In Search of Gold

‘Meet me at 8 am at chicken alley and i’ll give you the package,” Lynn Weber told me over the phone. “Well, okay,” I thought, “If Lynn says she’s got something good, I’m all over it.” Sure enough, when I met her at The Thrift Shop the next morning, she handed me a brown paper bag with my name on it. Inside the bag, there it was—a 40-year-old copy of The Complete Book of Composting by J.I. Rodale. All 1,000 pages of it. As gardening books go, this one’s kind of the gold standard.
It made perfect sense that the lady I affectionately call The Queen of Dirt would want to share this book.  Lynn, who is much too modest, makes magic out of mulch and seaweed and manure up at Island Cohousing’s very cool common garden in West Tisbury. When I called to ask her about the secrets to making compost, she said, “I really wouldn’t want to put myself forth as the expert,” she said, “but I do have a good book.”

Not only did she lend me the book, but she annotated it with pink sticky notes pointing out all the important points. That was a lucky thing, because after sucking down the first few pages of Rodale’s tome, I realized there was no way I was going to get through it. It’s not that it wasn’t fascinating to learn that Walt Whitman wrote an entire poem about compost. (“Behold this compost! Behold it well!” it begins.) Or that the earliest references to compost were found on Mesopotamian clay tablets. But really, I was looking for quick take-aways for the Vineyard gardener. And I found them—on those pink sticky-noted pages.

In fact, on page 108, I found one three-sentence paragraph that seemed to pretty much sum up the secret to composting success:

“Moisture: Most of the composting failures we have seen have resulted from the proper moisture conditions not being maintained. There is one simple rule: Maintain a moisture content like that of a wrung-out sponge. That is, no water should drip from a sample squeezed in the hand. But, by all means, do not let the compost get dry. This stops fermentation. No bacteria and earthworms can live without moisture.”

Fortunately, there’s a simple way to regulate moisture:  Think in colors. If you alternate layering green stuff (kitchen waste, fresh grass clippings) with brown stuff (leaves and twigs), and occasionally add a little already composted material like soil, your compost will thrive. If the pile gets too wet, add dry brown stuff. Too dry, sprinkle with water or add kitchen waste (no meat or shells, please).

Yes, to be fair, there is a little more to composting than that. (And you can read about it in the other 999 pages if you like; turn to Sources, p. 51). But probably the most helpful thing you can do to get started this summer is to think realistically about how involved you want to be in your compost pile. Pick your composting personality (p. 51), and you’re on your way.