REBUILD YOUR GARDEN SOIL DURING THE WINTER
By Ed Shortes
University of California Cooperative Extension El Dorado Master Gardener
Publication Date: January 7, 2005
Our soil here in the foothills is often thin and contains a lot of rocks or clay. Adding compost can help these conditions. Mother Nature builds soil by the decomposition of leaves but we can speed up the process a great deal by using some special steps.
Did you pile your leaves in the fall, hoping to take advantage of nature’s bounty to rejuvenate your soil? Instead of bagging all those leaves, grass clippings, etc. and hauling them to the dump, we hope you saved them to make compost, which eventually will turn into beautiful soil. You may be wondering how to make the most of your leaf pile. Turning your leaf pile into a compost pile requires a little understanding about how to best encourage decomposition.
Collecting leaves in the fall and putting them in some kind of an enclosure where they can be moist speeds up the decomposition process. They can be contained in a wooden enclosure or a wire cylinder. The enclosure should be at least 3 feet high and 3 to 4 feet across. A container of this size will allow the material to heat up to between 120 and 160 degrees during the composting process. This heat is produced by chemical and bacterial activity which speeds up the breakdown of the pile.
Speedy decomposition requires moisture as well as nitrogen and carbon. In general, nitrogen is provided by green vegetation and carbon is provided by brown or dried vegetation. In winter, the only ingredient likely to be in short supply is nitrogen. The most common source of nitrogen is green leaves or grass. Since the leaves that fall in autumn are usually too dry to be a good source of nitrogen, I prefer to add a nitrogen fertilizer to the leaves as I pile them up. Chicken manure can be added for its nitrogen as well as other mineral contents. It’s not too late to add these sources of nitrogen to your leaf pile now. . Adding about an equal part of horse or cow manure to the leaves makes a great combination. Don’t add cat or dog droppings – they may harbor disease organisms. I have a friend who has several horses which are a steady source of manure. I tell him that I am a magician because I can change his “horse apples” into “love apples”, as the French sometimes refer to tomatoes.
I also like to add a few drops of detergent soap to the water in a watering can and sprinkle the leaves. The soap takes the gloss off of the leaves so the water can thoroughly wet the leaves, greatly speeding up the decomposition. The entire pile must be kept damp during this process (as moist as a wrung-out sponge). If there is too much rain during the winter, cover your pile to avoid getting it too wet. Covering the compost pile also helps to hold the heat in. The pile should begin to heat up in 1-2 days. The whole process will happen faster if you take a pitchfork and turn the pile or move the entire pile a few feet to an adjacent area. This process incorporates oxygen from the air into the compost pile. Turning can be repeated every few days, adding water if needed. In addition to speeding up the composting; it also makes the pile more homogenous. An added bonus is that it also builds strong muscles in the gardener wielding the pitchfork.
Don’t worry about a compost pile smelling bad. If it does smell bad, then you may have goofed by adding material improperly. The most common cause of odor is adding too much water, which excludes oxygen; in that case, you’ll need to incorporate more dry material and cover the pile during rainy days to keep additional water from accumulating. The next most common mistake is adding meat scraps. Odors from meats attract wildlife, such as raccoons and opossums, as well as cats and dogs. Incidentally, we often find that our outside cat will discover that the warmth of the covered compost pile makes it a nice place to sleep when the weather is cold.
With a little extra effort, your composted leaves can be broken down into beautiful compost by the time you are ready to plant your spring garden. For more information on composting, contact the UCCE Master Gardeners by phone at 621-5512 or in person at 311 Fair Lane in Placerville from 9-12 every weekday.