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Composting during October’s golden days By Rhonda Nowak Oct 09, 2022 12:30 AM A A “In these golden October days, no work is more fascinating than this getting ready for spring. The sun is no longer a burning enemy but a friend, illuminating all the open space and warming the mellow soil.” — Charles Dudley Warner, “My Summer in a Garden,” 1870 Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900) is best known as the close friend of Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) and co-author of the novel “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today” (1873), in which the authors satirize political corruption and greed in America after the Civil War. This timeless classic was adapted into a television series that premiered on HBO Max earlier this year. It’s a shame, really, that Warner is remembered mostly for his connection to Twain because he was a prolific author in his own right. He was a journalist and editor for The Hartford Press (later The Hartford Courant) and wrote for Harper’s Weekly for many years, but his first book was “My Summer in a Garden,” published in 1870. In the book, Warner chronicles his gardening experiences and thoughts over the course of 19 weeks, beginning in May and ending in October. Sprinkled throughout the pages, Warner, who grew up in a devout Puritan family, sums up his “Moral Observations,” “Moral Truths” and “Moral Deductions.” During the 19th week of gardening, Warner made a “moral deduction” that is particularly salient. He wrote, “The difference between soil and society is evident. We bury decay in the earth; we plant in it the perishing; we feed it with offensive refuse: but nothing grows out of it that is not clean; it gives us back life and beauty for our rubbish. Society returns us what we give it.” Warner’s statement reminds me of a poem called “This Compost” (1867), written by his contemporary Walt Whitman: O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken? How can you be alive you growths of spring? How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain? Are they not continually putting distemper’d corpses within you? Is not every continent work’d over and over with sour dead? Since spring, I’ve been feeding my compost bin with wheelbarrows full of horse manure, used wood shavings, grass clippings and shredded plant debris (I’ve omitted “distempered corpses” so far). In exchange for this “refuse,” I’m eagerly anticipating receiving “life and beauty” in the form of microorganism- and humus-rich compost for my garden soil. The other day I was delighted to see mushrooms growing on top of the compost pile because this tells me there is a fungus growing underneath the surface that is busy decomposing woody material. If I dug deeper, I would find white strands of fungal mycelium spreading throughout the pile. (Mycelium is the vegetative part of the fungus, whereas the mushroom is the fruiting body of the fungus.) The presence of mushrooms in compost indicates high humidity, indirect sunlight, sufficient air circulation and air temperatures between 65 and 75 degrees. These are exactly the conditions of my compost bin in Bandon. Gardeners who want to speed up the decomposition process can use mushrooms as a sign that the interior of the compost pile needs to be hotter — between 125 and 140 degrees. A compost pile can be heated up by providing more air circulation, more direct sunlight and/or by adding “green” materials that are rich in nitrogen: fresh manure, grass clippings and vegetable scraps. A particular kind of soil bacteria called Actinomycetota is important for decomposing organic material. Add a few shovelfuls of garden soil or finished compost into the compost pile to increase the bacteria and heat up the pile. Other compost activators include a cup of blood meal or alfalfa meal, a bottle of beer, a can of sugary soda (non-diet), a half-cup of ammonia or a cup of diluted urine. Commercial compost activators, or accelerators, also can be purchased, but they tend to be expensive. I prefer slow, or cool, composting simply because it’s easier, and I don’t have to bother with proper carbon-to-nitrogen ratios. Obviously, the major drawback of this method is having to wait longer for the finished compost. In addition, grass seeds in the horse manure and other weed seeds that inadvertently make their way into the bin are not killed off by cool composting. On the other hand, I’ve found a few wonderful surprises in my slow composting bin. One year, I grew a pumpkin patch from seeds that germinated in my compost pile. Another year, a pretty red tulip emerged out of the compost, which was mysterious, given that I don’t have any tulips in my garden. This year, I added compost mushrooms (I think they are inky caps, Coprinopsis atramentaria) to the list of fungi I’ve discovered in my yard. In fact, mushrooms like inky caps, called saprobes, are another effective compost activator because they assist in decomposing organic material. For this reason, some gardeners add mushroom compost to their compost bins. Because the growing conditions are so favorable, some backyard mycologists cultivate edible mushrooms in their compost piles. (I should note that many “wild” mushrooms that grow in manure/compost are poisonous or psychoactive.) Warner calls October the “golden days” when the sun is “no longer a burning enemy but a friend.” With temperatures in the 90s in Medford this week, I’m still waiting for that friendly sun to appear. In the meantime, as I remove my spent vegetable plants from the raised beds, I’ll add some unfinished compost with nitrogen-rich manure to “warm the mellow soil,” and then I’ll mulch with shredded fall leaves. By springtime, the decayed manure and other organic matter in the raised beds and the compost bin will be ready to offer another season of life and beauty in the garden. Rhonda Nowak is a Rogue Valley gardener, teacher and writer. See literarygardener.com or email her at [email protected].