Since The First Principle

Since the first principle of abundant living is to produce two or
three times as much as you think you'll need, my overly-large garden
yields dozens and dozens of such stumps and still more dozens of
uneaten savoy cabbages, more dozens of three foot tall Brussels
sprouts stalks and cart loads of enormous blooming kale plants. At
the same time, from our insulated but unheated garage comes buckets
and boxes of sprouting potatoes and cart loads of moldy uneaten
winter squashes. There may be a few crates of last fall's withered
apples as well. Sprouting potatoes, mildewed squash, and shriveled
apples are spread atop the base of brassica stalks.

I Grow My Own Vegetable Seed

I grow my own vegetable seed whenever possible, particularly for
biennials such as brassicas, beets and endive. During summer these
generate large quantities of compostable straw after the seed is
thrashed. Usually there is a big dry bean patch that also produces a
lot of straw. There are vegetable trimmings, and large quantities of
plant material when old spring-sown beds are finished and the soil
is replanted for fall harvest. With the first frost in October there
is a huge amount of garden clean up.

As each of these materials is acquired it is temporarily placed next
to the heap awaiting the steady outpourings from our 2-1/2 gallon
kitchen compost pail. Our household generates quite a bit of
garbage, especially during high summer when we are canning or
juicing our crops. But we have no flies or putrid garbage smells
coming from the compost pile because as each bucketful is spread
over the center of the pile the garbage is immediately covered by
several inches of dried or wilted vegetation and a sprinkling of
soil.

I Am A Serious Food Gardener

I am a serious food gardener. Starting in spring I begin to
accumulate large quantities of vegetation that demand handling.
There are woody stumps and stalks of various members of the cabbage
family that usually overwinter in western Oregon's mild winters.
These biennials go into bloom by April and at that point I pull them
from the garden with a fair amount of soil adhering to the roots.
These rough materials form the bottom layer of a new pile.

Indoor Composting - A Non Stinky Method

If you want to learn how to make in indoor compost bin, make sure you check out this site: Indoor Compost Bin

There you'll find step-by-step information of how to create one...I should add, one that doesn't stink! You'll also find some great indoor compost bin pictures so you can see how each step is done visually.

An Extremely Crude Composting Process ting system for the

I've been evolving a personally-adapted composting system for the
past twenty years. I've gone through a number of methods. I've used
and then abandoned power chipper/shredders, used home-made bins and
then switched to crude heaps; I've sheet composted, mulched, and
used green manure. I first made compost on a half-acre lot where
maintaining a tidy appearance was a reasonable concern. Now, living
in the country, I don't have be concerned with what the neighbors
think of my heaps because the nearest neighbor's house is 800 feet
from my compost area and I live in the country because I don't much
care to care what my neighbors think.

That's why I now compost so crudely. There are a lot of refinements
I could use but don't bother with at this time. I still get fine
compost. What follows should be understood as a description of my
unique, personal method adapted to my temperament and the climate I
live in. I start this book off with such a simple example because I
want you to see how completely easy it can be to make perfectly
usable compost. I intend this description for inspiration, not
emulation.

Composting Is Similar

Composting is similar, but different and easier. Similar in that
decomposition is much like any other fermentation. Different in that
the home composter rarely has exactly the same materials to work
with from batch to batch, does not need to control the purity and
nature of the organisms that will do the actual work of humus
formation, and has a broad selection of materials that can go into a
batch of compost. Easier because critical and fussy people don't eat
or drink compost, the soil does; soil and most plants will, within
broad limits, happily tolerate wide variations in compost quality
without complaint.

Some composters are very fussy and much like fine bakers or skilled
brewers, take great pains to produce a material exactly to their
liking by using complex methods. Usually these are food gardeners
with powerful concerns about health, the nutritional quality of the
food they grow and the improved growth of their vegetables. However,
there are numerous simpler, less rigorous ways of composting that
produce a product nearly as good with much less work. These more
basic methods will appeal to the less-committed backyard gardener or
the homeowner with lawn, shrubs, and perhaps a few flower beds. One
unique method suited to handling kitchen garbage--vermicomposting
(worms)--might appeal even to the ecologically concerned apartment
dweller with a few house plants.

Composting Ingredients

So it is with bread-making. The ingredients are standardized and
repeatable. I can inexpensively buy several bushels of wheat- and
rye-berries at one time, enough to last a year. Each sack from that
purchase has the same baking qualities. The minor ingredients that
modify my dough's qualities or the bread's flavors are also
repeatable. My yeast is always the same; if I use sourdough starter,
my individualized blend of wild yeasts remains the same from batch
to batch and I soon learn its nature. My rising oven is always close
to the same temperature; when baking I soon learn to adjust the oven
temperature and baking time to produce the kind of crust and
doneness I desire. Precisionist, yes. I must bake every batch
identically if I want the breads to be uniformly good. But not
impossibly rigorous because once I learn my materials and oven, I've
got it down pat.

Making Compost

The closest analogies to composting I can imagine are concocting
similar fermented products like bread, beer, or sauerkraut. But
composting is much less demanding. Here I can speak with authority,
for during my era of youthful indiscretions I made homebrews good
enough have visitors around my kitchen table most every evening.
Now, having reluctantly been instructed in moderation by a liver
somewhat bruised from alcohol, I am the family baker who turns out
two or three large, rye/wheat loaves from freshly ground grain every
week without fail.

Brew is dicey. Everything must be sterilized and the fermentation
must go rapidly in a narrow range of temperatures. Should stray
organisms find a home during fermentation, foul flavors and/or
terrible hangovers may result. The wise homebrewer starts with the
purest and best-suited strain of yeast a professional laboratory can
supply. Making beer is a process suited to the precisionist
mentality, it must be done just so. Fortunately, with each batch we
use the same malt extracts, the same hops, same yeast, same
flavorings and, if we are young and foolish, the same monosaccarides
to boost the octane over six percent. But once the formula is found
and the materials worked out, batch after batch comes out as
desired.