Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[yarrow@sfo.com]

Title: Re: [Livingontheland] Smells like dog manure!

At 2:19 AM -0400 5/23/08, Michael Kaer wrote:

 That got me thinking about the future of small gardens and small flocks in urban and sub urban settings. Just like at a farm, there will be some processes that will not smell nicely and the neighbours could complain. What can be done to keep these types of situations from happening and if they do happen how to remedy them?. My solutions was to seal it in a plastic garbage can and I will drag it to the back and open it only when people are at work or school, and feed it to the compost pile,bit by bit.

>>

To keep a compost pile from smelling bad, don't let it go anaerobic. If it does (from too high a concentration of greens or too much moisture or being sealed in plastic), add browns such as dry leaves, shredded paper, or straw. I use mulch, which is readily available at the community garden and usually consists of chopped up branches and leaves and sometimes small wood chips.

If you open the bin and it smells bad and you don't have time to turn it and incorporate browns (or don't have any), here are 2 things an urban gardener can do to mitigate the odors:

1. shred a lot of paper and just add it to the top, 3 to 6 inches thick (loosely placed, not packed in). Don't wet it -- it'll get wet enough as you add other compostables. Keep a bagful of shredded paper (office paper or newspaper) on hand to cover new additions to the bin.

2. Get free coffee grounds from coffee shops. Starbucks has a policy of giving away free grounds, though workers in individual stores sometimes say they don't have any, ever. A thick enough layer of coffee grounds will make the surrounding area smell like coffee for a short time, will mask other odors, and will also eliminate the swarms of fruit flies (or other small flying insects) that sometimes are attracted to newly added compostables. Coffee grounds are a "green," not a "brown," so you will still need to add browns to the pile later, but in my experience, they work well as an all-purpose soil additive and compost-pile additive. If they are left out in the open, though, they can form a water-repelling crust.

When the bin is full or when you are ready to use the compost, if it's still too wet and has gone anaerobic, you will need to deal with it then, but at least you can decide when you'll turn it and add the browns -- when you know the neighbors will be away, for instance.