Good resources to get started with composting?

10 months ago by solbear to c/composting

For the next growing season I want to 1) stop relying exclusively on store bought soil and 2) stop wasting all my food scraps. I've started looking into vermiculture (and in particular a multi-tray DIY-solution), and I am currently looking for some good resources (books, in-depth article or video series or online courses) that can help me learn, and I was hoping that people here would like to share some resources they have found to help them on their journey to become composting masters.

I don't only want to understand how to do this in practice, but also how any choices along the way impact soil quality and how to ensure I have soil of good quality for my home garden. So I appreciate any pointers to more general soil-related resources.

poVoq 4 points 10 months ago

Did you browse the older posts in the community already? I guess it might be nice to add some good links to the sidebar though.

In general it very much sounds like you are overthinking it. I started composting by throwing foodwaste in a bucket and it worked just fine 🤷

Add a bit of drainage and bottom ventilation and remember to stirr it a bit from time to time with a stick and that's basically it for basic composting.

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solbear 1 point 10 months ago

Did you browse the older posts in the community already? I guess it might be nice to add some good links to the sidebar though.

Yeah, and I found some good things there, but a lot of the posts were quite old and I wanted to contribute to some activity here as well and give people new to Lemmy since those posts were made to contribute with their favorite resources. Links in the sidebar/Wiki would be very nice as a starting point!

In general it very much sounds like you are overthinking it. I started composting by throwing foodwaste in a bucket and it worked just fine 🤷

I quite enjoy the research, so I wouldn't say I am overthinking it. I am just looking for some recommended reading from the community to get started with the research. There's so much stuff online, and a lot of it seems AI-generated, so I try to get a more curated starting point from actual humans who are already into it, as in my experience direct recommendations from people are much better than starting from zero. :)

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thegreenman 1 point 10 months ago

Also, maybe this calls for a wiki post? 👀

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confusedpuppy 2 points 10 months ago

I'm super lazy when it comes to compost. There's a few things that I do depending on the time of year. Also, I'm only composting plant matter. Any meat or bones that my parents eat usually gets sent to the city compost.

In the winter I usually cover my garden beds with fallen leaves. I'll dig up a small area, chuck a bowl of food waste in that area and cover it up with leaves again. When it gets warm in the spring, the leaves and food waste break down really quickly.

In the spring I sort of scatter the food waste on top of the soil because I'm lazy. If nothing is planted, I might dig up a hole and bury the food waste there.

If the garden is established, I'll have a few dumping spots in the garden and rotate between each spots so they have a chance to break down. I'll also put layers of garden trimmings on top so the food waste is covered and broken down a little quicker, or so it seems to me.

I haven't had any issues with smells or wild animals, yet. Between that and the free mushroom mulch substrate from the mushroom farm, my gardens do quite well each year.

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solbear 1 point 10 months ago

I’m super lazy when it comes to compost. There’s a few things that I do depending on the time of year. Also, I’m only composting plant matter. Any meat or bones that my parents eat usually gets sent to the city compost.

Plant matter only here as well. I have access to two places where I can start composting: very small scale on an apartment balcony (where I would want to try vermicomposting), and a house with some more outdoor space, but no traditional garden (it's got a slanted area with vegetation that is planned to gradually become some terraced beds).

If the garden is established, I’ll have a few dumping spots in the garden and rotate between each spots so they have a chance to break down. I’ll also put layers of garden trimmings on top so the food waste is covered and broken down a little quicker, or so it seems to me.

So you basically get a full batch of good compost from each of these dumping spots? How long would you say it typically takes from you deposit til you can use the compost?

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confusedpuppy 1 point 10 months ago

Ah yeah. It occured to me afterwards that composting for an apartment or balcony would be a lot different.

I'm not too sure what would be a full batch. It's only been a few years and each year is a little different. What I have noticed is that whatever is growing around those dumping spots tend to grow way more compared to other areas.

For example one dumping spot was surrounded by tomato and cucumber plants. I struggled to keep those plants trimmed and at a reasonable size. I'm assuming the roots of those plants grew in the direction of all that constant, fresh compost.

I'll probably give the top layer of soil a good mixing next spring to spread out the compost. I'm trying to work towards a no till or minimal tilling for my gardens so I'm still experimenting and observing. I'm also trying to find a way to do this all with as few tools or products as possible while keeping it as local as possible.

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beSyl 1 point 9 months ago

Did you start the vermicompost OP? I am thinking about the same, the setup with 3 boxes stacked on top of each other..

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solbear 1 point 9 months ago

Not yet, but I've been so far doing some reading on it: 1) Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof and Joanne Olszweski and 2) Compost City by Rebecca Louie.

I am planning on printing this https://www.printables.com/... soon. Not ordered the filament yet. The 3-box-setup can also fairly easily be constructed in a DIY-fashion from plastic boxes.

And then place it outside on my balcony when outside temperature allows the worms to thrive and by the time we get to Fall / Winter again, I will find some space in my inside storage room. I also have some room within my apartment that I could use, but want to gauge potential smells and escapees first... :)

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beSyl 1 point 9 months ago

Oh, that is interesting. I did not know you could print something so big.

Be careful with the type of plastic though. You do not want anything bad to leak/degrade, because eventually, it will get to our food.

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The_Che_Banana 1 point 10 months ago

To get mine started i used a compost starter tea (good microbes) and collected all the food scraps from my kitchen at work (we were already composting on site, I just diverted a few crates for my own) so you can ask your chef at your favorite restaurant if they compost, and if they do and can divert some for you, provide them with a bin for your scraps and pick it up when you agree to.

Also chicken poop.... excellent for compost.

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solbear 1 point 10 months ago

Nice idea checking with restaurants. But it sounds like you end up getting quite a lot of compost this way? I will likely be unable to have too big an operation, but my efforts can be spread across to sites (one at home on my balcony and one with a friend with more outdoor space, though no garden in the classical sense).

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korendian 1 point 10 months ago

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solbear 2 points 10 months ago

Cheers, saving those resources! Yeah, I am planning a trip to the library soon to see what they have, but my local library is quite small and I am happy using digital versions of any books I find that would be suitable!

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Know_not_Scotty_does 1 point 10 months ago

Be careful with seeds if you aren't composting properly, I accidentally planted a papaya grove in our back yard.

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SaneMartigan 1 point 10 months ago

I keep away from vermiculture because I don't want to accidentally kill all the worms with a moments negligence. I've got an open base compost bin with a lid that sits on the bare earth. I throw vegetable matter in it from the kitchen and garden then leave it while it composts. I should get one or two more so I can get a few going. The longer it's left the better it becomes - within reason.

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solbear 1 point 10 months ago

Oh, are they hard to keep alive?

What is the typical timeline for when you can start using the soil after starting the compost?

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SaneMartigan 2 points 10 months ago

Maybe a year.

I don't know how difficult worm farm are, I've kept away from them.

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