The good, the bad and the beautiful
In my work as a compost educator and volunteer on the YIMBY* team, I have stuck my nose into quite a few compost piles, and I can tell you that not all compost piles smell the same.
So why is it that some compost piles stink to high heaven, while others smell like rich leaf-fall on a forest floor? The answer is simple – balance.
If your experience of composting is a hasty trip to a neglected corner of the garden to quickly flip the lid of your compost bin, hold your nose and ‘chuck and run’, you are not alone, but you are probably not giving your compost the attention or the balanced diet it needs.
When the nitrogen-rich (and generally wet) food scraps from our kitchen are layered up and balanced with carbon-rich (and generally drier) materials like straw, autumn leaves and woody garden scraps, the smells, and potentially potent greenhouse gases from the decomposing food are quickly converted by busy microbes to pleasant smells of happy decomposition.
Every trip to the compost pile can be an exercise in providing balance and diversity. Try keeping a bale of straw next to your compost (be it bin, bay or pile) and maybe some autumn leaves and chopped up woody garden scraps.
These carbon-rich ingredients generously sprinkled between thin layers of your rich kitchen offerings will do wonders for reducing odours, speeding up and aerating your compost, and making a much better-quality product to spread on your garden in a few months’ time.
Making good compost does take a little more time than the mad dash, but it pays back in so many ways; a sweeter smelling pile, faster decomposition (due to happier, busier, breathing microbes), much better compost and a healthier garden. Oh, and you get a healthier and happier relationship with your compost too.
When our compost is going well it motivates us to take better care of it, which then means we make better compost, and round it goes. Like a growing number of YIMBY composters, you might start looking forward to your regular visit to the happier, sweeter smelling compost pile in your garden.
Next week we’ll have a look at the benefits of hot composting.
– Joel Meadows works with *Yes In My Back Yard, (YIMBY), a community-scale composting initiative in Castlemaine and surrounds. Send questions or comments to hello@yimbycompost.com
