Start Composting Today: No Bin, No Rules, No Sweat!

by David The Good

Introduction
Composting has too many rules - we can do better!

Most of us have read articles on “how to compost.” Some of us (like me, your friendly
neighborhood mad scientist) have read many thousands of pages on the subject.

You’ve seen lists of what you can and cannot put into compost piles. Big scary lists.

But let’s just start with the easy, standard composting rules that every expert knows.

To make compost, mix one part “green” material with one part “brown” material. Green materials
are nitrogen-rich waste, such as manure, grass clippings or kitchen scraps.

Brown materials are things like shredded paper, leaves, or wood chips.

Experts recommend that you get a carbon to nitrogen ratio of 25–30 parts carbon to one part
nitrogen. Since organic matter is mostly a combination of carbon and nitrogen, the “brown” and
“green” one-to-one ratio is a simple way to remember it: when you mix in some sloppy waste from
the kitchen, throw in some dry, brown waste from the yard.

If you compost in a bin, make sure the bin can contain at least a cubic yard of material. If you
compost in a pile, aim for that same size at the very least. If you do it that large, you will get a nice
hot pile provided materials are mixed appropriately and are wet enough to get going. If you go
smaller than that, you’ll still make compost, but it will take a lot longer. You also need to make sure
the pile is thoroughly watered, then covered to retain heat and moisture.

Whew. If you listen to most experts... and hobbyists... the process is a pain in the neck!

Especially when you start getting into the "rules" of composting.

No meat!
No bread!
No oils!
No paper!
No sawdust!
No macaroni and cheese!
Make a nice set of boxes!
Make your boxes from cedar or block!
Don’t make your boxes from evil toxic things!
Put hardware cloth around your bin!
Put in motion detectors for the rats!”
“Watch out for disease-carrying flies!
Get the C/N ratio right!
Ensure a thermophilic reaction!
Crush eggshells before adding them!
Ask your neighbors first!
Check with local authorities!
Are you sure you checked with local authorities?
Check with local authorities again!
Keep it moist but not wet!
Turn it monthly… weekly… daily… hourly!
Don’t let it go anaerobic!
You need a barrel!
You need an aerating crank!
You need PVC aerating tubes!
You need a thermometer!
You need a worm bin!
You need an odor-free countertop compost container!

Making compost is serious business for some folks. Go on YouTube some day and start watching
videos. You’ll see homemade motorized compost sieves and scientists with huge thermometers,
tractors turning steaming piles of carefully mixed debris.

Guess what?

You don't need all those rules!

At a basic level, composting is just letting things rot. It’s a simple process of nutrient recycling you
can harness to feed your plants.

I was a typical composter for many years.

I made big piles of organic matter and did my best to layer greens and browns. I dragged home trash
cans full of coffee grounds from a local espresso joint and layered them with leaves and rotten straw
to get a good hot pile going. I’d mix in all of our kitchen scraps (with the exception of the “bad”
stuff, such as meat, oils, etc.) and add all the grass clippings I could bag. Spent non-woody plants
from the garden got thrown in, as did eggshells, hair, and shredded paper from the office.

I’d carefully water and turn the piles every week or two, getting excited when they heated up and
wondering where I’d gone wrong when they failed to heat up.

As for where I put them… well, at the back of the yard, of course! Far from sight and smell!

I built enclosures of various levels of aesthetic quality, from stacked landscape logs at one point to a
nice pile of cinder blocks at another. I pressed large rings of hardware cloth into service, and
sometimes I just made a pad of square pavers and piled organic matter on top of that.

My wife and I moved multiple times but we always had some sort of compost pile even when we
were renting. It just felt like the right thing to do—and our children have been raised in the habit.
When we visit a friend’s house for dinner, the children invariably ask “where’s the compost?” as
they clear the plates from the table, then look confused when the homeowner tells them to just
“throw the scraps away.”

I was obsessed with getting it right. Yet no matter how much organic matter I scrounged together,
we never seemed to have enough compost.
If you’re making your own piles only from the agricultural-extension-approved “waste” that comes
through your yard and kitchen, chances are you’ll never have enough. You need more biomass right
at the beginning.

Once I realized this fact, I started asking questions.

Scary questions.

The kind of questions that get you shunned by your local garden club.

Questions such as:

Can you compost meat?

Can you compost dog droppings?
Can you use the fish guts from the local market?
Can you use urine as a fertilizer?
Can you use all the shavings from a woodshop?
Can you compost logs?
Can you compost bones?
Can you compost Hot Pockets?
Can you compost without all the work?
Can you really make “enough” compost?

The answer to all those questions is yes!

If Nature does it, you can do it.

The supposed reason extension agents don’t recommend adding certain ingredients to your pile is
because they can attract vermin, create odors, and fail to break down quickly in a typical backyard
pile.

It’s not because they’re useless as soil amendments.

There seems to be a vast conspiracy to make composting a pain in the neck, and I'm going to run
through six easy methods that will blow the rules out of the water and free you to stop wasting
potential soil fertility by throwing it into the trash.

You ready? We'll start with the easiest method of all.

Method #1: Throw It On the Ground!
To get started right now, you don’t really need bins or a mix of “browns and greens.” Compost is
like magic. Take “waste,” and - abracadabra - you turn it into a resource. Every bit of organic
material found can be returned to the soil.

Every time I drive through town, I see piles of leaves, branches, grass clippings, tree trunks, pine
needles, and other rich organic matter lying by the road, waiting to be picked up by waste
management.

Why?

Because people don’t realize what they’re doing! By sending all that organic material off their
property they’re exporting their soil’s fertility only to later purchase some back in plastic bags
marked with numbers such as “10-10-10.”

Think about it: a plant or a tree pulls up nutrients from deep in the soil and uses them, along with
solar energy and water, to grow. All parts of that plant contain good things that can be used by your
garden. Don’t chuck all that tree’s hard work by the side of the road to be taken to the dump. You’d
be leaving your piece of earth less fertile than it was before.

Instead, compost!

In this booklet I’ll share a variety of composting methods from the simple to the very slightly less
simple. These and many more ideas are in my book Compost Everything: The Good Guide to
Extreme Composting, (heck, I ripped off my own book extensively while creating this awesome pdf)
but you don't need anything other than this booklet to start composting like a boss.

I understand the desire to solve the hassle of composting through science and design. A traditional
pile with its accompanying need for turning requires work. Before surrendering to nature's
composting method, I tried finding easier ways through science, so I don’t blame people for buying
composting gadgets.

Some years ago I built a 55-gallon compost tumbler for my wife because she wanted an easier way
to make compost for her square-foot gardens.
It was a marvel of ingenuity! A leap forward for upcycling! A high-capacity composter for
cheapskates!

But it wasn't easy to turn. It also wasn't big enough to cook down properly, meaning that the kitchen
scraps sat in there in a big clump without breaking down.

This is a common problem even with the nice compost tumblers you buy from nice stores or out of
the back of nice gardening magazines. It’s not just a problem that arises in redneck drum
composters.

Another problem you’ll often face when using a tumbler is incomplete compost creation. That is,
unless you have two of them, at some point you need to quit dumping in your food scraps for a
month or so in order to let the compost break down completely. You also need to mist the contents
with a hose and crank it regularly. “How many of you are willing to do all that for a couple of
buckets of compost?

As a final indignity, decent compost tumblers are expensive.

The real silliness in this fight to make perfect compost through science is that Nature recycles
organic matter into compost all the time without tumblers, cranks, bins, sifters, pitchforks, garden
hoses, or thermometers.

Do you know how Nature makes compost?

She throws things on the ground.

That’s most of it right there. Throwing things on the ground. Easy, right? Just throw things on the
ground. When organic matter falls to the ground, it enriches the soil and fosters the growth of new
plants. Dead material is reused by living material, which eventually dies and is then recycled into
living material again.

It happens over and over again in a vast array of patterns. Worms consume leaves and are then eaten
by birds. The birds spatter their droppings across the forest floor, feeding the trees. The trees then
grow more leaves which eventually fall to the ground and feed the worms - and the cycle continues.

Using this cycle to your benefit is truly as simple as throwing things on the ground.

You don’t need a nice pile. You don’t need a nifty wheelbarrow-mounted sifter. You don’t need a
pitchfork.

You just need organic matter. If it’s in contact with the soil, it will break down.

The soil is an amazing digester of organic materials. It’s a place filled with bacteria and fungi,
worms and beetles, ants and termites, earwigs and millipedes. All of these little deconstruction
machines will deal with whatever falls to the ground and transform it into rich humus for your
plants and trees.

If you’re not concerned with collecting sifted, finished compost you can dole out by the teaspoonful
to your pepper plants, start composting without work. Throw it on the ground!

You don't even need to collect the finished compost. Nature doesn’t. She just lets organic matter
collect and decompose where it falls, feeding nearby plants.

Want to make compost like Nature does?

Throw stuff on the ground.

If you eat a banana in the car, you can throw the peel out the window by the side of the road and it
will provide nutrition to whatever lucky plants happen to be at the end of its flight path. Likewise, if
you’re smoking a cigar and stub out the butt on the ground, it will feed something.

I know, that wasn't what you were thinking I'd tell you when you picked up this booklet. Stick with
me, though, we'll move to other composting methods in a few pages. What I want you to
understand, though, is that you don't have to throw organic "waste" into a landfill, even if you never
decide to build a pile or even grow a garden.

If you’re interested in living lighter and composting with the least amount of work in the most
natural way possible, here’s how you do it.

Step 1: Find Some Organic Matter

An avocado skin? Great. Moldy baked beans? Wonderful. Old bills and non-glossy junk mail? Sure.
Eggshells, tea bags, cardboard, citrus peels? Yep.
It makes sense to keep a small trash can with a tight lid in your kitchen. Anything compostable goes
in there. Even an old coffee can works well.
When you’re pruning fruit trees or dealing with fallen oak limbs in the yard, don’t drag them to the
side of the road for disposal or burn them in a pile.
If you have a picnic in the yard with the children, use uncoated paper plates. Then save them, along
with whatever uneaten food the children leave behind.
When you have a potluck dinner at church, help clean up at the end, and throw all the napkins and
food scraps into one container you can then take home.
Check with your local coffee shop and see if you can pick up grounds from them.
See if you can get boxes of expired produce from your local grocery store or farm stand.
Gather cardboard from alleyways.
Ask your neighbors to dump their yard waste at your place.
Collect shredded documents from work.
Pick up bags of leaves by the side of the road in fall.
Ask local tree companies if they’ll drop their fresh-chipped “waste” in your yard.
If you want maximum fertility on your little piece of the earth, collect everything organic you can
find all the time.
And then move on to step 2.

Step 2: Throw It On the Ground

Once a week or more, take your kitchen-scrap trashcan to a place that needs fertility, then dump it.
Do the same with your yard waste: drag it to wherever the soil looks a bit sad and throw it on the
ground.
What does this look like in practice?
Well, fruit trees need fertilizing, right? Normally you’d give them a hit of chemical fertilizer now
and again throughout the year. Instead of doing that, just drop organic matter on the ground around
them. Pretend the tree’s root zone is a big, rough, compost pile. Chop up some sticks, throw down
some paper plates, spatter rotten salad greens, and throw in some spoiled fruit. It’s easy and fun.
You can also put hunks of logs near the bases of your trees and along the edge of pathways and
gardens to act as bunkers for fungi and other beneficial organisms.
Don’t worry about making everything neat and tidy—nature doesn’t! If it really bothers you to have
things looking a bit rough for a while, keep a little pile of mulch on hand. When you dump coffee
filters or office papers and other ugly debris, cover it with mulch so it can decompose without
offending your eyes (or Code Enforcement). Do the same if it's something sloppy that might smell
bad.
Here’s something to consider, however: if you make a big pile of sticks it might take a long, long
time to break down. That’s because there’s too much air circulating around the wood that keeps it
too dry for quick decay. Contact with the ground makes all the difference. If you have sticks, bust
them up a bit. Smaller pieces mean there is more surface area for decay organisms to chew on. Still,
you don't have to do that. They will break down eventually, no matter what you do.
If you’ve got a large area you’d like to improve, don’t scatter your organic matter too thinly. It’s
better to highly improve a small area than it is to very slightly increase the fertility of a large area.
Do it section by section.
Why’s that?
Because you’ll get better yields.
If you have twenty trees that are struggling and you give each of them a pint of compost, you’ll still
have twenty trees that are struggling and you’re not likely to get much fruit next year. However, if
you took twenty pints of compost and gave it to one or two trees… well, those trees are going to be
happy for a change and are much more likely to bear something tasty in the spring.

Direct Composting in the Garden

When it comes to annual gardening you can also use the power of “throw it on the ground” to
improve patches that fail to produce well.
In my vegetable gardens I pick one of my 4' x 12' beds and designate it as the compost pile for a
year. On that bed go all the spent vegetable plants from the other garden plots, along with the
weeds, kitchen scraps, rotten pumpkins, etc. A lot of fertility is gained by that space over the 365
days that the pile lies there and rots. At the end of the year, I might shovel the uncomposted waste in
the bed over to the bed next door and garden where the pile had been… or I might just smash it
down a bit, mulch on top, then plant vegetable transplants right into the heap.

As a bonus, during the course of the year, your compost pile bed will often bear a yield.
For some reason, squash, melons, and tomatoes all love volunteering in compost piles. If any seeds
have gone into your kitchen bucket and out the door into your compost pile/garden bed, chances are
they’re going to pop up at some point. One year we got cantaloupes from our garden bed/compost
pile. Another year we got loofah gourds. And tomatoes? Oh yes. And pumpkins! More on them in a
minute.
There’s another benefit to throwing your scraps right onto a garden bed: it’s less work that putting
all your scraps in a designated composting area, then later taking the final product and wheeling it
over to your garden beds. When you drop organic matter into an unused bed, it’s right where it
needs to be.
Furthermore, have you ever seen how nice and green the weeds get around the edges of a compost
pile? That’s because some of the fertility in the pile is running off into the ground around your stack
of compost. When you compost directly in a gardening area, you let the good material go straight
down into the soil where you’ll later be growing vegetables for your table.
It just makes sense.
One year we buried some buckets of fresh manure from our farm (watch out for imported manure
from anywhere else - Google "aminopyralids in manure" - the herbicides can kill your garden for
years!) in a lousy garden bed, then chucked all our kitchen scraps on top. At one point the mound of
decaying compost was over two feet tall. Because of the size of the bed, that two foot depth
represented a lot of organic material.
We stacked our pile high and threw kitchen scraps on it every evening. Some of these remains
included some pumpkin guts, which led to something amazing the next year.
In the spring I noticed a wide variety of plants popping up here and there on the pile. There were
some ugly potato plants, some sprawling tomatoes, a decent amount of weeds, mango and avocado
seedlings, and some sort of vigorous melon-like vine. When I first saw the vines I assumed they
were cantaloupes, but it rapidly became apparent that they weren’t melons; they were pumpkins!
They didn’t stop inside the compost pile/garden bed, however.
The ridiculously supercharged pumpkin vines sprawled over hundreds of square feet of space,
climbing up into the lower branches of one of my peach trees, running over one of my water
chestnut ponds, jumping the path into my sugar cane beds, attempting to smother my son’s yacon
bed, and completely covering several adjacent beds, rendering them unplantable. Wherever the
vines grew, they added more roots to their stems, but the healthiest portions of the plants were near
the original compost pile.
The pumpkin vines certainly made a mess of my garden, but I left them alone regardless. That mess
was a ridiculously productive mess! We blew through one hundred pounds of delicious, buttery
Seminole pumpkins (their fine flesh tastes like a cross between a great butternut squash and an
excellent sweet potato) before the end of July. For a few weeks in the heat of August they quit
producing, then jumped right back into production as the days cooled off in September. From spring
until frost they rocked that compost pile garden bed. The final tally reached almost two hundred
pounds of pumpkins.
Now here’s the funny thing: I planted this same variety of pumpkin in my front yard food forest and
had only minimal luck. In fact, the seeds that grew in the compost were from the few fruit we’d
harvested off those disappointing vines the previous year. Yet the plants in the front yard were blah,
and the vines pouring from the compost pile were triumphantly abundant.
There’s something we can learn here.
Just think about how well some plants do growing directly on a compost pile. The three that really
seem to thrive in my compost piles are tomatoes, squash, and melons.
Even if you turn your compost pile, some of the seeds always survive the heat and start growing
when you spread compost elsewhere—or they grow directly on the pile like my pumpkins. This is
why you shouldn’t indiscriminately throw weed debris in your compost pile and assume the seeds
will get cooked.
Well-meaning composting instructors aside, seeds always seem to come through.
Now why would tomatoes, squash, etc. do so well in a still-warm pile of rotting organic material? In
nature, fruits fall to the ground and rot. At some point in the future, provided they aren’t eaten by
scavengers, the seeds usually sprout in a big mess. They are then thinned by cutworms, the weather,
and competition. Eventually a few of the hundreds or thousands of seeds (fertility of the soil and
weather conditions permitting) will manage to grow into adulthood and reproduce.
Your compost pile is like a huge concentrated stack of nutrition. It’s no wonder some plants thrive
in that situation.
So consider this experiment: what if a gardener deliberately constructed compost piles as garden
plots for those species that love to grow in compost? What if he simply piled up a mess of organic
matter in the fall and threw tomatoes, melons, and squash on top of it to weather out the winter and
erupt into life in the spring?
Nature does it, and that makes it worth a try.
Yes, if you throw compost right on the ground, occasionally racoons and local cats will show up and
drag some away. Who cares? Better than throwing it in a landfill.
Now let's more on to another method.
Method #2: Direct Composting in a Banana Circle
Permaculture enthusiasts in tropical to subtropical climates love making a specialized type of
garden/compost pile called a “banana circle.”
The basic concept is simple: bananas crave water and are voracious feeders that love lots of organic
matter.
In order to hold on to water and nutrition, make a roughly yard-deep circular indentation in the
ground. Angle it to trap runoff, leaving one end open to the flow of water across your property, or
run a drainpipe off your roof, set up an outdoor shower or urinal, or do what I did: run the water
from the kitchen sink out of the house.
Around the edges of that pit, mound up the dirt taken
from the center, then plant your bananas in the edge
mound along with other plants that will benefit from
the soon-to-be moist conditions and high fertility of the
circle.
Where does the fertility come from?
That’s the fun part!
In the middle of your newly dug circle, start dumping a
lot of organic matter. Chunks of log, straw, manure,
kitchen scraps, chopped weeds, Spanish moss, fish
guts, coffee grounds, sugarcane waste, feathers,
newspapers, and whatever else you can find.
Make a nice big pile; it will rot down quickly.
After you’ve done that, mulch well over the bare soil,
and start planting on the berm around the pile in the
center. Bananas are the keystone of this design, so plant
them first, and then start adding plants in between.
Toward the center, where the soil will be more damp, add moisture-loving plants such as cannas,
malanga, or taro.
At the top of the berm, consider planting lemongrass, comfrey, sage, yacon, and other species that
don’t mind it drier.
On the outside of the berm, try planting cassava, chaya, squash, herbs, and other edibles. A ground
cover of sweet potatoes is often recommended, as that adds one more layer of edibility to the
design, and the rapidly growing vines keep weeds under control.
As you plant, make sure to leave a gap in the edge of the circle so you can continue to throw
organic matter on the compost heap in the center.
This system will digest a remarkable amount of organic matter while paying you back in food. If
you live farther north, you’ll obviously have to forgo the bananas and other tropical plant species,
yet the basic design will still work.
You’ll just have to do some experimentation… but isn’t that half the fun of gardening?
Building a banana circle beats having to turn multiple piles or buy a tumbler, then sift and haul the
resulting compost to your plants. By dropping the items to compost in the middle of a gardening
area, you save a lot of work.
And of course, if the couple of hours it takes to build a banana circle is still too much work for you,
just throw stuff on the ground!
It will rot, and as it does so, the fertility of your ground will improve along with your harvests.
Method 3: Throw Stuff in a Barrel of Water
A few years ago I planted a good-sized plot of field corn in a sandy, freshly plowed field. Since it
was way too much space to be improved by adding compost (the truckload required would have
cost way more than the corn I hoped to harvest), I put a couple shovelfuls of chicken manure into
the bottom of a 55 gallon drum, then filled it two-thirds full of water.
Every two weeks or so when I visited my field, I’d stir the amazing smelling slop in the barrel and
then fill a couple of cheap watering cans (with the roses removed) and walk along the corn rows,
letting the manure/compost water stream out at the base of the stalks.
The corn responded excellently, growing at a
remarkable rate, and keeping a rich green color
throughout the season.
I stretched two shovelfuls of manure across
2500 square feet of corn!
If I had added that chicken manure to my
compost pile, then tried to spread compost down
the rows, it wouldn’t have made a dent in the
fertility of the soil.
There simply would not have been enough
compost.
Along with the manure, I also added a bit of
Epsom salts for magnesium, plus a few cups of
fish emulsion and liquid seaweed fertilizer.
Though the main thing corn “eats” is nitrogen, I
have a gut feeling that adding lots of micro
nutrients promotes stronger growth. Unlike
many manure or compost “tea” makers, I don’t
bother aerating the stuff.
As a test, one fall I filled a trash can with pulled weeds, leaves, some chicken manure, straw, and a
bit of dirt, then filled it the rest of the way with water, and let it rot for a while. I then dipped into
that water and fed my plants in the greenhouse throughout the winter.
They did quite well, though the smell—my gosh—was amazing.
I think I need to market it: Dave’s Fetid Swamp Water™.
Incidentally, you’re supposed to keep air in the mix in order to encourage the friendly and less
dangerous aerobic bacteria, but hey, who can fault a guy for sending a little love over to the
anaerobic side once in a while?
I’ve thrown in yogurt, kefir, molasses, urine, compost, comfrey leaves, stale coffee, leftover water
from cooking beans and greens, ashes, and a tablespoon of borax for boron.
The satisfying part of weed tea is that you’re taking “waste” and converting it into an asset.

Weeds are great at accumulating nutrients from the soil. That’s what makes them such hardy
competitors in the garden. Take their hard work, and make it work for you by throwing them into a
barrel of water to rot down.
Urine is another great addition to compost teas. I’ve seen an amazing garden fed with nothing but
diluted urine, so I know this method works. It also makes sense if you consider the order inherent in
the universe. If I were going to design a system, I would make the waste from one organism feed
another.
As mentioned previously, urine is sterile when it leaves the human body, so you’re not dealing with
questions such as, “Will this kill me?”
Urine has an NPK rating of roughly 15-1-2 which is comparable to commercial nitrogen fertilizers.
You can also make compost tea from just compost.
Take an old T-shirt or fine mesh bag, and fill it with good compost, then submerge it in a bucket of
water for a day or more, swishing it around as you remember.
The resulting “tea” is loaded with beneficial bacteria, fungi, minerals, and other good stuff.
I don’t usually make straight compost tea, since I like to add more fertilization to the mix with the
ingredients mentioned above. However, compost tea is great as a spray for treating fungal issues on
plants.
The big problem with making manure/compost tea as I do is that it’s not safe to directly consume.
There can be some bad guys hanging around in that mix, so a gardener should avoid this method of
fertilization on his patches of salad greens and other plants that are eaten raw unless he’s prepared
to thoroughly wash everything.
I’ve never gotten sick; however, I usually use this type of mix on plants such as corn, fruit trees,
young seedlings, and greenhouse plants that aren’t going to be directly consumed or harvested
within a short period after fertilization.
The barrel method is my favorite way to stretch compost out over a lot of square footage and it’s so
easy to do you’ll be a convert once you start.
Method 4: Plants and trees can be compost-generating
machines!
When you prune your hedges or cut your grass, you don't have to chuck the clippings. Instead,
throw them around whatever you would like to feed. Throw them on the ground!
Even weeds are great.
Have you ever taken a close look over time at a construction side or a road-improvement project?
The heavy equipment rolls in and carves up the soil, leaving long bare scars through the grass.
When the work is done, the ground is a mess of naked earth and scattered rocks. But within a few
weeks, there’s green everywhere. Look closely, however, and you’ll see the green usually isn’t the
same as it was before. Where there once was grass, now there are weeds. Clovers, thistles, morning
glories, pigweed - all kinds of species have appeared seemingly ex nihilo.
Why?
They’re doing God’s work. One plant is fixing nitrogen, another is accumulating phosphorus, a
third is fixing a sulfur deficiency and others are simply adding humus to the soil as they grow
rapidly, drop leaves, make seeds and die.
Do you recall the John MaCrae’s poem “In Flanders Field?”
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row…”
After the extensive shelling destroyed the ground during the Second Battle of Ypres during World
War I, it’s related that the ruined landscape erupted into a profusion of red poppies. They came from
seeds that had been turned to the light by the explosions and troop movements, thriving in ground
that had been wounded by the brutality of war.
Sometimes called “pioneer species,” the hearty weeds that arise and cover disturbed ground come
from many sources. Some are blown in on the breeze, others fall in the droppings of birds, and
many come from seeds long buried in the soil that awakened when the ground was turned and
opened to the sunshine.

Weeds Feed The Soil

The principle of crop rotation and leaving the ground fallow is an ancient one. Repeated plantings
of the same crop take the same nutrients from the soil year after year – and encourage the buildup of
pests. But letting weeds (or different planned species) grow gives the ground a break and lets nature
find its balance again.
I often use the permaculture “chop n’ drop” method of feeding my fruit trees. Tall weeds growing
near a sapling persimmon? Get your sickle, chop ’em down, then throw them as mulch around the
base of the tree. The weeds pull up nutrients constantly, and when you chop and throw them to the
tree, you’re giving that tree the benefit of another plant’s hard work. I let pokeweed, shepherd’s
needle, thistles and other “weeds” grow throughout my food forests for a variety of reasons, but the
accumulation of nutrients for my cultivated trees is a primary one.
I've even planted fast-growing species on purpose just so I can cut them down to use as compost. A
favorite here in my tropical clime is Tithonia diversifolia, AKA Mexican sunflower, AKA tree
marigold. It's a fast-growing perennial sunflower that makes a lot of biomass.

Even invasive trees can be used to get more biomass for your compost.
We often cut down trees to make space for gardens, buildings or just because we want the grass to
grow.
I took out a lot of water oaks back in Florida because they were time bombs. Water oaks rot out on
the inside, then fall to the ground, often destroying houses and vehicles. After two fell within a
couple of years, I decided I was done with them – no way I would leave those trees to potentially
fall on my children. Or my fruit trees!
When I cut them down, I let the water shoots grow back out of the stumps, then I would cut them to
feed to our goats. Later, after I got rid of the goats, I would cut the shoots now and again and throw
them around the base of my fruit trees to mulch and feed the soil.
I never cut them back completely or tried to kill the tree – I just took some and let the rest grow.
With some trees, such as black locust, mimosa, ice cream bean, paulownia and others, bacteria on
the roots of the trees produce nitrogen and the leaves themselves are often loaded with it. Instead of
burning the stumps, harvest the tops.
Chop and drop! Free fertilizer and mulch at the same time. Some “invasive” trees actually make
great food for the soil.
Since I rarely have enough compost, I like to grow trees and plants that make a lot of biomass I can
drop on the ground. Think “green manure,” except with trees instead of annuals.
It's a great practice to grow banks of trees and plants that you can cut and drop again and again to
build soil, suppress weeds and mulch your plants.
Fast-growing trees can be a pain from one point of view (IT WON’T DIE!) or a blessing from
another (IT MAKES SO MUCH GOOD COMPOST!).
There are times to remove stumps and weeds, but not always. Don't go scorched earth!
Method 5: Bury "Waste" In Pits and Plant Over It
Burying food scraps in pits is a safe way to use highly nitrogenous, potentially dangerous, stinky,
yet mineral-rich materials in your gardening.

I call it making "melon pits," as I often grow pumpkins and melons with this method, but it will
work for just about any plant.

You can include bones, kitchen scraps, pasta salad, spoiled meat, livestock carcasses, chunks of
wood, road kill, pet droppings, chicken or any animal manure, ashes, pickled pig’s feet, buckets of
coffee grounds, rotten fruit, etc.
If it’s organic and filled with nutrients, chuck it in.
The method worked well in Tennessee clay, my sandy homestead in Florida and in the tropics where
I currently live. I have enough experience at this point that I can assure you that it can and will work
in your garden as well.
I’ve also buried big chunks of wood in the holes as well. Buried wood rots and acts like a wet
sponge holding a good volume of water which can keep your melons or squash going through times
of low rainfall.
Are you ready to make your own? Then clean the moldy leftovers out of your fridge - it's time to
make a melon pit!

1. Dig a two to three foot deep hole

You don’t want your melon pit to be too shallow.
There’s little worse than having rotten meat dragged across your yard by marauding raccoons, so
make sure the depth is sufficiently discouraging to animals.
It’s also important to make sure the contents are far enough below the natural soil line that they
don’t end up getting washed out in a heavy rain. Plant roots often mine much deeper for nutrients
than you’d expect.

2. Dump in chunks of wood and sticks

Again, this is for water retention. Bigger chunks are better. I’ve buried fifty pound hunks of logs
before. They’ll hold water for years as well as provide a slow release of nutrition. If you only have
wood chips make sure you add lots of something rich in nitrogen along with them, otherwise the
bacteria will take nitrogen to decompose the carboniferous wood chips, and your plants will suffer
accordingly.

3. Dump in dangerous and gross stuff

This can be almost anything you can imagine. I’ve buried a dead rooster, baked beans, rotten eggs,
and even a human placenta. Crazy? No. I did it for science!

4. Cover with loose soil

Depending on your native soil conditions you can either indent your final melon pit or let it become
a traditional mound. In Tennessee I planted on mounds; in Florida where drainage is high, I like
indentations better. Six to twelve inches of dirt over the top is usually enough to deter roving
animals. Adding a few inches of mulch to the top of the melon pit isn’t a bad idea, since it will keep
out the weeds and keep in extra moisture.

5. Plant (and stand back)

Sprawling vines work the best with this method. You can plant a handful of corn or sunflower seeds
in the middle with squash or melons around them, or just plant watermelons… or even plant a tree
on top of the melon pit instead. I remember reading of a system of mobile outhouses. After a year of
use, the outhouse was moved and the top of the pit was filled with dirt. Then a tree was planted
there. The resulting concentrated fertility allowed the sapling to take hold even under tough
conditions. I’ve done the same with a mulberry tree to great effect.
Some folks worry that somehow the fruit of such a tree—or the lovely Hubbards you’ll grow—will
be contaminated by what’s in the pit. I mean, we all know manure and spoiled meat are dangerous,
right?
Fortunately, a little bit of scientific inquiry rapidly dispels this notion. There’s no way for E. coli, a
gut bacteria made to live inside nice warm animal and human intestines, can live and travel upwards
through a plant. It just doesn’t happen. The danger, as we’ve seen in contaminated spinach recalls,
is in raw waste being spattered onto produce that is then consumed. Burying makes this problem no
longer a problem, provided you’re not in an area that floods. In that case, compost first.
I believe plants find their own nutrition as they need it. If the roots come in contact with something
they don’t like, I think they just avoid it. If they find something they like, they go for it.
A few years ago I dug about eight pits in my front yard, pouring in whatever manure, ashes, scraps,
wood debris, and slaughter wastes that were available at the time.
Since it was chilly out and spring was a ways away, I decided to cover the top of my new hyper-
fertile patches with a living mulch. I planted lentils, peas, chickpeas, and fava beans on top of the
newly minted melon pits, watered them once, then basically left them alone until the spring. That
kept the ground occupied and mostly weed-free until the green carpet was unrolled for the real stars.
Once all the frosts had passed I planted pumpkins and watermelons in a couple of pits. In some of
the other melon pits, I planted perennials, such as figs, mulberries, and guava.
As an additional test, I decided to ignore weeding and watering except when the rain skipped us for
a week or more. The plants all did well.
We harvested a good amount of watermelons and pumpkins. The size of the watermelons wasn’t as
large as the seed packages advertised, but the fruits were sweet and juicy. The pumpkins produced
nice big fruit close to the melon pits but rapidly decreased in vitality and size as they wandered and
rooted along their vines farther and farther from their initial planting sites.
My front yard had terrible soil; it was obvious that the melon pits had made something possible that
would have been impossible otherwise.
As a control group, I also loosened some other patches of soil to a good depth and planted them
with watermelon and pumpkin seeds at the same time I planted my melon pits. Though they were
watered regularly, they completely failed to produce a single melon or pumpkin.
If I water and weed my melon pits, the difference is even more remarkable. Even when I almost
ignore them, they produce. Pamper them, and you’ll be very impressed.
The melon pit system has multiple benefits and no downsides. With melon pits you can:
1. Use organic matter that would normally be too dangerous or “hot” to use.
2. Dispose of “waste” by recycling it into soil fertility.
3. Grow food with very little work.
4. Save water.
5. Concentrate precious fertilizer.
6. Avoid cultivating a large area.
Try melon pits, and see for yourself.
That's easy composting, and it helps you immediately start using material that would otherwise end
up in a landfill.
Method 6: Make A Simple Pile With Local Materials
I know the subtitle of this bookwt reads "no sweat," but I must confess: if you use this method, you
might sweat a little.
Unlike many of my composting methods, this final approach creates a traditional compost pile of
alternating layers of carboniferous and nitrogenous materials, albeit without building a bin. The
boundary is made from cut limbs hammered into the ground and woven about with palm fronds, or
vines, or branches or whatever you have available.
The C/N ratio in this pile should be about perfect with the greens and browns but if it doesn’t get
hot you can always pour on some diluted urine to raise the nitrogen levels.
This simple compost pile can be set up anywhere in about an hour using local materials. I’ve done
this in a cornfield before, cutting and chopping old stalks for the base, then adding on layers of
greens and browns. Come back a few months later and harvest your compost!
Here’s a breakdown on the whole process.

Step 1: Cut Stakes

I used sticks cut from some unidentified roadside nitrogen-fixing tree locals use as a windbreak.

It’s a soft wood and easy to chop, but you can use anything you like from bamboo to oak to PVC.

4-5′ lengths are good, as you want the pile to reach at least 3′ tall and you need some stake depth to
drive into the ground.

Step 2: Install Stakes and Put Down Rough Material

I had already cut up some rough material and thrown it down before putting in the stakes, but it’s
better to put in the stakes first.
Cornstalks, hedge trimmings and other rough materials filled with air pockets make a good compost
pile foundation.

In the case of this pile, I used chopped twigs and leaves from the nitrogen-fixing trees used for the
stakes, some jasmine and hibiscus trimmings and a badly located volunteer papaya tree.

Step 3: Weave the Sides

I can’t make a good basket, but I’m not bad at simple compost pile weaving.

The idea is to hold in the compost while still allowing some air through into the pile. This also
supports the stakes. In a temperate climate you could replace the palm fronds with grape vines, tall
grasses, cattails or other plant material.
Step 4: Add some Browns
Gotta get that carbon!

It also makes sense to throw in a few shovels of soil as you build. That soil contains microbes which
will help break everything down

Step 5: Add some Greens (and Keep Layering!)

Get that nitrogen in there!

Grass clippings are a really good compost pile starter – if you have them, use them.
Just keep laying greens and browns until you’ve made the pile nice and tall. You can also throw in
biochar if you have it.
It won’t really help the composting process, but my hope is that it will be charged up with nutrients,
bacteria and fungi as the pile rots.

Step 6: Water Well

This is important: composting uses a lot of water, so get some on at the beginning.

If most of your materials are dry, you might want to water each layer as you build the pile. I am
sometimes too lazy to do that so I soak from the top before finishing the final covering layer.

Step 7: Cover the Pile

Covering the pile hold in heat and moisture. Sticking with my locally available materials, I used
banana leaves.

You can also use a tarp or just another layer of brown leaves. Compost really isn’t a finicky thing to
make – it’s will work, even if you don’t do anything “right.”
It’s going to decay and become humus over time, hot or not, perfect ratios or not.
In a few months you can turn this pile over and sift out the good stuff – or just push it around over
the garden bed beneath and get planting.
You can make a compost sifter from some scrap wood and hardware cloth, or you can just bend a
piece of hardware cloth and make a redneck sifter, like this:

Now that's easy!

Conclusion
Thank you for reading this little booklet. My goal is to demystify composting so you can start
recycling instead of sending organic matter out the landfill. Anyone can compost and it isn't as hard
as you might thing - get out there and get started.
To dive deeper into the wild world of composting, check out my book Compost Everything: The
Good Guide to Extreme Composting and stop on by my website any time at
www.thesurvivalgardener.com

About The Author

David The Good is the author of six gardening books, including Totally Crazy Easy Florida
Gardening, Grow or Die: The Good Guide to Survival Gardening, Compost Everything: The Good
Guide to Extreme Composting and Push the Zone: The Good Guide to Growing Tropical Plants
Beyond the Tropics. He's also the author of Turned Earth: A Jack Broccoli Novel, the world's first
gardening thriller. David has also written for Mother Earth News, Permaculture Magazine,
Backwoods Home, Heirloom Gardener Magazine, Stupefying Stories and The Grow Network,
among other outlets, and he also maintains a popular YouTube channel. He and his wife Rachel live
on a jungle homestead near the equator along with their eight children. In his spare time, David
enjoys woodworking, oil painting and building musical instruments.

Find more gardening inspiration online at his (almost) daily blog www.thesurvivalgardener.com.