COMPOST – LOCATING DIFFERENT TYPES
 
In answer to your question about locating different types of compost, here are a few ideas.  It seems like all the different nurseries and garden centers only carry 1 or 2 types each, so you will need to shop around to get a variety.  Sometimes, compost is listed as "mulch" so watch for that.  Just make sure the texture is fine as some mulches are too coarse to use in Mel's Mix.  Some compost contains two or more ingredients in each bag.  For example, in our area, there is one that has turkey manure plus composted wood shavings, so read the ingredients or ask to see what it contains.  Some garden centers have loose, unbagged compost that can be purchased.
 
Also, some municipalities have a composting operation and that compost is available to purchase.  So, call the city or county offices in your area and ask about that.  You might also call your county extension agent and ask for recommendations on where to purchase compost in your local area.  If you look around and are unable to find 5 different types, try to blend at least 3 different composts together for your Mel's Mix.  Of course, the more types you mix together, the more nutrients there will be for healthy plant growth.  

Sometimes the best compost is the most expensive and other times it is more economical.  Just look at it, feel it and smell it and you will know if it is good rich compost.  The great thing about using a well-blended compost is that you will never have the expense of buying and using fertilizer which is a savings.  

Recently, I was at a garden center and saw a bag that said something like “For Roses”.  It didn’t say anything about compost.  Yet, in reading the ingredients, the mix contained about 3 or 4 different types of compost and worm castings.  It was a great compost mix and I nearly overlooked it because it didn’t say “compost”.  So, be sure and check bags like that and read the ingredients!

COMPOST – MORE INFORMATION

We’re finding a slight shifting in the compost industry and some are now putting out bags with weight only and no cubic foot volume.  It’s hard to estimate how weight compare to volume because weight is very deceiving - the wetter it is, the more it weighs.  But, in general, a 15-25 bag will equal approximately 1 cubic foot.  

The next problem we are finding with compost is some industries are rushing it to market and the actual ingredients are not fully decomposed.  When that happens, it will actually inhibit growth and burn the plants.  If they were allowed to continue composting, they would turn out fine, but their initial use straight out of the bag has caused some plant growing problems.  It’s hard to tell ahead of time unless you plant a few seeds and a few young transplants in that compost a week ahead of planting your garden.  That’s good advice, but no one wants to wait a week – they want to do everything at once.  One or two suggestions is to smell the compost or to run water through it.  If it smells strong or has a pungent order or the water turns a reddish/brown, the compost should be allowed to rest before going into your mix.  The best idea would be to put it right into your home compost pile.

If you’ve already mixed all of your Mel’s Mix, placed it in your boxes and started planting and now realize that there aren’t enough different types of compost added, we have reports that if people added a liquid fertilizer like Miracle Gro, the plants were able to survive and grow through their first stages.  

If you cannot find aged compost from several sources, the other solution is to buy a premixed soil which is sold on the market – the kind you would buy if you were filling your hanging baskets or window boxes.  It’s sold with names like potting soil, planting mix, the key word is “mix” and it is sometimes called a “soiless mix”.  It is composed of ingredients like peat moss, vermiculite, perlite, ground up bark and similar ingredients.  It also contains a starter fertilizer and sometimes a wetting agent.  This is not organic gardening and after a month of so, you will have to start adding fertilizer to the mix.  If you are not concerned about being a true organic gardener, this is one way to start your Square Foot Gardens, but you will be relying upon commercial, chemical fertilizers for the life of the garden.  Through the seasons as your either produce your own or find bags of good compost, you can gradually add that to your SFG and eventually not have to add any fertilizer.  It really gets back to having your own compost.  You know what goes in it and you know when it’s ready and your plants will thank you.  

COMPOSTING – THE BASICS

Mel has simplified composting, like all of the other things with SFG.  To learn more about composting, read the two paragraphs under “Free Garden Tips” on our website.  I will also attach some additional composting information to this e-mail.  The other thing is to set up 2 or 3 bins so you can move the material from one to the other.  Free wooden pallets hooked together make excellent three-sided compost bins with an open front.  

Keep in mind, the more different ingredients you have, the better your finished compost will be.  Try not to have more than 20% of one thing in the pile.  Forget about the layering system, just keep mixing everything together.  The smaller the pieces are to start and the more often you turn the pile from one bin to another, the faster it will all decompose and give you a finished product.  Keep it moist but not dripping wet.  It depends on your climate as to how long it takes to have compost ready to use.  

COMPOST - EL SALVADOR OPERATION

The best composting example that Mel has ever come across, was a municipal composting operation in El Salvador.  It had many wonderful ingredients (but they didn’t chop them up), piled in wind rows about 2 feet tall and 4 feet wide which were then covered with black plastic.  Of course, you know what happened – they didn’t get decomposition with air, called aerobic, so they experienced rotting without air, called anaerobic.  The solution for them was a series of bins built out of recycled pallets, which we were able to obtain free.  They built 7 bins all together and had them turn over a bin a day.  You can picture those bins almost labeled Monday – Sunday.  The end result was they had beautiful compost in 3 weeks (because of their climate) instead of 3 months.  

COMPOST - WELL-BLENDED
 
The best compost is homemade compost that is well-blended and made from many different ingredients.  If it is purchased compost, make sure that you mix approximately 5 different varieties together.  If it has many ingredients, there will be ample nutrients in your garden to grow a successful crop.  Of course if you are making your own compost in your back yard, it will be free and if made from MANY ingredients, it will be a good source of both nutrients and even trace elements, so fertilizer isn’t needed.  It is just a matter of finding enough different ingredients.  One excellent source is to go to the grocery store and ask for everything they throw out from the produce department.  They usually have lots of things and it is quite a mixture and variety.  When you are looking for hay, try to find some old, spoiled hay which no one wants, but decomposes very quickly and makes a good addition to your compost pile.  Use all your kitchen and yard refuse except for processed or animal products.  I would suggest you read about the importance of good compost on the website under "Mel's Columns" and also under "FAQ's".

In summary, Mel says, “Don’t take composting too seriously - it’s not an exact science.”  Just find as many of the qualifying ingredients that you can, chop them up in as small of pieces as you can and mix them as often as you can.  In deciding all of those things, it’s a matter of how much time and energy you want to put into it.  Remember that Mother Nature will do all the work, you just have to be patient and wait for up to a year in some climates.  So basically, the labor and energy you put into it determines the speed of the operation.  

COMPOST – COMMERCIAL BY-PRODUCTS
 
Most commercial composts have only one or two ingredients, for example: steer manure and bedding straw, wood chips and sawdust, ground up leaves, bark and tree wood.  These are merely waste leftover material or by products from an industrial or commercial operation, and by themselves do not make a good ingredient in Mel's Mix. However, the good news is, if you can find at least five of these individual composted materials you can mix them together to make a well-rounded blended compost ingredient for your Mel's Mix. If you are buying your compost at the store by the bag, buy five different bags or manufacturers.  If you are buying your compost at the nursery in loose form, buy five different kinds for example:  steer, wood, dairy, turkey, mushroom, yard wastes, etc.

Think of compost as food.  If you were to promise someone that you would feed them food, and you found out you could get corn on the cob really cheap, and that is all that you fed them, they would not last very long.  If you could add to that food rice and then citrus and then all other kinds of vegetables you would end up having a healthy diet.  Does any of that make sense?  Growing and feeding plants is the same thing.  They also need a blended diet, and all of the nutrients and trace elements come from the compost in the Mel's Mix.  Hence no fertilizers are needed with SFG.  That's just another way SFG simplifies gardening, but you must start with that blended mixture of compost made from at least five different sources.

COMPOST - BARNYARD MANURE
 
As far as the natural barnyard manures, if you want to stay away from the commercial hormones, etc. get all of your manures from local old-fashioned farm-friendly places.  There are lots of different animal manures that can be used such as sheep, rabbit, goat, family horses or other barnyard type animals that eat nothing but hay and grass and plant material.  Every neighborhood has families with pets, so manure is usually always available.  Just be sure to compost it first and don’t use fresh manure in your garden.  Not only will it burn the plants, but during the composting process weed seeds are killed as the compost heats up.  
 
COMPOST – DUCK MANURE

I asked Mel about your question since I’m not very familiar with duck manure. He is the expert after all.  He said that duck manure would be fine to use in compost as long as most of their diet is vegetarian. He had never heard of a problem using duck manure so thinks you will be O.K.  You will be able to tell if it is composting properly or not by the smell. Composting should not smell bad so if you sence any funky odors, cut out or cut down on the duck manure. As always, try to get as many ingredients as you can to get a variety of nutrients. Let us know how it turns out so we can help other people that may have the same question.

COMPOST - GRASS CLIPPINGS
 
Grass clippings are excellent to add to a compost pile.  The biggest problem, though, is that a lot of people don't dry them first and they just dump them in thick layers in their compost pile and they crush or pack down so no air can get in and pretty soon they turn into a smelly, gooey mess. Then they think that composting doesn't work or they don't want to do it anymore.  But, if you dry your grass clippings first, they are an excellent addition to the compost pile. Keep in mind our directions that no one ingredient should be more than 10 or 20 percent at the most.
 
So you see, it does seem like an oxymoron to dry the grass clippings only to have them become moist in the compost pile, but you can see why we do it that way.  It can be compared to the meat loaf Mel’s mother used to make.  She would put out bread until it dried and then rub it together to make bread crumbs.  Then, when it was added to the rest of the ingredients it was all moistened with milk.  If she had just added fresh bread, there would have been big globs of bread in the meat loaf and it wouldn't have been distributed evenly.  Grass is similar in the compost.  If it is put in wet, it packs down in clumps preventing air from entering the pile, then rots and smells.  It might boil down to the fact that water is inside the fresh grass blades whereas moisture is on the outside of the dry blades when the compost pile is kept moist.  
      
Here is a way to dry out the grass clippings: If you have any spare, empty space in the yard, just spread them out on a nice, warm, sunny, bright day, and occasionally rake them with a lawn rake to turn them. When they change color from green to nearly brown, they are probably ready to add to the compost pile. If you don't have an area like that, then spread out a tarp or a large piece of plastic that will hold them off of the grass area or place it over a paved area, like the driveway. Again, rake them occasionally during the day or take the edges and flip it just to turn them. If it starts to rain, wrap them all up and put the bundle in the garage until the weather clears and the sun comes out again. But, don't leave them in that bundle for more than a day or two.

COMPOST - LEAF MOLD

Leaf mold is not usually available commercially.  Leaf mold is composted leaves and you can do that right in your own backyard. Although it's a very good material, it's still only one ingredient of a good, rich well-rounded SFG compost.  Sometimes municipal systems make a compost from leaves that is usually available for free.  Contact your local city or county offices and see if that is the case in your area and find out how you can get some.

COMPOST IS “BLACK GOLD”
 
Remember, good compost made in your backyard from as many different sources as possible with none of them being over 10-20% of the total volume, will produce a rich, friable material that will contain all of the nutrients and trace elements that your plants will need. When using a good, rich compost no fertilizer is needed.  It’s just such a wonderful material that is often described as "black gold".  We at SFG encourage everyone worldwide to make compost at every home. It’s the solution to so many ecological problems. It’s not only good for the garden, but think what it does for the environment because you’re using up materials that otherwise would go to the landfills, or just be dumped out alongside the roads.  In every country that Mel has visited around the world, he sees so many sources of compost materials, all being thrown out.  It becomes just garbage and litter and certainly doesn’t enhance a country for tourists, or income from tourism.  So in summary, let’s all get composting in our own backyards and learn to use our resources wisely.

COMPOST TUMBLERS

To answer your question about compost tumblers, we think they are very useful. There are a few downsides though. To get good compost you have to remember to turn them almost everyday; this is something most people don’t do. The capacity is often very small and you have to wait for one batch to be completely done before starting the next one. If you want a larger and ongoing compost operation, we suggest making several piles started at different times, this way you will get more compost and have a nearly constant supply. If you would like a tumbler, by all means get one that is the easiest for you to turn. Any compost operation has to fit your schedule, available room, and needs. It may take some trial and error to find out wich set-up works best for you. Composting is definetly worth the time and effort!