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QUESTION: Do you need worms for compost?

ANSWER: No, you do not need worms for a compost pile, and you can compost successfully without the help of worms, however, worms will speed up the composting process considerably, and even without being knowingly added to your compost, worms somehow usually find their way to a compost pile naturally.

Outside, composting happens without the help of earthworms, however, adding worms to your compost can be very beneficial. Worms play an important role in helping to break down waste products, and when added to a compost pile, worms can help speed up the process of decomposition. 

Your compost pile is similar to a miniature-ecosystem which consists of a lot of other bugs, microbes, and fungi, all of which contribute to the decomposition process. Worms are one of the many beneficial microorganisms that help break down organic material.

Their presence in compost is helpful but composting occurs regardless of the number of worms in your pile. However, worms are capable of consuming large amounts of decomposing matter in a relatively short time period, and their presence in your pile will make your composting process more efficient.

The best type of worms for composting are red wigglers. They are well suited to consuming and processing rich organic matter and they can also tolerate a wide range of temperatures.

Red wigglers can consume large amounts of compostable materials and can quickly process both kitchen scraps and garden waste with ease. Adding red wigglers to your compost pile will help speed up the composting process in your pile, providing you with nutrient rich compost in a timely fashion. Though worms are not essential to a well-functioning compost system, they are highly beneficial to composters.

QUESTION: Do plants grow better in soil or compost?

ANSWER: Plants should not be grown in compost alone. Compost is a soil additive that makes soil richer by increasing the nutrients it contains and also improves the texture of the soil. However, without mixing compost with soil, plants end up getting too much of a good thing. When nutrient levels are excessive, they can actually be toxic to plants. In compost, this can especially happen with the nitrogen and salt compost contains as well as the micronutrient boron. 

In addition to giving plants a surplus of nutrients that can be damaging, compost also makes a poor growing medium because of its texture. Compost is so much looser than garden soil that plants may be unable to stand up straight, as their root systems will be unable to find the support they need in compost. And because it’s so much looser than soil, compost has a tendency to become compacted or settle much more dramatically than soil.

This is especially obvious in containers, which will seem to be losing compost as time goes on because it will settle so significantly. The final problem with compost’s texture that makes it inappropriate as a growing medium is that it does not retain water and keep it available for the plants growing in it. Instead, any moisture from rainfall or that is provided by the gardener will simply drip through the compost without sticking around. 

For these reasons, compost should only be used in conjunction with potting soil, topsoil, or garden soil. The ideal ratio of compost in soil is five percent. When you’re planting a garden bed at the beginning of the season, you can spread one or two inches of compost across the surface of the soil. Then mix the compost down into the soil to a depth of six to 12 inches. Alternatively, you can use this technique to amend your garden soil in the fall, ahead of time before planting in the spring.

QUESTION: Do I need to fertilize if I use compost?

ANSWER: In general, yes, in most cases, you will still need to fertilize the soil according to your crop’s feeding requirements if you used compost to amend the soil before planting. Compost is not technically a fertilizer, but it does provide the soil with nutrients which will feed growing plants similar to a fertilizer. Fertilizer contains a higher percentage of nutrients than compost but less fertilizer is added to the soil than compost.

Compost works as an organic fertilizer for gardeners who are trying to avoid using chemical fertilizers and can sometimes be used instead of fertilizer to feed plants throughout the growing season. However, compost doesn’t meet the minimum percentage of nutrients that are required for it to be technically considered a fertilizer.

QUESTION: Does compost turn into soil?

ANSWER: When you make compost, the final product definitely resembles soil, especially visually. However, under the surface, compost and soil are not quite the same—whether you’re comparing compost to topsoil, garden soil, or potting soil. Let’s take a look at the differences between the two and clarify when and why to use compost and when it’s best to use soil.

In short, compost is a soil additive that is more rich in nutrients than soil (similar to how fertilizer has more nutrients than soil). It is also looser in texture than soil and therefore does not support the root systems of plants like soil does, and it has much more of a tendency to settle and become compacted than soil. Compost also does not retain water like soil, which will hold moisture to keep it available for plants. Instead, water flows right through the loose grains of compost.

While you can situate plants in a container filled only with soil and the plants will thrive, compost alone cannot support healthy plant life. The rich nutrients of compost can be detrimental and even toxic to plants if they are growing solely in compost. They would not be able to stand up straight if they were rooted in compost, and the compost would become so compacted that it would seem to be trickling out of containers as the days went by. 

Used properly, compost is mixed into soil, ideally at a level of about five percent. It can also be spread in a layer one to three inches thick over garden beds and worked down into the soil below to a depth of six to 12 inches. 

QUESTION: Does compost need to breathe?

ANSWER: Air circulation is a vital component of producing healthy compost, but it isn’t the compost itself that needs to breathe——but the microbes that live in the compost and break the ingredients down into the nutrient-rich final product do require oxygen to survive. When you turn or stir the compost, you’re aerating the soil to ensure all those little microbes get plenty of the air they need to breathe.

However, your hands-on contribution to aeration is not required. It will take quite a bit longer for your food scraps to be transformed into “black gold” if you aren’t turning and mixing the compost, but it will still get done. The only real necessities for aeration are air holes in the bottom of your compost bin, although it really helps to have air holes in the sides as well.

There are tools on the market designed specifically to help you with compost aeration, and of course, those do the trick. But gardeners have used pitchforks to aerate their compost for centuries with success, and other simple tools work just as well, such a plain old shovel.

To aerate easily using a shovel if you’re using the usual composting setup, with a bin that does not have a bottom or base plate, start by picking the bin up and placing it next to the compost pile, leaving a few feet of space between the two. Then, using your shovel, transfer the compost materials back into their bin in its new location. Easy as pie. Another way to aerate your compost is by using a compost tumbler, which is a bin designed to spin so that it aerates the materials inside the barrel when you crank its handle. 

Unless your compost is showing signs that it needs aeration urgently (which we’ll describe for you below), you should turn or mix the compost every few weeks. Although turning the compost materials only buys you a few hours’ worth of air, the looser, broken-up texture of the materials after they’ve been turned allows more oxygen to circulate through the pile, increasing the overall availability of air in your compost.

Some people wonder whether it’s possible to aerate too much or turn the compost too much, and the answer is yes. Your compost ingredients need time to sit and rest so that the microbes can get down to business and work on decomposing them and moving them closer to their final form. 

The microbes that work on decomposing your compost materials can survive without much oxygen—they only need five percent oxygen available to survive. However, if the oxygen level in your compost bin drops lower than 10 percent, parts of the compost heap may actually be at zero. This can happen because the amount of air available is not necessarily uniform throughout your compost pile. 

Whenever any part of your compost becomes anaerobic (in other words, devoid of oxygen), you’ll begin to smell the hydrogen sulfide gas that the microbes produce as a byproduct whenever they break down your compost materials. This gas has an unpleasant aroma similar to that of rotten eggs, so you’re sure to notice it if the amount of air in your compost dips below a healthy level.

If you detect this rotten-egg smell around your compost area, you need to aerate the compost just as you would in a routine session as described above to correct the problem.