How an Organic Compost Pile Works

To help you understand composting, I will give you a general explanation of how a compost pile works. Finished compost is "backyard magic." Finished compost helps restructure the soil, it reconditions the soil, it helps the soil hold onto its water thus protecting it from drought and erosion, and most importantly it puts nutrients back into the soil thus putting nutrients back into our food to help us stay healthy. There is just nothing comparable to food grown in organically enhanced soil.

When leaves drop from a tree, they decay into soft black humus over time -- without any help from people. When an animal dies, its remains slowly return to the earth. Anything that once lived will eventually decompose.

Composting is based on this natural process and begins with the thousands of micro-organisms which live naturally in soil. They feed on a moist heap of organic waste materials, generating considerable heat in the process. Other groups of "decomposer" organisms, an ever-changing workforce of bacteria, fungi, and insects, go to work as the temperature rises.

When the temperature drops, turning or stirring the pile gives the "decomposers" more oxygen and the heat builds again, helping to kill harmful bacteria. When all the easily decomposed material has been consumed, the temperature drops for the last time and earthworms and ants may move in, signaling that the compost is ready to feed new plants with its "recycled" nutrients.

How To Recognize Finished Compost

Finished compost has the distinctive fresh smell of newly-turned soil or a forest floor in spring, and won't heat up again no matter how often you turn air into the pile. The ideal result of the composting process is crumbly, dark, soil-like humus where none of the original material can be identified. The nutrients stored in compost depend on the richness and variety of its ingredients and on its exposure to harsh weather while it was decomposing.