I started offering training courses in home composting in the early 1990s. Since then, I’ve trained several thousand people in this practice, which still fascinates me to this day. I remember giving a training session to just one person at the domestic composting demonstration site at Jardin Roger Van den Hende, but gradually more and more people became interested in the practice. In the early 2000s, home composting had its heyday. I sometimes had more than 150 participants at some of my training courses. Nowadays, my name is sometimes associated with tomatoes, but back then it was compost that was most important in my career. No wonder so many people nicknamed me ‘Mrs Compost’.
Unfortunately, the popularity of home composting has declined since organic waste collection was introduced in many municipalities. That’s a shame, considering the many benefits of home composting, especially for gardeners.
Making Compost… for Real!
These days, I sometimes meet people who tell me they’re making compost, when in fact they’re taking part in the collection of organic waste. While I’m delighted that people living in multi-unit dwellings can finally do something concrete for the environment by recycling their kitchen waste, I’m still annoyed to see that everyone who has a little patch of green space chooses not to manage their organic waste themselves. Personally, it wouldn’t occur to me to entrust this waste to my municipality, because I’m too aware of the many advantages of managing it at home.
Faire son compost… le meilleur choix pour l’environnement
When it comes to ecological practices, the shortest cycle is always the best choice: when you compost at home, you manage the organic waste you produce on site. This avoids the need to transport these materials. In Quebec, 43% of our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from transport.
No matter how organic matter is managed on a large scale (usually by composting or biomethanisation), it involves energy and raw materials, which are often non-renewable. While most municipalities have opted for the brown (or green) bin, the contents of which are destined to be composted in large volumes, others have chosen to recycle organic waste through biomethanisation. This is the case in my municipality, which collects mainly kitchen waste (not garden waste) in purple plastic bags.
Since the service was introduced in my municipality, I’ve used four bags to dispose of chicken bones and fish waste… the rare organic matter that I agree to ‘donate’ to my municipality. Of course, I also keep my dead leaves in the autumn, as I explained in a recent article.
Another positive effect of home composting. Since the compost we produce doesn’t have to be bagged, we avoid using plastic bags.
Make Your Own Compost to Control Its Quality
Even though I’m an agronomist, I often find it difficult to assess the quality of compost sold on the market. That’s not the case when you make your own compost, because you control its quality. As long as you follow the basic rules, you control the quality of the finished product. I have no qualms about putting my compost at the foot of my tomato plants, because of course I know it doesn’t contain contaminants or other inputs I disapprove of. When you take part in your municipality’s organic matter collection, you have no control over the contents of your neighbour’s brown bin. As a result, you have no control over the quality of the resulting compost.
Compost to Save Money
Compost is the basis of fertilisation for most plants. It’s even essential for growing vegetables. Whether you’re gardening in the ground, in pots or in containers, it’s to your advantage to amend your soil (or potting soil) with compost. If you don’t make your own compost, you’ll have to buy some. If you don’t produce compost, you’ll have to buy it. Commercial compost of acceptable quality sells for between six and fifteen dollars a bag, and depending on the quantity you produce (don’t expect too much from the outset), you can save several dozen dollars a year.
Make Your Own Compost to Have Compost on Hand
When it’s time for a new planting, I appreciate the fact that I always have compost on hand. I don’t have to use my car to go to the garden centre or hardware store… another good thing for the environment.
Compost to Avoid Odours
Home composting has a bad reputation when it comes to foul odours. Organic matter that piles up in a closed environment like a brown bin produces biogas because it is deprived of air. On the other hand, when organic matter is properly managed in an aerated composter, it gradually decomposes through the action of micro-organisms, eventually producing an amendment that smells like good earth. In my experience, the bad reputation of home composting is associated with composting grass clippings, which give off nauseating ammonia smells. A good reason to use grasscycling instead, i.e. to leave the clippings on the lawn when you mow it.
Making Your Own Compost, to Set an Example
Composting at home is an excellent way of teaching our children and grandchildren how to become eco-responsible citizens. At the same time, why not teach them to garden? These are two legacies worth their weight in gold.
Composting for Satisfaction
When it’s time to harvest, I’m always fascinated by the result… knowing that I’ve been part of this ‘miracle’… which isn’t a miracle at all… To see things that were initially considered to be waste transformed before our very eyes into real ‘brown gold’ is truly satisfying. That’s where the term ‘recycling’ really comes into its own.
Composting… Because There Is No Organic Matter Collection Service
If you live in a municipality where organic waste collection is not offered, or if the collection is essentially reserved for kitchen waste (which is the case in my municipality), making your own compost is a more than sensible choice when you have a small piece of land. For those who live in multi-unit dwellings, there’s always vermicomposting or balcompost… but that’s another story.
Composting Can Be Simple
There are several ways of making compost. If you’re highly motivated and have a lot of time to put into the project, you can make compost in a few months. On the other hand, if, as I imagine, you’re more of a disciple of the Laidback Gardener, you should know that it’s very possible to make compost by devoting just a few minutes a week to it. You’ll just have to be more patient to see the results. In any case, remember that all organic matter decomposes whether you like it or not.
I think it’s quite harsh to say: “I’m still annoyed to see that everyone who has a little patch of green space chooses not to manage their organic waste themselves.”
What defines a “small patch of green space?” I have a very small property, and there’s very little full sun – composting is more efficient if you can use the sun’s heat to speed up the process.
Nevertheless I gave it the “jolly old try” – when my 24″ x 24″ plastic bin warped with freeze-thaw cycles, I bought another one. That one warped too, making it very difficult to collect finished compost at the bottom.
Despite not using it for fish, meat or dairy (except for eggshells) it attracted rats, scaring me silly sometimes when moving through my backyard; I have an atavistic fear of rats and mice. Because it was a high rectangular composter, aerating the compost was difficult, especially for a short person (it’s much easier if you have a rolling composter with handle).
I finally ditched the compost bin – my municipality collects both yard waste and kitchen waste (in separate collections). I used the extra 2 square feet to grow a lovely Japanese maple but also: spring and fall bulbs and native perennials – all beneficial to pollinators. I also grow more vegetables (10 metre diet which reduces carbon costs of transporting some of the vegetables I need.
I either leave the leaves or shred them to make leaf mold in a very narrow space between my house and my neighbour’s – and I use that leaf mold for plants that need rich soil – you need far less leaf mold than you do compost for that purpose. I have eliminated all lawn. I cut up plant trimmings and twigs and spread those among my plants to provide organic matter.
Many home gardeners don’t realize that their compost may not heat up enough to kill bacteria, fungi and viruses – nor will they kill jumping worm which is now spreading in Toronto and other areas.
My “small patch of green space” has to serve many purposes – a small patio set for 4 people; garden space for growing native and non native perennials; a fountain for birds; the vegetable garden, etc.
There are many ways to contribute to ecological gardening practices – compost is not the only one.
Grow castor bean plants, collect the seeds, spread them around especially compost bins, are poison to rats, voles gophers.
Castor bean seeds are also poisonous for children and pets! Use them only if you are very sure that neither of those groups can access your compost area. It’s very likely that rats will be more attracted to your fruit peelings etc. than to the castor bean seeds, but I don’t have any hard evidence for that.
I do use castor oil, dug in with a “bar” spoon to a depth of 12″ to deter voles from damaging clematis and other plants.
Thank you for such a great article. I’ve been composting since the early 90’s, even though we have a green waste collection system in the large town where I live in Southern Ontario. The composters are two large plastic bins with lids at the top. Pertaining to Kathleen’s query I would say give it a go. We had rats show up in our backyard a few years ago but they were only interested in the remnants from the bird feeder. I removed the bird feeder and no longer saw any rats. I throw kitchen waste, vegetables/fruits (no dairy, meat or bones) into the composter as well as chopped up yard waste (no weed seeds)and every October empty out the compost and spread it around the garden. It’s wonderful stuff and so easy – “compost happens”. I’m also using the chop and drop method so I’m no longer putting out any bags of yard waste or leaves, everything goes back into the garden. A valuable resource.
Thank you, Jude. I’m still a little leery of attracting rats since my neighbours (through the wall) were infested by rats a decade ago; they burrowed through the shared wall into my house. We managed to get rid of them but it was a scary thing. I won’t feed the birds for the same reason (a friend in TO has had to give up doing so herself because of rats coming to the bird feeder overflow).
I would love to home compost but am very worried about attracting rats. I live in a small house with a tiny backyard about 15 minutes from the centre of Montreal and like all of us have rats in the neighbourhood/in our sewers. What can we do to avoid attracting rats to the food waste we add? (And thank you for all the great posts, which I read daily.)