Building a hot heap half way up Mt Cargill on a rainy afternoon – a compost workshop

This weekend I got to stand in the bone chilling rain against a back drop of swirling mist and build a hot heap. Granted that sounds like an oxymoron but nine other hardly souls will bear witness to these facts. I was attending a composting workshop run by Michelle Ritchie.

Let me begin by proudly stating that like my father and grandfathers before me that I am a compostor. I use the traditional NZ three-bin system which in my grandfathers case meant having three humongous piles for composting – one you were adding fresh food and garden scraps to, one that was maturing and one that was ready to use. I grew up on a quarter acre paradise, ¾ less than Granddad's vegie kingdom. Dad had less room for having piles sitting around slowly decaying so he was a regular compost turner. This I discovered is one of the secrets to speeding up your compost.

At the workshop Michelle Ritchie gave us clues as to how we might improve the quality of our compost , as well as speed it up from a lackadaisical 12-18 months to 3-5 months for maturation. Just like in Shrek, it is all in the layers. You really do need the right mix of carbon and nitrogen to get the little microbes giving their all in a timely fashion in the making of your compost. Michelle gave us tips on what makes a good mix, some pointers on using accelerators and things to look out for (and sniff for) to see what might be missing. Then we got out in the aforementioned rain and built one. Glorious stuff.

Michelle gave an inspiring introduction to the Bokashi system and also did a session on worm farms. I finally get why you might want to run more than one system for dealing with your green and household food waste.

to be continued