7 Ways to Turn Your Compost Pile
Compost piles are excellent for backyard gardeners who want to save money on soil amendments or upcycle excess waste. Turning piles speeds up decomposition, lets microbes breathe, and keeps rotting smells at bay. Join longtime composter Jerad Bryant and discover seven easy ways to turn your compost piles.
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Composting is a natural process that turns rotting mulch into rich, fertile soil. Microbes, worms, and larvae find their way into the material and decompose it. They excrete waste in the form of plant nutrients, humus, and smaller particles of organic matter.
Once you start composting, you’ll save buckets of kitchen scraps and garden clippings from reaching landfills. Your waste will feed your plants, which feed you and provide more waste. This never-ending cycle happens in nature when leaves, twigs, and fruit fall into soils. They decompose, creating a layer of fertile topsoil for seedlings to grow in.
Creating a compost pile is simple: layer green, fleshy material with brown, dry plant matter in an appropriate ratio. Greens include kitchen scraps, garden clippings, and weeds. Browns are things like straw, paper products, and dried leaves.
Water well, then turn the material regularly. The turning process rotates inputs so decomposing organisms can reach all their parts. It also injects air into the material, feeding fungi, bacteria, and bugs as they feast.
Without further ado, here are seven ways to turn your heaps of decomposing matter and produce a quality amendment.
EM-1 Compost Starter, Concentrate
EM-1 Compost starter is a liquid concentrate containing a broad spectrum of beneficial bacteria that harmoniously convert organic material into humus while binding nutrients to create a nutrient-rich soil amendment for plants.
Grab A Pitchfork
Pitchforks are the best tools to use for compost turning. They have long, thin spikes that spear mulch, and they turn large chunks of mulch quickly. Find one at your local home improvement store or buy online from a garden retailer. Find a sturdy metal pitchfork that’ll survive years of regular use.
Imagine turning a pile like twirling spaghetti. You dip your fork into a clump, twist it, and lift it. A pitchfork is like a giant fork, and your decomposition pile is a bundle of spaghetti.
To turn your materials, grab your pitchfork and sink it into the pile about halfway down. Lift the tool and rotate the mulch it holds. Place the mulch back down, then repeat the process. Do this a few times until you move all parts of your pile. Turn hot piles daily for a quickly available amendment in two weeks. Turn less often, and they’ll be ready in three weeks or longer.
Use Shovels, Rakes, or Hoes
If you lack pitchforks, other tools like shovels, rakes, or hoes do the job just fine. You might have to alter your approach, but you can still efficiently turn compost. With a shovel, use it in the same way as pitchforks. Dig into the pile, pick up pieces, and rotate them.
A garden hoe is a bit more challenging to use than a shovel. You’ll want to dig at the center and pull chunks towards you. Then, pull all pieces towards the center to reconstruct a pile. You may also stick the hoe into the pile and rotate it like a garbage disposal in the interior.
Rakes are the easiest of the three. Simply rake materials down from the center, mix it about, then rake it back up into a pile. Try to leave some big chunks for bugs, worms, and nematodes to hide in.
The Rotation Method
The rotation method allows you to keep continuously decomposing heaps, and it lets you harvest them when they’re ready. It requires two or more, meaning you’ll need to add double the waste than if you were making a single pile. This method works best during late fall when gardens are full of brown and green organic matter.
With two or more heaps, continuously feed one while letting the others decompose. Then, when the other materials are ready, you can harvest rich, crumbly, black soil from their interior. Leave any undecomposed parts, but take out most of the finished compost.
Now, bring the other pile to the site where the old heaps were. Turn it, and let it sit. Construct a new pile next to it and feed it continuously while the others decompose. Repeat this cycle as often as you need, and make as many heaps for however much waste you generate.
Set Up Bins
Bins set a tidy space for composting. You can make a DIY version out of wood stakes and chicken wire. Stab stakes into the ground in four corners, and wrap wire around the stakes. Fill the center with alternate layers of greens and browns. Holes on the wire’s sides will keep airflow running so you don’t have to turn the pile.
Another easy DIY compost bin uses pallets on their sides. Stack chemical-free wood pallets in an open square, with one side exposed. Do this twice, creating one bin next to another. It should look like a “M” shape. Fill one of the bins until it’s full, then use the other one while the first decomposes.
Some garden retailers and nurseries sell contraptions that make composting easier. They have compartments in a stack; as mulch decays, the smaller particles fall to the lower compartments while the big chunks decay above. Other bins have holes on them like the DIY version. You’ll open them up, fill in scraps and plant clippings, and close the lid.
Rotate Tumblers
Tumblers are easier than bins, although they require extra maintenance in other areas. They are bins above the ground in circular shapes. Tumblers often have handles off their sides that you use to rotate them.
Tumblers need a healthy helping of finished compost, topsoil, or mulch to jumpstart microbes. Waste will sit and grow stinky in the tumblers if it doesn’t have access to beneficial soil microbes, bugs, and worms. In contrast, regular heaps sit on the ground, so worms and fungi easily crawl inside them. It helps to scoop a chunk of living soil into your tumbler, and it’ll grow and spread throughout.
Summer temperatures threaten the decomposition process in tumblers. They dry out the mulch and kill all the living creatures. Add water to your tumbler once or twice a day during heat waves and less so during mild weather. You’ll want the contents to be moist but not soggy.
Plug In Aeration Tubes
Aeration tubes do the work of turning, so you don’t have to! They let materials breathe so they can continuously decompose without agitation. Try using UV-resistant PVC pipes, hollow wood stems, or metal pipes for this method.
Drill holes in the tubes’ sides if they don’t already have them. With your tubes in hand, stick them deep into your piles. Small heaps may only need one tube in their center, while larger bins require multiple. Each tube needs a foot or two of space from others to work efficiently.
With tubes in the compost, there’s nothing left to do but sit back and wait! The material will decompose for a few weeks or months. As there’s no turning with this method, decomposition happens a tad slower than it does for hot piles.
Don’t Turn!
Cold compost is a slow decomposition method for those gardeners who hate turning piles. I use a few cold compost piles to decompose excess waste I can’t process. Simply set up a pile as you would for hot composting, except you’ll want to add more straw, dry leaves, and other brown materials than green ones.
Amendments like straw hold air pockets, helping microbes survive without the air access that turning allows. You don’t have to turn these piles, although turning will speed up the decomposition process.
Cold piles produce ready compost in six to twelve months or less than six months if you turn often. Ensure they stay moist but not soggy, and watch as they turn from chunky scraps into crumbly soil.
