A Scientist's Guide to Composting

You can turn all your old cooking scraps into gardening gold, thanks to hard-working microbes. Here's all the science of compost and everything you need to know to get started composting.

Hosted by: Savannah Geary (they/them)

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Sources:

[a_e_hilton]

A tired person's guide to compost: doing it at all is good. If you don't do it perfectly, at least you're doing it at all <3

[Anne_Onymous]

My compost pile regularly puts off smoke/steam! It would literally burn me if I stuck my bare hand in there. It's so bizarre that I can throw some junk in a pile and the microbes will make it hot enough to cause injury.

[joewee]

I have a Master Composter certification and the course literature referred to coffee products (grounds/hulls/roasting chaff) as so-called "breens" i.e. coffee on its own (at the right moisture content) is essentially a 30:1 carbon to nitrogen ratio, and can almost create finished compost on its own. A caveat being different forms of coffee grounds have different characteristics i.e. espresso pucks are very dense and tend to have lower moisture content than say pourover grounds in a compostable filter- too much wet coffee in your compost mix without things to aerate can cause the pile to go anaerobic.

[TheVGrdifyer]

I really appreciate you as a host! English is my second language, and you have really good diction. Which makes the episodes very nice and easy to follow 😄

[gabbyn]

I have some little helpers to areate my compost. Ants. They love to live inside, and the compost will get the air that is necessary through the passages that they have created. They also regulate part of the temperature because they want to achieve the optimal climate for their offspring. That might slow the composting process down, but I still can take portions of perfect soil from the edges whenever I need some.

[valerieherman]

Thanks for reminding me! I need to go out and turn my compost pile.
Back when I had chickens, that was their favorite thing! I'd tip over the barrel, and all the bugs would make a run for it. The chickens went dashing around after them, gobbling up insects until they couldn't fit any more. Then they'd go find a nice, cool dirt spot and take a luxurious dirt bath. Happy compost, happy chickens, happy grower.

[magicknight]

Big fan of worms in a compost heap/pile they really do a good job.

[anarchyantz]

Electrolytes. It's what the plants crave

[composthis]

Aw, I love this! I've been teaching people to compost for almost twenty years and you hit all the important points in a clear and funny way. Would love to see videos on some of the more complex composting processes, like anaerobic digestion and bokashi. It would also be great for more people to understand the difference between a compost pile in your backyard and the big industrial composting operations that big cities have. Compost is fascinating, and we're all going to have to do a lot more of it if we're gonna deal with this whole climate chaos thing...

[TheSkubna]

I had a mint plant grow out of my compost pile. It had leaves as long as my hand, and about 2/3 across. Best homemade mint ice cream

[kthfox]

i was still wiping worm bin dirt off my hands when i saw this. Thank you <3

[OneThreeEight]

I remember having to cut the corn cobs up when I was a kid, because my mom didn't want whole corn cobs in the compost, because they took forever to break down (realistically it meant she had effectively whole corn cobs in the garden soil, because they took so much longer than everything else). Being able to just toss whole corn cobs into the green bin is still the weirdest thing for me.

[TheBarracuda]

I've got an old 1/2 whiskey barrel for my compost. It's nice and hot in the middle, smells nice, and has a bunch of worms and ants. Nice and healthy!

[forcelightningcable]

“No pun intended?”
“No, pun intended.”

[Barely_Creative]

I love this Scishow set, and Savannah is a fantastic presenter. Another excellent and informative episode!

[justcaitlinjoy]

If you dont have a deciduous tree around to add leaves to your pile, adding shredded junk mail works too 😁

[tomallison]

You have a great delivery!
Your information is very digestible without getting so dumbed down that it resemble a big box store advert for fertilizer

[janetf]

This is the best composting video that I didn't know I needed, thanks!

[OakKnobFarm]

Great video! I've been composting for about a decade, and it's really easy after you get the hang of it. a one cubic meter / cubic yard pile will usually "cook" the best. I really just watch the temperature to know when to flip. It will get hot for a week or so, then cool off. if you flip the pile (getting the outside stuff to the core and the inside stuff to the outside) it will heat up again. Do that maybe 3 times, and it's usually done.

[dhawthorne]

Even here in PA, I can keep worms in my tumble composter year round. If one side fully breaks down, they just move over to the other chamber. These tend to have issue with getting too wet, so I suggest keeping any brown paper or fiberboard to help dry it out.