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Composting

Scratching the Surface

It’s a Friday in late June, a perfect midsummer’s eve for some leisurely yardkeeping. In my world, cocktail hour is garden hour, and unwinding from the workweek by reconnecting with the ground I keep is a pleasure, especially at this time of year when the plants are intoxicated with new growth. I start by mowing […]

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Composting

What to Do When Your Compost Smells Like Ammonia or Sulfur

If you’ve read much about compost, you know it shouldn’t have too much of an odor. And if you’ve been composting for more than five minutes, you also know that sometimes, no matter what you do, your compost smells like ammonia or sulfur. If you haven’t experienced this “lovely” phenomenon, you either will soon, or […]

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Composting

My Compost Pile: A World Unto Itself

It’s a bright, breezy Saturday, first week of June—a fine time to be a backyard composter here in southern New England. I wander outside to check up on my pile, first scaring off the resident robin couple that tromps across the top in search of worms and other snackables, then disrupting a squadron of hover […]

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Composting

As the Worm Turns

I am sure there’s a systematic way to add to, aerate, and otherwise mix my backyard compost heap in the most efficient and productive way possible, a process with inputs and variables that could be modeled by an AI computer program, spit out, and followed—commercial composters take just such a scientific and mechanized approach to […]

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Composting

Can Compost Go Bad? Plus 5 More Facts About Composting

I sometimes feel like a magician when I work on my compost pile. A few potato peels, a bell pepper core, and some coffee grounds go into the pile, and within a few weeks, out comes gardening gold. Learning how to compost has been such a gardening game-changer for me. I’ve saved tons of money by not having to buy soil additives and bagged compost.

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Composting

Mow, mow, mow, you go

It’s the middle of May, and my backyard compost pile here in southern Connecticut is now fully six months old. As much as the first half of its life was dominated by dead brown leaves, the race to its fruition as finished humus will now be driven by mass infusions of hot green grass clippings. […]

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Composting

How to Avoid Salmonella in Compost

If your idea of a fun afternoon is reading academic research papers, just Google “Salmonella in compost.” You’ll get titles like Cascading effects of composts and cover crops on soil chemistry, bacterial communities, and the survival of foodborne pathogens. 

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Composting

Tips for Managing Bugs in Compost Bins

I don’t want to write about bugs in compost bins any more than you want to read about it, but it happens, so here we are. Don’t worry; I’m not going to get into the creepy-crawly details. For your sake and mine, we’ll keep it vague. I’m still emotionally scarred from that scene in The Lost […]

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Composting

How to Keep Animals Out of Compost Bins

Composting is the gift that keeps on giving. I love turning food scraps, cardboard, grass clippings, and other green and brown materials into a usable and nutritious soil amendment. It saves money and the planet. Not to mention trash day is a lot lighter! With so many ways to compost, finding a method that works […]

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Composting

Is Pine Needle Compost too Acidic for Vegetable Gardens?

Pine needle compost might be one of the most misunderstood areas of composting. Sure, there’s some confusion about whether that take-out container is compostable, but when it comes to pine needles, there’s a longstanding assumption that they are too acidic. 

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