How can we improve our organic compost? - Research

How can we improve our organic compost?

projectkamp

With contributions from

Updated 8moUpdated 8 months ago

Food

In Progress

Since we prepare food on the land we have food scraps. When the amount of people on the land increased we worked on reducing the amount of food scraps by making ciders, jams and sauces. But we can not eliminate food scraps at all, this is why we have a "food scrap pile". Now we want to turn our food scrap pile into a compost that serves for our young planted trees and bushes. This is useful because our soil on many areas of the land is very dry and hard. Besides that we see a lot of potential in the food scraps, but before using it in a bigger scale, we would like to understand the process better.

Natural

More Information

3761

1

Current State of the Food Compost

prakriti

Created 1yCreated over 1 year ago

For the last 3 years, we have been using the food compost for gardening projects. Going forward, we would like to address the following challenges. The structure itself was built on a slope, right next to a heavy pile of woodchips, and is breaking apart. The compost can be quite unpleasant to look at and be around as it gets smelly, especially during rainy weather We’re unsure of the quality of the compost and are experimenting with its ingredients to see how we can improve it. There is currently no fixed system of usage and maintenance

2

What we understood about compost

julesflamen

Created 1yCreated over 1 year ago

There are many different techniques for composting and a multitude of factors can be taken into account. Here I'll put the focus on the two most common types of compost that are « cold compost » and « hot compost ». The two differ mostly from the proportion of greens and browns that you will use for it, influencing the speed of the decomposition process. Greens are representing soft, moist and leafy materials that are rich in nitrogen - such as most of our food waste - and browns are representing dry and woody material that are rich in carbon - such as hay, wood chips or sawdust - For a hot compost, the ratios are : two parts of browns for one part of greens and every ingredient needs to be added at once. Which results in a faster growth of bacteria and fungi decomposing the organic matter in about four to six months. For a cold compost, the mixture of browns and greens is less important. But to give an order of idea, the ratios have to be 25 to 50 % of greens for 75 to 50 % of browns. According to the mixture the decomposition takes between six months and two years. Be aware that the more browns you add the slower the compost is. In the end, composting that way is a matter of observing and understanding what the compost needs. Compost has four essential elements : water ; air ; greens and browns. These must be balanced to create a productive habitat for decomposing microorganisms.

3

The type of compost we are going for

julesflamen

Created 1yCreated over 1 year agoUpdated 1yUpdated over 1 year ago

In our case we want to observe how the compost behaves and evolves. In the end, we’d like to find a good balance of browns, greens, moisture and air flow to suit our needs and our time frame. We choose to go for a cold compost because it is much easier to control and maintain collectively. Especially because it needs less precision concerning the ratios of browns and greens, as for the level of moisture. It doesn’t require checking and controlling the temperature and there’s no specific timing for turning the pile. Also one major advantage compared to the hot compost is that waste can be added gradually.

4

The design

julesflamen

Created 1yCreated over 1 year agoUpdated 1yUpdated over 1 year ago

There are plenty of existing models of collective compost bins. We'll take inspiration from these models to create our own from reclaimed pallets and wood. Before we designed, we chose a location close to the kitchen and protected from direct sunlight and rain. We designed a four bin compost, with a bin to add food waste on a daily basis, a bin for the compost to rest, a bin for the compost that turned into soil and an extra bin to store wood chips. Each bin works as a reproducible module slightly bigger than 1㎥ due to the size of the pallets we found (+/- 1100x1100mm). The idea was that the bins would be easily replicable so we could extend the compost system whenever we would need. For now it should hold on food scraps from 20 to 35 persons for a period of 8 months. We located the compost near the kitchen in a place protected by mimosas to avoid direct light. Movable sign boards have been added on each bin to make clear for the collective where to put what. The signboards are not fixed so they can be moved according to the different state of the mixtures. We also designed leads on hinges in order to have control on the level of moisture and to prevent heavy rains to dump the mixture. The leads also have a major structural role by connecting the pallets together making the whole structure sturdier. We wanted the content of the piles to be easily accessible. So we designed T-slot profiles allowing the front planks to slide, making them completely removable or adaptable to the height of the mixtures.

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5

Usage and maintenance

julesflamen

Created 1yCreated over 1 year agoUpdated 1yUpdated over 1 year ago

Usually in a cold compost the amount of brown matter should be superior to the amount of green matter. But because we want to speed up the process a bit, we are gonna try to go for 50% of brown matter for 50% of green matter. It means that we are gonna make sure to compensate for our amount of daily food waste with the same amount of wood chips. By doing so, we would like to keep the compost slightly warm and develop a comfortable environment for microorganism, worms and bugs (in that sense the compost will not exactly be a cold compost). In order to keep this heat constant we want to try not to turn the mixture too often. Instead we’ll try to use the long crowbar to make holes in the compost. Hopefully it will increase the airflow without losing the heat. We’ll repeat this operation every week. Another important factor is to keep the mixture moist. If the weather is too dry it could be helpful to water the compost to make it feel like « a slightly damp sponge ». Be aware that this method is something that we want to experiment with and that we are not exactly sure how it’s gonna go. We’ll keep you updated on the results or if we make any changes.

6

Open questions

julesflamen

Created 1yCreated over 1 year ago

Now that the basic structure is standing and we are taking it into use we will see how the compost is going to evolve. We do still have some open questions like: - Can we put weeds in the compost ? - Can we put Citrus peels in the compost ? - Can we put toilet tissues to the compost ? - Can we reduce the need for maintenance by adding a drilled PVC pipe in the center of the pile ? The way we are doing it currently is that we prefer to keep weeds apart of the compost, because the heat of the compost won’t be enough to kill the seeds and we don’t want to spread weeds in our garden beds. Also the toilet tissues we keep out and only throw them in the pooppalace. The citrus waste goes into the compost. We know it is supposed to slow down the process of decomposition but it didn’t seem to be such a problem in our previous compost. And so far there is no need for a pipe to be added yet Some things that we will keep an eye on.

7

Compost monitoring

alanabell

Created 1yCreated about 1 year agoUpdated 9moUpdated 10 months ago

Looking ahead to the new season starting soon, we wanted to do an update on what we did to monitor our compost at the end of Season 4. For 7 weeks, in September and October 2024, we monitored the compost to start understanding how it functioned in the new system and how we could influence it in the future. We monitored two compost boxes, the "Current Usage” one and the "Compost In Progress" one. We took the same information for both, except for the pH in the Current Usage box, which we left blank because it was not decomposed enough for a good reading. We did this every monday after lunch and we recorded, in a spreadsheet (Image 4), the following: - Weather - pH - Temperature - Surface wetness - 20cm wetness - Flies - Smell - Any other comments The weather, surface wetness, smell and flies (how many landed on the compost in 10 seconds) we recorded by observing only. The 20cm wetness, temperature and pH we checked inside the compost box in the following steps: 1. With a small shovel, dig down 20 cm into the compost bin you are checking (Image 1). 2. Fill up a jar with the matter at the bottom of the hole. 3. Measure the temperature at the bottom of the hole (Image 2). 4. And look at the wetness. 5. Write the temperature and wetness down (later, when all the holes are done, do average and record it in the spreadsheet). 6. Cover the hole back up again. 7. Repeat 5 times with different jars and holes in the same compost bin. 8. Now you must do the pH test using the jars of compost from step 2: a. From each jar, remove the biggest wood chips, to make the material as smooth as possible, leaving at least two finger-widths of compost. b. Add a couple of teaspoons of distilled water to each jar. You want the mix to come together, sticking to itself, but not swimming! c. Now you need a pH monitor. We used a digital pH monitor. d. Wait for a bit and stick the pH monitor into the jar. Wiggle it, then take a couple of readings of the pH (Image 3). e. Write down an approximate average (again, we did an average for the spreadsheet after). f. Repeat this with all the jars. g. At the end, throw the samples from the jars back in the compost bin and rinse the jars and pH monitor. After this, we took the average temperature and pH of the 5 holes and wrote this into the spreadsheet. The 20cm wetness is just an observation so we wrote what felt accurate into the spreadsheet as well (example of the last two weeks in Image 4). If you have any thoughts on our way of monitoring the compost so far, or suggestions to improve its quality, share them down here in the comments. We’ll be gathering ideas for the new season!

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