below 15 percent moisture. There is another reason to make sure that a compost pile contains an abundance of calcium. Azobacteria that can fix nitrate nitrogen in mellowing compost piles depends for their activity on the availability of calcium. Adding agricultural lime in such a situation may be very useful, greatly speed the decomposition process and improve the quality of the compost. Albert Howard used small amounts of lime in his compost piles specifically to aid nitrogen fixation. He also incorporated significant quantities of fresh bovine manure at the same time. However adding lime to heating manure piles results in the loss of large quantities of ammonia gas. Perhaps this is the reason some people are using lime in their composting process. Keep in mind that a manure pile is not a compost pile. Although both will heat up and decay, the starting C to N of a barnyard manure pile runs around 10 to 1 while a compost heap of yard waste and kitchen garbage runs 25 to 1 to 30 to 1. Anytime highly nitrogenous materials such as fresh manures or spring grass clippings are permitted to decompose without adjustment of carbon to nitrogen ratio with less potent stuff, ammonia tends to be released, lime or not. Only agricultural lime or slightly better dolomitic lime are useful in compost piles. Quick lime or slated lime are made from heated limestone and undergo a violent chemical reaction when mixed with water. They may be fine for making cement but not for most agricultural purposes. Linseed Meal Sea Cotton Seed Meal Maneur Fresh manure can be the single most useful addition to the compost pile. What makes it special is the presence of large quantities of active digestive enzymes. These enzymes seem to contribute to more rapid heating and result in a finer textured, more completely decomposed compost that provokes a greater growth response in plants. Cattle and other multi-stomach ruminants also contains cellulose decomposing bacteria. Soil animals supply similar digestive enzymes as they work over the litter on the forest floor but before insects and other tiny animals can eat much of a compost heap. Well made piles will heat up, driving out or killing everything except microorganisms and fungi. All of the above might be of interest to the country dweller or serious backyard food grower but probably sounds highly impractical to most of this book's readers. Don't despair if fresh manure is not available or if using it is unappealing. Compost made with fresh unheated manure works only a little faster and produces just a slightly better product than compost activated with seed meals. Slaughterhouse concentrates ground alfalfa, grass clippings, kitchen garbage, or even dried sack manures. Compost made without any manure still makes. When evaluating manure keep in mind the many pitfalls. Fresh manure is very valuable but if you obtain some that has been heaped up and permitted to heat up much of its nitrogen may already have dissipated as ammonia while the valuable digestive enzymes will have been destroyed by the high temperature at the heaps core. A similar degradation happens to digestive enzymes when manure is dried and sacked. Usually dried manure comes from feedlots where it has also first been stacked wet and gone through a violent heating process. So if I were going to use sacked dried manure to lower the seed to end of a compost pile I'd evaluate it strictly on its cost per pound of actual nitrogen. In some cases seed meals might be cheaper and better able to drop the heaps carbon to nitrogen ratio even more than manure. There are many kinds of manure and various samples of the same type of manure may not be equal. This demonstrates the principle of what goes in comes out. Plants concentrate proteins and mineral nutrients in their seed so animals fed on seed like chickens excrete manure nearly as high in minerals and with a C to N like seed meals around 8 to 1. Alfalfa hay is a legume with a C to N around 12 to 1. Rabbits fed almost exclusively on alfalfa pellets make a rich manure with a similar C to N. Spring grass and high quality hay and other leafy greens have a C to N nearly as good as alfalfa. Livestock fed the best hay supplemented with grain and silage make fairly rich manure. Pity the unfortunate livestock trying to survive as straw burners eating overly mature grass hay from depleted fields. Their manure will be as poor as the food and soil they are trying to live on. When evaluating manure also consider the nature and quantity of bedding mixed into it. Our local boarding stables keep their lazy horses on fur sawdust. The idle riding horses are usually fed very strawy local grass hay with just enough supplemental alfalfa and grain to maintain a minimal healthy condition. The manure I've hauled from these stables seems more sawdust than manure. It must have a C to N of 50 or 60 to 1 because by itself it will barely heat up. Maneuver mixed with straw is usually richer stuff. Often this type comes from dairies. Modern breeds of milk cows must be fed seed meals and other concentrates to temporarily sustain them against depletion from unnaturally high milk production. Meat and chicken, horse manure from well fed animals like race horses or true working animals may come next. Certainly it is right up there with the best cow manure. Before the era of chemical fertilizer market gardeners on the outskirts of large cities took wagon loads of produce to market and returned with an equivalent weight of street sweepings. What they most prized was called short manure or horse manure manure and bedding mixtures were referred to as long manure and weren't considered nearly as valuable. Finally remember that over half the excretion of animals is urine and far too little value is placed on urine. As early as 1900 it was well known that if you fed one ton dry weight of hay and measured the resulting manure after thorough drying only 800 pounds was left. What happened to the other 1200 pounds of dry material? Some of course went to grow the animal. Some was enzymatically burned as energy fuel and its wastes given off as CO2 and H2O. Most of it was excreted in liquid form. After all what is digestion but an enzymatic conversion of dry material into a water solution so it can be circulated through the bloodstream to be used and discarded as needed. Urine also contains numerous complex organic substances and cellular breakdown products that improve the health of the soil ecology. Urine also contains numerous complex organic substances and cellular breakdown products that improve the health of the soil ecology. However urine is not easy to capture. It tends to leach into the ground or runoff when it should be absorbed into bedding. Chicken manure and the excrements of other fowl are particularly valuable as respect because the liquids and solids of their wastes are uniformly mixed so nothing is lost. When Howard worked out his system of making superior compost at indoor he took full measure of the value of urine and paid great care to its capture and use. Paper is almost pure cellulose and has a very high C to N like straw or sawdust. It can be considered a valuable source of bulk for composting and compost as mulch. Looked upon another way composting can be a practical way to recycle paper at home. The key to composting paper is to shred or grind it. Layers of paper will compress into airless mats. Motor driven hammer mill shredders will make short work of dry paper. Once torn into tiny pieces and mixed with other materials paper is no more subject to compaction than grass clippings. Without power shredding equipment newsprint can be shredded by hand easily ripped into narrow strips by tearing whole sections along the grain of the paper not fighting against it. Evaluating nitrogen content A one cubic foot bag of dried steer manure weighs 25 pounds and is labeled 1% nitrogen. That means four sacks weighs 100 pounds and contains one pound of actual nitrogen. A 50 pound bag of cottonseed meal contains 6% nitrogen. Two sacks weighs 100 pounds and contains 6 pounds of actual nitrogen. Therefore it takes 24 sacks of steer manure to equal the nitrogen contained in two sacks of cottonseed meal. If steer manure costs $1.50 per sack 6 pounds of actual nitrogen from steer manure costs 24 times $1.50 if 50 pounds of cottonseed meal costs $7.50 then 6 pounds of actual nitrogen from cottonseed meal costs 2 times $7.50 which equals $15. Now let's take a brief moment to see why industrial farmers thinking only of immediate financial profit use chemical fertilizers. Urea, a synthetic form of urine used as nitrogen fertilizer contains 48% nitrogen. So 100 pounds of urea contains 48 pounds of nitrogen. That quantity of urea also costs about $15. Without taking into account its value in terms of phosphorus, potassium, and other mineral contents, nitrogen from seed meal costs at least 8 times as much per pound as nitrogen from urea. Newspapers, even with colored inks can be safely used in compost piles though some colored inks do contain heavy metals. These are not used on newsprint. However, before beginning to incorporate newsprint into your composting reconsider the analysis of various types of compost broken out as a table in the previous chapter. The main reason many municipal composting programs make a low grade product with such a high C to N is the large proportion of paper used. If your compost is intended for use as mulch around annual beds, or to be screened and broadcast atop lawns, then having a nitrogen poor product is of little consequence. But if your compost is headed for the vegetable garden, oral would be used to grow the largest possible prized flowers than perhaps newsprint could be recycled in another way. Cardboard, especially corrugated material, is superior to newsprint for compost making because its biodegradable glues contain significant amounts of nitrogen. Worms love to consume cardboard mulch. Like other forms of paper, cardboard should be shredded ground or chopped as finely as possible and thoroughly mixed with other materials when composted. Pet wastes may contain disease organisms that infect humans. Though municipal composting systems can safely eliminate such diseases, home composting of dog and cat manure may be risky if the compost is intended for food gardening. Phosphate rock If your garden soil is deficient in phosphorus, adding rock phosphate to the compost pile may accelerate its availability in the garden, far more effectively than adding phosphate to soil. If the vegetation in your vicinity comes from soils similarly deficient in phosphorus, adding phosphate rock will support a healthier decomposition ecology and improve the quality of your compost. 5 to 10 pounds of rock phosphate added to a cubic yard of uncomposted organic matter is about the right amount. Rice hulls Sea buckwheat hulls Rock dust All plant nutrients except nitrogen originally come from decomposing rock. Not all rocks contain equal concentrations and assortments of the elements plants need for nutrients. Consequently not all soils lustily grow healthy plants. One very natural way to improve the overall fertility of soil is to spread and till in finely ground rock flour made from highly mineralized rocks. This method is not a new idea. Limestone and dolomite, soft easily powdered rocks, have been used for centuries to add calcium and magnesium. For over a century rock phosphate and kynate a soft readily soluble naturally occurring rock rich in potassium magnesium and sulfur have been ground and used as fertilizer. Other natural rock sources like jersey green sand have long been used in the eastern United States in some unusual potassium deficient soils. Lately it has become fashionable to remineralize the earth with heavy applications of rock flowers. Unlike most fads and trends this one is wise and should endure. The best rocks to use are finely ground basic igneous rocks like basalts. They are called basic as opposed to acid rocks because they are richer in calcium and magnesium with lesser quantities of potassium. When soil forms from these materials it tends to not be acid. Most basic igneous rocks also contain a wide range of trace mineral nutrients. I have observed marked improvements in plant growth by incorporating ordinary basalt dust that I personally shoveled from below a conveyor belt roller in a historical quarry where crushed rock was being prepared for road building. Basalt dust was an unintentional byproduct. Though highly mineralized rock dust may be a valuable soil amendment its value must equal its cost. Application rates of one or two pounds per acre are minimal. John Hammackers, the survival of civilization suggests 8 to 10 tons per acre the first application then one every few years thereafter. This means the correct price for rock dust is similar to the price for agricultural lime. In my region that's about $60 to $80 a ton in sacks. Local farmers pay about $40 a ton in bulk including spreading on their field by the seller. A 50 pound sack of rock dust should retail for about $2. These days it probably costs several times that price tending to keep rock dust a novelty item. The activities of fungi and bacteria are the most potent forces making nutrients available to plants as useful as tilling rock powders into soil may be. The intense biological activity of the compost pile accelerates their availability and the presence of these minerals may well make a compost pile containing nutrient deficient vegetation work faster and become better fertilizer. Were the right types of rock dust in my region too cheap? I'd make it about 5% by volume of my heap and equal that with rich soil. Safflower seed meal sea cotton seed meal. Saw dust contains virtually nothing but carbon. In small quantities it is useful to fluff up compost piles and prevent compaction. However this is only true of coarse material like that from saw mills or chain saws. The fine saw dust from plant work may compact and become airless. See paper for a discussion of lowering the fertilizing value of compost with high seed and materials. Seaweed when freshly gathered is an extraordinary material for the compost pile. Like most living things from the ocean seaweeds are rich in all of the trace minerals and contain sufficient amounts of the major nutrients especially potassium with lesser amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen. Seaweeds enrich the heap, decompose very rapidly and assist other materials to break down. Though heavy and often awkward to gather and haul, if they are available seaweeds should not be permitted to go to waste. Those with unlimited money can use sprinklings of kelp meal in the compost pile to get a similar effect. However kelp meal may be more economically used as part of a complete organic fertilizer mixture that is worked into soil. Shrop and tree prunians are difficult materials to compost unless you have a shredder chipper. Even after being incorporated into one hot compost heap after another half inch diameter twigs may take several years to fully decompose. And turning a heap containing long branches can be very difficult. But buying power equipment just to grind a few cart loads of hedge and tree prunians each year may not be economical. My suggestion is to neatly tie any sticks larger than your little finger into tight bundles about one foot in diameter and about 16 inches long and then burn these faggots in the fireplace or wood stove. This will be less work in the long run. Soil is an often overlooked but critically important part of compost pile. Least of its numerous benefits soil contains infinitudes of microorganisms that help start out decomposition. Many compostable materials come with bits of soil already attached and few are sterile in themselves. But extra soil ensures there will initially be a sufficient number and variety of these valuable organisms. Soil also contains insoluble materials that are made soluble by biological activity. Some of these materials may be in short supply in the organic matter itself and their addition may improve the health and vigor of the whole decomposition ecology. A generous addition of rock dust may do this even better. Most important, soil contains nitrification microorganisms that readily convert ammonia gas to nitrates and clay that will catch and temporarily hold ammonia. Nitrifying bacteria do not live outside of soil. Finally, a several inch thick layer of soil capping the heap serves as an extra insulator holding in heat, raising the core temperature and helping seal in moisture. Making a compost heap as much as 10% soil by dry weight is the right target. Try thinking of soil somewhat like the moderators in an atomic reactor, controlling the reaction by trapping neutrons. Soil won't change the C to N of a heap, but not being subject to significant breakdown it will slightly lower the maximum temperature of decomposition while trapping ammonia emissions and creating better conditions for nitrogen fixing bacteria to improve the C to N as the heap cools and ripens. Soybean Meal See Cotton Seed Meal Straw is a carboniferous material similar to sawdust but usually contains more nutrients. It is a valuable aerator each stock acting as a tube for air to enter and move through the pile. Large quantities of long straw can make it very difficult to turn a heap the first time. I'd much prefer to have manure mixed with straw dust. Sunflower Seed Meal See Cotton Seed Meal Tankage is another slaughter house or rendering plant waste consisting of all animal refuse except blood and fat. Locally it is called Meat Meal See Hoof & Horn Meal Tofu Factory Waste Okara is the pulp left after soy milk has been squeezed from cooked ground soybeans. Small-scale tofu makers will have many gallons of Okara to dispose of each day. It makes good pig food so there may be competition to obtain it. Like any other seed waste Okara is high in nitrogen and will be wet and readily putrefiable like brewery waste. Mix into compost piles immediately. Urine See Maneur Weeds Their nutrient content is highly variable depending on the species and age of the plant. Weeds gone to seed are both low in nitrogen and require locating in the center of a hot heap to kill off the seeds. Tender young weeds are as rich in nitrogen as spring grass. Weeds that propagate through underground systems or rhizomes like quackgrass, Johnson grass, bittersweet and the like are better burnt. Wood Ash from Hardwoods is rich in potassium and contains significant amounts of calcium and other minerals. Ash from conifers may be similarly rich in potassium but contains little else. Wood ashes spread on the ground tend to lose their nutrients rapidly through leaching. If these nutrients are needed in your soil then add the ash to your compost piles where it will become an unreachable part of the biomass that will be gradually released in the garden when the compost is used. Wood chips are slow to decompose although they may be added to the compost pile if one is not in a hurry. Their chunkiness and stiff mechanical properties help aerate a heap. They are somewhat more nutrient rich than sawdust. Wool wastes are also called shoddy. See hair. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Of Organic Gardeners Composting This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Read by Betsy Bush in Marquette, Michigan December 2008 Organic gardeners composting by Steve Solomon Chapter 5 Methods and Variations Growing the majority of my family's food absorbs all of the energy I care to put into gardening so my yard is neat and shaggy. Motivated by what I consider total rationality my lawn is cut only when it threatens to overwhelm the lawnmower and the lawn is not irrigated so it browns off and stops growing in summer. I don't grow flowers because I live on a river in a beautiful countryside setting surrounded by low mountains. Nothing I created could begin to compete with what nature freely offers my eye. One untidy bed of ornamentals by the front door are my bow to conventionality. But these fifth the entrances northeast aspect by being Oregon Woods natives like ferns, salel, Oregon grape and an almost wild rhododendron. All these species thrive without irrigation. When I give lectures I am confronted by the amazing gardening variations that humans are capable of. Some folks raised vegetable beds are crude low mounds. Then I am shown photographs of squared paralleled vertical walled raised beds uniformly wrapped in cedar planks. Some gardens are planted in fairly straight rows. Some are laid out in carefully calculated inter-planted hexagonal sessions and some are a wild scattering of catch-as-catch can. Some people don't eat many kinds of vegetables yet grow large stands of corn and beans for canning or freezing. Others grow small patches of a great many species creating a year round gourmet produce a stand for their personal enjoyment. Some gardeners grow English style floral displays occupying every square inch of their yards and offering a constant secession of color and texture. This chapter presents some of the many different ways people handle the disposal of yard and kitchen wastes. Compost making, like gardening gardens and temperament. You probably weren't surprised at my casual landscaping because you already read about my unkempt compost heap. So I am similarly not surprised to discover backyard composting methods as neat as a German village as aesthetic as a Japanese garden as scientific as an engineer would design and as ugly as containers and other similar methods. In my days of youthful discussions I thought I could improve life on earth by civilizing high school youth through engendering in them an understanding of history. I confess I almost completely failed and gave up teaching after a few years. However I personally learned a great deal about history and the telling of history. I read many old journals, diaries and travel accounts. From some of these documents I gained little while other accounts introduced the individuals who assisted me in understanding their era. It seemed that what differentiates good from bad reporting is how frank and honest the reporter is about their own personal opinions, prejudices and outlooks. The more open and erect the reporter the better the reader can discount inevitable distortions and get a picture of what might really have been there. The more the reporter attempts to be objective by hiding their viewpoints and able their information. That is why before discussing those manufactured aids to composting that can make a consumer of you I want to inform you that I am a frugal person who shuns unnecessary expenditure. I maintain what seems to me to be a perfect justification for my stinginess. I prefer relative unemployment. Whenever I want to buy something it has become my habit first to ask myself if the desired object will possibly bring me as much pleasure as knowing that I don't have to get up and go to work the next morning. Usually I decide to save the money so I do not have to earn more. On extremis I repeat the old Yankee marching chant like a mantra. Make do, wear it out. When it is gone, do without. So I do not own a shredder grinder when patients will take its place. I do not buy or make composting containers when a country lifestyle and not conforming to the neatness standards of others makes bins or tumblers unnecessary. However I do grudgingly accept that others live differently. Let me warn you that my descriptions of composting aids and accessories are probably a little jaundiced. I am doing my best to be fair. Visual appeal is the primary benefit of making compost in a container. To a tidy northern European sense of order any composting structure will be far neater than the raw beauty of a naked heap. Composting container designs may offer additional advantages but no single structure will do everything possible. With an enclosure it may be possible to heat up a pile smaller than one foot by four foot by four foot because the walls and sometimes the top of the container may be insulating. This is a great advantage to someone with a postage stamp back yard that treasures every square foot. Similarly, wrapping the heap retards moisture loss. Some structures shut out vermin. On the other hand structures can make it more difficult to make compost. Using a prefabricated bin can prevent a person from readily turning the heap and can almost force a person to also buy some sort of shredder chipper to first reduce the size of the materials. Also viewed as a depreciating economic asset with a limited lifespan many composting aids cost as much or more money as the value of all the material they can ever turn out. Financial cost relates to ecological cost so spending money on short-lived plastic or easily rusted metal may negate any environmental benefit gained from recycling yard wastes. Building your own bin Probably the best homemade composting design is the multiple bin system where separate compartments facilitate continuous decomposition. Each bin is about four feet on a side and three to four feet tall. Usually the dividing walls between bins are shared. Always each bin opens completely at the front. I think the best design has removable slatted separators between a series of four, not three in three declining sizes. Two large, one medium large and one smaller. Alternately, bins may be constructed of unmordered concrete blocks with removable wooden fronts. Permanently constructed bins of mordered concrete block or wood may have moisture-attentative rain-protective hinged lids. There are two workable composting systems that fit these structures. Most composters obtain materials too gradually to make a large heap all at once. In this case, my suggestion is the four bin system. Using one large bin is a storage area for dry vegetation. Begin composting in bin two by mixing the dry contents temporarily stored in bin one with kitchen garbage, grass clippings, and etc. Once bin two is filled and heating, remove its front slats and the side slats separating it from bin three and turn the pile into bin three. Gradually, reinserting the side slats as bin three is filled. Bin three, being about two-thirds the size of bin two, will be filled to the brim. A new pile can be forming in bin two while bin three is cooking. When bin three has settled significantly, repeat the process turning bin three into bin four, etc. By the time the material has reheated in bin four and cooled you will have finished or close to finished compost. At any point during this turning that resistant, unrodded material is discovered, instead of passing it on, it may be thrown back to an earlier bin to go through yet another decomposition stage. Perhaps the cleverest design of this type takes advantage of any significant slope or hill available to a lazy gardener and places a series of separate bins one above the next, eliminating any need for removable side slats, while making tossing compost down to the next container relatively easy. A simply constructed alternative avoids making removable slats between bins, or of lifting the material over the walls to toss it from bin to bin. Here, each bin is treated as a separate and discrete compost process. When it is time to turn the heap the front is removed and the heap is turned right back into its original container. To accomplish this it may be necessary to first shovel about half of the material out of the bin onto a work area then turn what is remaining in the bin and then cover it with what was shoveled out. Gradually the material in the bin shrinks and decomposes. When finished the compost will fill only a small fraction of the bin's volume. My clever students at the Urban Farm Class, University of Oregon have made a very inexpensive compost bin structure of this type using recycled industrial wood pallets. They are held erect by nailing them to pressure treated defense posts stuck into the earth. The removable doors are also pallets hooked on with bailing wire. The flimsy pallets rot in a couple of years but obtaining more free pallets is easy. If I were building a more finished three or four bin series I would use rot resistant wood like cedar and or thoroughly paint the wood with a non-phytotoxic wood preservative like cuprenol copper naphthenate. Cuprenol is not as permanent as other types of wood preservatives and may have to be reapplied every two or three years. Bins reduce moisture loss and wood bins have the additional advantage of being fairly good thermal insulators. One inch of wood is as much insulation as one foot of solid concrete. Composting containers also have a potential disadvantage reducing air flow slowing decomposition and possibly making the process go anaerobic. Should this happen air flow can be improved by supporting the heap on a slatted floor made of upended cuprenol treated two by fours about three inches apart tacked into the back wall. Air ducts inexpensively made from perforated plastic septic system leach line are laid between the slats to greater enhance air flow. I wouldn't initially build a bin array with ducted floors. These can be added as an afterthought if necessary. Much simpler bins can be constructed out of two inch by four inch mesh by 36 inch or 48 inch high strong welded wire fencing commonly called turkey wire the fencing is formed into cylinders four or five feet in diameter. I think a serious gardener might need one five foot circle and two four foot diameter ones. Turkey wire is stiff enough to support itself when formed into a circle by hooking the fence upon itself. This home rolled wire bin system is the least expensive of all. As compostable materials are available the wire circle is gradually filled. Once the bin has been loaded and has settled somewhat the wire may be unhooked and peeled away. The material will hold itself in a cylindrical shape without further support. After a month or two the heap will have settled significantly and will be ready to be turned into a smaller wire cylinder. Again the material is allowed to settle and then if desired the wire may be removed to be used again to form another neatly shaped heap. Wire enclosed heaps encourage air circulation but can also encourage drying out. Their proper location is in full shade. In hot dry climates moisture retention may be improved by wrapping a length of plastic sheeting around the outside of the circle and if necessary by draping another plastic sheet over the top. However doing this limits air flow and prevents removal of the wire from being stored. You may have to experiment with how much moisture retention the heap can stand without going anaerobic. To calculate the length of wire circumference necessary to enclose any desired diameter use the formula circumference equals diameter times 3.14. For example to make a 5 foot circle 5 times 3.14 equals approximately 16 feet of wire. With the exception of the tumbler commercially made compost bins are derived from one of these two systems. Usually the factory made wire bins are formed into rectangles instead of circles and may be made of PVC coated steel instead of galvanized wire. I see no advantage in buying a wire bin over making one other than supporting unnecessary stages of manufacture and distribution by spending more money. Turkey wire fencing is relatively inexpensive and easy enough to find at farm supply and fencing stores. The last time I purchased any it was sold by the lineal foot much as hardware cloth is dispensed at hardware and building supply stores. Manufactured solid sided bins are usually constructed of sheet steel or recycled plastic. In cool climates there is an recycled plastic walls that retain heat and facilitate the decomposition of smaller thermal masses. Precise construction also prevents access by larger vermin and pets. Mice on the other hand are capable of squeezing through amazingly small openings. Promotional materials make composting in pre-manufactured bins seem easy, self-righteously ecological and effortless. However there are drawbacks. It is not possible to readily turn the materials once they have been placed into most composters of this type unless the entire front is removable. Instead new materials are continuously placed on top while an opening at the bottom permits the gardener to scrape out finished compost in small quantities. Because no turning is involved this method is called passive composting. But to work while the ingredients must not be too coarse and must be well mixed Continuous bin composters generally work fast enough when processing mixtures of readily decomposable materials like kitchen garbage, weeds grass clippings and some leaves. But if the load contains too much fine grass or other gooey stuff and goes anaerobic a special compost aerator must be used to loosen it up. Manufactured passive composters are not very large. Compactness may be an advantage to people with very small yards or who may want to compost on their terrace or porch. But if the C to N of the materials is not favorable decomposition can take a long, long time and several bins may have to be used in tandem. Unless they are first ground or chopped very finely larger more resistant materials like corn, Brussels sprouts, sunflower stalks, cabbage stumps, shrub printings, etc. will constipate a top loading bottom discharging composter. The compost tumbler is a clever method that accelerates decomposition by improving aeration and facilitating frequent turning. A rotating drum holding from 8 to 18 bushels the larger sizes look like a squat fat oversized oil drum is suspended above the ground top loaded with organic matter and then tumbled every few days for a few weeks until the materials have decomposed. Then the doors opened and finished compost falls out the bottom. Tumblers have real advantages. Frequent turning greatly increases air supply and accelerates the process. Most tumblers retard moisture loss too because they are made of solid material either heavy plastic or steel with small air vents. Being suspended above ground makes them immune to vermin and frequent turning makes it impossible for flies to breed. Tumblers have disadvantages that may not become apparent until a person has used one for a while. First, although greatly accelerated composting in them is not instantaneous. Passive bins are continuous processors while with the exception of one unique design, tumblers are batch processors meaning that they are first loaded and then the entire load is decomposed to finished compost. What does a person do with required kitchen garbage and other waste during the two to six weeks that they are tumbling a batch? One handy solution is to buy two tumblers and be filling one while the other is working. But tumblers aren't cheap. The more substantial ones cost $250 to $400 plus freight. There are other less obvious tumbler disadvantages that may negate any work avoided, time saved or sweaty turning with a manure fork eliminated. Being top loaded means lifting compost materials and dropping them into a small opening that may be shoulder height or more. These materials may include a sloppy bucket of kitchen garbage. Then a tumbler must be tumbled for a few minutes every two or three days. Cranking the lever or grunting with the barrel may seem like fun at first, but it can get old fast. Decomposition in an untumbled tumbler slows down to a crawl. Both the passive compost bin and the highly active compost tumbler work much better when loaded with small sized particles. The purchase of either one tends to impel the gardener to also buy something to cut and or grind compost materials. The UC Method Grinder Shredders During the 1950s mainstream interest in municipal composting developed in America for the first time, various industrial processes already existed in Europe. Most of these were patented, variations on large and expensive composting tumblers. Researchers at the University of California set out to see if simpler methods could be developed to handle urban organic wastes without investing in so much heavy machinery. Their best system named the UC Fast Compost Method rapidly made compost in about two weeks. No claim was ever made that UC Method produces the highest quality compost. The idea was to process and decompose organic matter is inoffensively and rapidly as possible. No attempt is made to maximize the products C to N as is done in slower methods developed by Howard at Indoor. Most municipal composting done in this country today follows the basic process worked out by the University of California. Speed of decomposition comes about from very high internal heat and extreme aerobic conditions. To achieve the highest possible temperature, all of the organic material to be composted is first passed through a grinder and then stacked in a long high windrow. Generally the height is about five to six feet. Any higher causes too much compaction. Because the material is stacked with sides as vertical as possible the width takes care of itself. Frequent turning with machinery keeps the heap working rapidly. During the initial experiments, the turning was done with a tractor and front end loader. These days, giant U-shaped machines may roll down windrows in municipal composting plots automatically turning reshaping the windrow and if necessary simultaneously spraying water. Some municipal waste consists of moist kitchen garbage and grass clippings. Most of the rest is dry paper. If this mixture results in a moisture content that is too high, the pile gets soggy, sags promptly and quickly goes anaerobic. Turning not only restores aerobic conditions but also tends to drop the moisture content. If the initial moisture content is between 60 and 70 percent the windrow is turned every two days. Five such turns starting two days after the windrow is first formed finishes the processing. If the moisture content is between 10 and 60 percent the windrow is first turned after three days and then at three-day intervals, taking about four turns to finish the process. If the moisture content is below 40 percent or drops below 40 percent during processing moisture is added. No nuisances can develop if turning is done correctly. Simply flipping the heap over or adding new material on top cannot do it. The material must be blended so that the outsides are shifted to the core and the core becomes the skin. This way any fly larva pathogens or insect eggs that might not be killed by the cooler temperatures on the outside are rotated into the lethal high heat of the core every few days. The speed of the UC method also appeals to the backyard gardener. At home frequent turning can be accomplished either in heaps or by switching from one bin to the next and back or with a compost tumbler. But a chipper shredder is also essential. Grinding everything that goes into the heap has other advantages than higher heat and accelerating processing. Materials may be initially mixed as they are ground and small particles are much easier to turn over than long twigs, tough straw and other fibrous materials that tie the heap together and make it separate and handle with hand tools. Backyard shredders have other uses, especially for gardeners with no land to waste. Composting tough materials like grape prunings, berry canes and hedge trimmers can take a long time. Slow heaps containing resistant materials occupy precious space. With a shredder you can fast compost small limbs, tree prunings and other woody materials like sunflower stalks. Whole autumn leaves tend to compact into airless layers and decompose slowly, but dry leaves are among the easiest of all materials to grind. Once smashed into flakes leaves become a fluffy material that resists compaction. Electric driven garden chipper shredders are easier on the neighbor's ears than more powerful gasoline powered machines, although not so quiet that I'd run one without ear protection. Electrics are light enough for a strong person to pick up and carry out to the composting area and keep secured in a storeroom. One more plus there never is any problem starting an electric motor, but no way to conveniently repair one either. There are two basic shredding systems. One is the hammer mill a grinding chamber containing a rotating spindle with steel tines or hammers attached that repeatedly beat and shares materials into smaller and smaller pieces until they fall out through a bottom screen. Hammer mills will flail almost anything to pieces without becoming dulled. Soft green materials are beaten to shreds. Hard, dry, brittle stuff is rapidly fractured into tiny chips. Changing the size of the discharge screen adjusts the size of the final product. By using very coarse screens, even soft wet stringy materials slowly fed through the grinding chamber without hopelessly tangling up in the hammers. Like a coarse power planer in a wood shop, the other type of machine uses sharpened blades that slice thin chips from whatever is pushed into its maw. The chipper is designed to grind woody materials like small tree limbs, prunings, and barycanes. Proper functioning depends on having sharp blades, but edges easily become dulled and require maintenance. Care must be taken to avoid passing soil and small stones through a chipper. Soft, dry, brittle materials like leaves will be broken up but aren't processed as rapidly as in a hammer mill. Chippers won't handle soft wet stuff. When driven by low horsepower electric motors, both chippers and hammer mills are light duty machines. They may be a little shaky standing on spindly legs or small platforms, so materials must be fed in gently. Most electric models cost between $300 and $400. People with more than a postage stamp yard who like dealing with machinery may want a gasoline powered shredder chipper. These are much more substantial machines that combine both a big hammer mill shredder with a side feeding chipper for limbs and branches. Flailing within a hammer mill or chipping limbs of two or more inches in diameter focus is a great deal of force. Between the engine noise and the deafening din as dry materials bang around the grinding chamber, ear protection is essential. So are safety goggles and heavy gloves. Even though the fan belt driving the spindle is shielded, I would not operate one without wearing tight fitting clothes. When grinding dry materials, great clouds of dust may be given off. Some of these particles, like the dust from alfalfa or from dried out spoiled moldy hay, can severely irritate lungs, eyes, throat and nasal passages. A face mask or better an army surplus gas mask with built-in goggles may be in order and you'll probably want to take a shower when finished. Fitted with the right size screen selected from the assortment supplied at purchase, something learned after a bit of experience, powerful hammer mills are capable of pulverizing a fairly large amounts of dry material in short order. But wet stuff is much slower to pass through and may take a much coarser screen to get out at all. Changing material may mean changing screens and that takes a few minutes. Dry leaves seem to flow through as fast as they can be fed in. The side feed auxiliary chippers incorporated into hammer mills will make short work of smaller green tree limbs but dry hardened wood takes a lot longer. Feeding large hard branches too fast can tear up chipper blades and even break the ball bearing housings holding the spindle. Here I speak from experience. Though advertisements for these machines make them seem effortless and fast shredders actually take considerable time, energy, skilled attention, constant concentration and experience. When grinding one must attentively match the inflow to the rate of outflow because if the hopper is overfilled the tines become snarled and seats to work. For example tangling easily can occur while rapidly feeding in thin brittle flakes of dry spoiled hay and then failing to slow down while a soft wet flake is gradually introduced. To clear a snarled rotor without risking continued attachment of one's own arm the motor must be killed before reaching into the hopper and untangling the tines. To clear badly clogged machines it may also be necessary to first remove and then replace the discharge screen something that takes a few minutes. There are significant differences in the quality of materials and workmanship that go into making these machines. They all look good when freshly painted. It is not always possible to know what you have bought until a season or two of heavy use has passed. One tried and true aid to choosing quality is to ask equipment rental businesses what brand their customers are not able to destroy. Another guide is to observe the brand of gasoline engine attached. In my gardening career I've owned quite a few gas powered rotary tillers and lawn mowers and one eight horsepower shredder. In my experience there are two grades of small gasoline engines consumer and the genuine industrial. Like all consumer merchandise consumer grade engines are intended to be consumed. They have a design life of a few hundred hours and then are worn out. Most parts are made of soft easily machined aluminum reinforced with small amounts of steel in vital places. There are two genuinely superior American companies Kolar and Wisconsin that make very durable long lasting gas engines commonly found at small industrial equipment. With proper maintenance their machines are designed to endure thousands of hours of continuous use. I believe small gas engines made by Yamaha, Kawasaki and especially Honda are of equal or greater quality to anything made in America. I suggest you could do worse than to judge how long the maker expects their shredder chipper to last by the motor it selects. Gasoline powered shredder chippers cost from seven hundred dollars to thirteen hundred dollars. Back in the early nineteen seventies I wore one pretty well out one year of making fast compost for a half acre biodynamic French intensive market garden. When I amortized the cost of the machine into the value of both the compost and the vegetables I grew with the compost and considered the amount of time I spent running the grinder against the extra energy it takes to turn ordinary slow compost heaps I decided I would be better off allowing my heaps to take more time to mature. Sheet composting Decomposition happens rapidly in a hot compost heap with the main agents of decay being heat loving microorganisms. Decomposition happens slowly at the soil surface with the main agents of decay being soil animals. However, if the leaves and forest duff on the floor of a forest or a thick matted sod are tilled into the top soil decomposition is greatly accelerated. For two centuries frontier American agriculture had done just such a method. Early pioneers would move into an untouched region, clear the forest and plow in millennia of accumulated nutrients held as biomass on the forest floor. For a few years, perhaps a decade or even twenty years if the soil carried a higher level of mineralization than the average crops from forest soils grew magnificently. Then, unless other methods were introduced to rebuild fertility, crop, animal, and human health all declined. When the less leached grassy prairies of what we now call the Midwest were reached even greater bounties were mined out for more years because rich black soil grasslands contain more mineral nutrients and sod accumulates far more humus than do forests. Sheet composting mimics this system while saving a great deal of effort. Instead of first heaping organic matter up, turning it several times carting humus back to the garden spreading it and tilling it in sheet composting conducts the decomposition process with far less effort right in the soil needing enrichment. Sheet composting is the easiest method of all. However, the method has certain liabilities. Unless the material being spread is pure manure without significant amount of bedding or only fresh spring and grass clippings or alfalfa hay the carbon nitrogen ratio will almost certainly be well above that of stable humus. As explained earlier during the initial stages of decay the soil will be thoroughly depleted of nutrients. Only after the surplus carbon has been consumed will the soil ecology and nutrient profile normalize. The time this will take depends on the nature of the materials being composted and on soil conditions. If the soil is moist, airy, and warm and if it already contained high levels of nutrients and if the organic materials are not ligninous and tough and have a reasonable C to N then sheet composting will proceed rapidly. If the soil is cold, dry, clayy, relatively airless or infertile and or the organic matter consists of things like grain straw, paper, or the very worst barkless sawdust then decomposition will be slowed. Obviously it is not possible to state with any precision how fast sheet composting would proceed for you. Autumn leaves usually sheet compost very successfully. These are gathered spread over all of the garden except for those areas intended for early spring sowing and tilled in as shallowly as possible before winter. Even in the north where soil freezes solid for months some decomposition will occur in autumn and then in spring as the soil warms. Composting instantly resumes by the time frost danger is over. Sheet composting higher C to N materials in spring is also workable when the land is not scheduled for planting early. If the organic matter has a low C to N like manure a tender green manure crop not yet forming seed, alfalfa hay, or grass clippings quite a large volume of material can be decomposed by warm soil in a matter of weeks. However, rotting large quantities of very resistant material like sawdust can take many months even in hot moist soil. Most gardeners cannot afford to give their valuable land over to being a compost factory for months. One way to speed the sheet composting of something with a high C to N is to amend it with a strong nitrogen source like chicken manure or seed meal. If sawdust is the only organic matter you can find I recommend an exception to avoiding chemical fertilizer. By adding about 80 pounds of urea to each cubic yard of sawdust its overall C to N is reduced from 500 to 1 to about 20 to 1. Urea is perhaps the most benign of all chemical nitrogen sources. It does not acidify the soil, is not toxic to worms or other soil animals or microorganisms and is actually a synthetic form of the naturally occurring chemical that contains most of the nitrogen in that sense, putting urea in soil is not that different than putting synthetic vitamin C in a human body. Burying kitchen garbage is a traditional form of sheet composting practiced by row-cropping gardeners usually in mild climates where the soil does not freeze in winter. Some people use a post hole digger to make a neat 6 to 8 inch diameter hole about 18 inches deep between well-spaced growing rows of plants. The hole has been filled to within 2 or 3 inches of the surface it is topped off with soil rarely will animals molest buried garbage it is safe from flies and yet enough air exists in the soil for it to rapidly decompose. The local soil ecology and nutrient balance is temporarily disrupted but the upset only happens in this one little spot far enough away from growing plants to have no harmful effect. Another garbage disposal variation is trench composting. Instead of a post hole a long trench about the width of a combination shovel and a foot deep is gradually dug between row crops spaced about 4 feet or more apart. As bucket after bucket of garbage, manure and other organic matter are emptied into the trench it is covered with soil dug from a little further along. Next year the rows are shifted 2 feet over so that crops are sewn over the composted garbage. Mulch Gardening Ruth Stout discovered or at least popularized this new to her method mulching may owe some of its popularity to Ruth's possession of writing talent similar to her brother Rex's who was a well known mid-century mystery writer. Ruth's humorous book Gardening Without Work is a fun to read classic that I highly recommend if for no other reason than it shows how an intelligent person can make remarkable discoveries simply by observing the obvious. However, like many other garden writers Ruth Stout made the mistake of assuming that what worked in her own backyard would be universally applicable. Mulch Gardening does not succeed everywhere. This easy method mimics decomposition on the forest floor. Instead of making compost heaps or sheet composting the garden is kept thickly covered with a permanent layer of decomposing vegetation. Year round mulch produces a number of synergistic advantages. Decay on the soil surface is slow but steady and maintains fertility. As on the forest floor soil animals in worm populations are high. Their activities continuously loosen the earth steadily transport humus and nutrients deeper into the soil and eliminate all need for tillage. Protected from the sun the surface layers of soil do not dry out so shallow feeding species like lettuce and moisture lovers like radishes make much better growth. During high summer mulched ground does not become unhealthfully heated up either. The advantages go on. The very top layer of soil directly under the mulch has a high organic matter content retaining moisture eliminating crusting and consequently enhancing the germination of seeds. Mulchers usually sow in well separated rows. The gardener merely takes back the mulch and exposes a few inches of bare soil. Scratches furrow and covers the seed with humusy topsoil. As the seedlings grow taller and are thinned out the mulch is gradually pushed back around them. Weeds? No problem. Except where germinating seeds the mulch layer is thick enough to prevent weed seeds from sprouting. Should a weed begin showing through the mulch this is taken as an indication that spot has become too thinly covered and a flake of spoiled hay or other vegetation is tossed on the unwanted plant smothering it. Oh how easy it seems. Pick a garden site. If you have a year to wait before starting your garden do not even bother to till first. Cover it a foot deep with combinations of spoiled hay leaves, grass clippings and straw. Woody wastes are not suitable because they won't rot fast enough to feed the soil. Kitchen garbage and manures can also be tossed on the earth for a sense of tidiness covered with hay. The mulch smothers the grass or weeds growing there and the site begins to soften. Next year it will be ready to grow vegetables. If the plot is very infertile to begin with there won't be enough biological activity or nutrients in the soil to rapidly decompose the mulch. In that case to accelerate the process before first putting down mulch till in an initial manure layer or a heavy sprinkling of seed meal forever after mulching materials alone will be sufficient. Never again till. Never again weed. Never again fertilize. No compost piles to make turn and haul. Just keep your eye open for spoiled hay and buy a few inexpensive tons of it each year. Stout who discovered mulch gardening in Connecticut where irregular summer rains were usually sufficient to water a widely spaced garden also mistakenly thought that gardens lost less soil moisture because the earth was protected from the drying sun and thus did not need irrigation through occasional drought. I suggest that drought resistance under mulch has more to do with the plants ability to feed vigorously, obtain nutrition and continue growing because the surface inches where most of the soil nutrients and biological activities are located stayed moist. I also suspect that actual measurable moisture loss from mulched be greater than from bare earth but that's another book I wrote called Gardening Without Irrigation. Yes, gardening under permanent year round mulch seems easy but it does have a few glitches. Ruth Stout did not discover them because she lived in Connecticut where the soil freezes solid every winter and stays frozen for long enough to set back population levels of certain soil animals. In the north earwigs and sew bugs pill bugs are frequently found in mulched gardens but they do not become a serious pest. Slugs are infrequent and snails don't exist, all thanks to winter. Try permanent mulch in the deep south or California where I was first disappointed with mulching or the maritime northwest where I now live and a catastrophe develops. During the first year these soil animals are present but cause no problem but after the first mild winter with no population setback they become a plague. Slugs and in California snails will be found everywhere devastating seedlings. Earwigs and sew bugs that previously only were seen eating only decaying mulch began to attack plants. It soon becomes impossible to get a stand of seedlings established. The situation can be rapidly cured by raking up all the mulch, carting it away from the garden and composting it. I know this to be the truth because I've had to do just that both in California where as a novice gardener I had my first mulch catastrophes and then when I moved to Oregon I gave mulching another trial with similar sad results. Shredder chippers and other power equipment. I've been watching this market change rapidly since the early 1970s. Manufacturers come and go. Equipment is usually ordered direct from the maker freight extra. Those interested in large horsepower shredder chippers might track the advertisements in garden-related magazines such as National Gardening, Organic Gardening, Sunset Horticulture, Fine Gardening, Country Living, Herosmith, etc. Without intending any endorsement or criticism of their products, two makers that have remained in business since I started gardening are Kemp Company, 160 Kosher Road, Littitz, Pennsylvania, 17543, also composted drums. Troy Built Manufacturing Company, 102 D Street, and 9th Avenue, Troy, New York, 12180. Mail order catalog sources of compost containers and garden accessories. Gardens Alive, 5100 Shenly Place, Lawrenceburg, Indiana, 47025. Gardener's Supply Company, 128 Interveil Road, Burlington, Vermont, 05401. Ringer Corporation, 9959 Valley View Road, Eden Prairie, Minnesota, 55344. Smith & Hawkin, 25 Court Madeira, Mill Valley, California, 94941. End of Chapter 5.