Update On The Compost Heap

I’ve read in a few places that landfills are approximately 1/3 yard waste. In previous years, I would mow the lawn place the clippings in big, paper bags sold for this purpose and set them out by the curb for collection at the rate of 2 or 3 a week. This year, however, I’ve been dumping the clippings into a pile the vegetable garden and mixing them with leftover straw mulch and dirt. I mix the pile twice a week with a shovel although mixing is not quite accurate as I simply shovel the pile to a new location and “restack” the pile. I’m also supposed to keep the pile moist, but with the almost constant rain for the last three weeks that has not been an issue. The heat coming out of the stack is tremendous and the grass clippings are rotting away at a very rapid pace usually being mostly gone by the next mowing. The pile is also densely packed with very large worms.

The key to making compost that does not smell is making sure that sufficient air is allowed into the pile and the straw mulch and the frequent turning both provide this. Here are a good link on composting:

http://www.howtocompost.org/