Composting - a viable alternative to burning garden waste

 

My compost heap January 2014

In January 2014, I wrote a blog post “Go Green with Composting” . I still have my compost heap, under a mango tree. Since I wrote that post it has digested more than 5,200 banana skins, and thousands of leaves in addition to the peelings of many breadfruits, yams, irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, mangoes and pineapples. My method of composting remains the same -  layering wet organic waste, which provides moisture and nitrogen, with dry leaves  which allow oxygen to permeate the pile. What I hadn’t mentioned in that post was the need to turn the pile every 2 months or so. Using a garden fork, I lift the layers and put them, with the most recent addition at the bottom and the lower layers at the top, in a second pile. This second pile is left undisturbed while the first one becomes the active pile again. Turning the pile speeds up the composting process by ensuring adequate aeration. After another 2 months, if the second pile hasn’t broken down completely, what is left can be put on a third pile.

My compost heap a few days ago

After turning, the pile is now on the right, leaving the space on the left for a new pile.

In about 6 months, the compost can be sifted to remove pieces of stick, ackee seeds, mango stones and such like, and mixed with soil in pots or garden beds for growing whatever you want. Where I live, the ground is rocky without much soil, and we have so many trees we can’t grow much else in the yard.

Another fact about composting I hadn’t known when I wrote the previous blog, was the importance of the carbon to nitrogen ratio. As stated by  the Cornell Waste Management  Institute, the ideal C/N ratio for composting is generally considered to be around 30:1, or 30 parts carbon for each part nitrogen by weight. Why 30:1? At lower ratios, nitrogen will be supplied in excess and will be lost as ammonia gas, causing undesirable odors. Higher ratios mean that there is not sufficient nitrogen for optimal growth of the microbial populations. 

So, a pile of dry leaves will take a long time to break down. However, if it’s mixed with some green stuff, like grass cuttings, and kept moist it will break down more quickly. If the compost pile is too dry, you can water it, (with water from laundry or washing up.)

Composting provides a viable alternative to burning garden waste, a practice which is detrimental to health because smoke contains many harmful chemicals, including benzene, which cause respiratory illnesses including cancers. If more households were to compost their kitchen waste such as banana skins and vegetable peelings, there would be less to be collected by garbage trucks, freeing them to pick up more of other types of garbage.

If you have a yard with even one tree, and you don’t have a compost heap, start one today. It's best to put it in a shady spot, for example under a tree. If you have a compost heap, try to persuade your friends and neighbours to start their own.  

My compost bucket lives in a cupboard under the sink.
I put the contents on the compost heap twice a week.