Bill: 00:00

Okay. We're back with spotlight on natural resources. And we have, of course, with us, John Church from the University of Illinois Extension. Welcome, John.

John: 00:08

Oh, thank you, Bill.

Bill: 00:10

Our topic today is composting. And with all of the conversation that's going on these days with homegrown vegetables and homegrown flower gardens, one of the big central topics really is home composting. So we're gonna talk about that today. What is compost, John?

John: 00:31

Well, composting is nothing new. In fact, it's nothing that man has created. Composting is something that mother nature has done for forever. But what what, we've figured out is that we can somewhat, compartmentalize some of that composting effort and, get some value out of the material that that is left. So basically, we're taking natural materials and, we're putting it through a process so that the material turns out to be usable product that rather than having rough leaves or rough grass and so on, you let it compost together and end up with a soil like amendment that can help your organic matter of your soil.

Bill: 01:10

So that's the big reason for doing it besides getting rid of the waste, is that, you manage to improve the soil in some way? In what way does it improve the soil?

John: 01:21

There's really two reasons we do it. 1 is, like you mentioned, to reduce our waste stream to a certain extent, because some of the products going into the the compost container are products that might otherwise go into a landfill. So instead of doing that, they now can be composted and and reused. And secondly, as you mentioned, the second purpose is to, get a product that has benefit back to our soils. And in particular, when we're talking about composting, it's quite often home composting.

John: 01:52

So it would be soils like for your garden soil, whether it's a vegetable garden or flower garden or whatever, but primarily it adds organic matter. And organic matter is critical in our soils for, water retention, also for just the the soil tilth for plant root development, that sort of thing. It's it's maybe not as high in terms of nutrient content as commercial fertilizer, but there's also potential nutrient benefit too.

Bill: 02:20

You you used a word there that I'm not sure everybody's gonna know, tilth? Tilth?

John: 02:25

Good point. Good point. You know, especially in some of our newer suburban type of lawn situations, people go out in the backyard and decide to make a garden. And when they go out to do that, they start to dig and they find kind a hard, compacted type of soil condition and they're usually not too happy with that.

John: 02:42

So it's not very workable. So the more organic matter that we can put back into that soil, the easier it is to work and the easier that water and air and nutrients have in terms of going through the soil and that's basically what soil tilth is. How easy is it to go out and work in it?

Bill: 02:57

And besides that, probably how easily can the roots pass through it and pick up those nutrients?

John: 03:03

That's correct. Right. It creates a much easier path for the the roots to try to move throughout that soil profile.

Bill: 03:09

So it sounds like, composting is a good thing and it has a lot of advantages. How do I start doing it?

John: 03:15

Well, the reason we're talking about it today is because this is the time of year that's a great time to start because the materials that you need are, readily available. And when we get into the fall time of the year, we have grass clippings because we're still mowing the lawn. And secondly, we often then will start to see some leaves and we'll start to see some dry material from the vegetable garden or the flower garden and so on. And what we need to start a compost is, nitrogen containing materials like the grass that are kind of what we call green products, or, we also need, brown products, which are the type of things like leaves and the dried materials from other plant material. What the nitrogen is a green product and carbon is in the brown product, and we have to have certain carbon to nitrogen ratios to get good fermentation in the compost.

John: 04:08

And all that gets way too complicated.

Bill: 04:10

Ratios? Oh, dear. I I thought we were just gonna, you know, put things in a pile, John.

John: 04:16

And for most homeowners, that's a good point, for most homeowners, you can do a lot of studying about compost and worry about compost, carbon and nitrogen ratios and so on. But in reality, if you have roughly a one to one ratio, about one part green to 1 part brown, you're going to have a pretty good composting material for most homeowners. Now, also it's important that we add quite often a little bit of, maybe extra nitrogen fertilizer, maybe a little bit of soil throughout the compost to make sure the activity is working as much as it should. But if you do your composting in a container where it has access, basically you're putting the material on the soil on the ground, usually that's enough access to our soil microbes to to make it work. But, there are recommendations where you layer the material throughout the compost container and part of that, layering could include some soil in addition to what's on the ground.

Bill: 05:14

So talk to me me about containers. I've I've seen big containers that they look kind of like rain barrels, some of them, that you roll around and sometimes you've got frames and I've seen people that just have kind of an open, almost fenced area where it's all stacked. What's the right way?

John: 05:36

Well, there is no right or wrong way, and actually you don't even have to have a container. But if you want the most efficient composting, and some people are more concerned about that than others, but if you want the most efficient, a container that's about the size of a cubic yard will be, probably as efficient as anything in terms of keeping the heat in it, being able to keep moisture well distributed, and so on throughout it. And that cubic yard container could be, as you mentioned, like a plastic rain barrel type of looking container, or it could be just some screen and boards have been put together to hold it. But we need to remember that you don't have to have a commercial container. You can make these containers at home.

John: 06:16

You can simply compost in a pile. So containers, even though they have some ability to enhance the composting, they're not certainly not something that you have to go out and spend a lot of money to have. And, when it comes down to it, you really don't have to have a container at all.

Bill: 06:34

So 3 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet, cubic yard. Right.

John: 06:37

Right

Bill: 06:38

And and then the other thing you mentioned in there was, heat. There's heat involved or it builds up heat? Why is that important?

John: 06:47

Well, ideally, when we're composting and, you'll sometimes hear the term hot composting, and that basically is composting. And, when we're talking about composting, it can generate, if it's working quite well, it can generate, temperatures up around a 150, 160 degrees Fahrenheit. And basically what's happening, that's the microbes that are working in the fermentation process to break down the materials in the compost. So when we're talking about containing the heat, the hotter the material in terms of getting up to the 150 degrees, the more efficient that it's it's working.

Bill: 07:22

So does that help in breaking down weed seeds or something like that or, should we worry about, not that my garden has a lot of weeds in it, John. Perish the thought. But let's just say that, there were a lot of weeds. Should I worry about putting the weeds in my in my compost?

John: 07:41

Well, it's like a lot of things. It depends. It depends when you put the weed material in. If you put the weed material in after the seeds have been set on the weeds, then we have some concern. But if it's just green material that you have done a good job of weeding the garden early, then that green material can add to a nitrogen source.

John: 08:01

But, we typically recommend don't add materials that would carry foreign seeds, especially if they're mature type of seeds. But even some of the weeds that are starting to set green seeds, it's best to try to avoid putting those seeds in there. The other question comes up along that line is the use of plant material that has diseases on it. And there's no guarantee that the heat in the compost will kill either the weed seed or the plant diseases. So if you can avoid those types of materials, that's fine.

John: 08:33

But it's like a lot of things. Use some common sense. If you just have a few leaves that have a few little spots of disease on it, that's probably not going to cause too much trouble. But if your whole compost is based on material that's diseased, then that that may be an issue.

Bill: 08:48

What about, materials from the kitchen, like, carrot tops and that sort of thing? Can I put that in too?

John: 08:56

Sure. There is actually two ways that we recommend that people compost their kitchen scraps. Now we need to be clear before we go any further that when we are talking about kitchen scraps, we are talking about the types of things that you just mentioned, the vegetable type of scraps. We do not recommend any bones or any meat scraps or anything that's, has a high oil or butter content, those types of things, because those can attract rodents and insects and so on. So we do not recommend those.

John: 09:24

But when it comes to other types of kitchen scraps, you know, the the things as you mentioned, the the vegetable type of scraps, those can be put into the compost container directly, or, some people actually create a smaller compost situation, near their kitchen and actually have a smaller compost container just for that. Or there's a third option, which some people do, and that's to have what's called worm composting. And basically, you have a bin in your house. Usually, it's in the house, and, the worms will feed on those materials and generate compost in in a little bit different mechanism. That's different than what we're talking about in terms of general composting.

John: 10:04

But when it comes to kitchen scraps, you can you can use them in in a few different ways.

Bill: 10:08

Are there regulations that we need to worry about as we do this, composting?

John: 10:13

We always recommend that people check with their local authorities whether it's their county health department or their village or their city or their county, whoever governs health and zoning types of ordinances because there are some communities that do regulate when and where individuals can do composting. I don't think, to be honest with you, that most of those regulations have much merit, because in most cases, composting is a very simple operation. There's no reason that it has to have odor or pests associated with it. It can be, fine in terms of aesthetically speaking. So really, I think as long as it's done properly, there shouldn't be any problem.

John: 10:52

But there are some ordinances on the books in some localities, so it doesn't hurt to check.

Bill: 10:58

So there are things that can go wrong. What are some of the warning signs?

John: 11:02

Well, the main thing that, people would notice if things are going wrong is an odor, and of course people aren't going to like that if there's an odor. And the interesting thing is it's quite easy to correct, and that's just by adding more air to the pile will take care of the odor, and that's a fairly simple operation by turning the pile. And when we talk about turning the pile, that simply means taking a spade or a fork or something and, moving the materials around, mixing them up, and getting air movement back through those materials.

Bill: 11:31

I knew that there was a downside here, John. You started talking about pitchforks and and all that extra effort

John: 11:39

There is some work involved. It's minimal, but there is some work. And I probably shouldn't say it because it could lead people to have some problems. But, you know, sometimes, in just a backyard pile type situation, sometimes turning isn't even necessary. You have monitor your pile.

Bill: 11:55

Right.

John: 11:55

And, if it's working fast enough for what your purposes are and there's no odor, you know, that's just letting nature take its course.

Bill: 12:03

Mhmm. Sounds good. If we have more questions information, where can we go to get that?

John: 12:09

Well, certainly people can contact their local extension office, whether it's in Illinois at the U of I Extension Offices or any state extension system. Most of those county offices will have composting information and then also there are a lot of city and county, waste management programs that are locally based and a number of those have excellent composting information. And then of course, the University of Illinois Extension, website has some excellent compost information.

Bill: 12:38

Very good. And do we know what our next topic is going to be next month?

John: 12:43

Well, I think maybe what we'll talk about is a little about firewood. Because it's getting to that time of year where people are thinking about accumulating firewood for the winter, and, so we'll probably do a little bit of, discussion about firewood.

Bill: 12:55

Sounds good. Thank you,

John: 12:56

John. Thank you, Bill.