Composting in Drought

Monday was our 30th wedding anniversary. For this very special date, my husband created an unusual gift for me -- a gigantic pile of shredded oak leaves. On yard waste pick up day, he snatched 30+ bags of oak leaves from various houses in the neighborhood. Then on Sunday, just before dark, he shredded them using his lawn mower, despite knowing that several of the bags were soaking wet.

Despite his frustration with me for inviting our children to our romantic evening out at a fine restaurant.

Despite his suspicions that I love the dog more than him.

For the past two years, I have been experimenting with making compost. My compost pile is in a corner of our backyard, partially enclosed by a privacy fence. This area of the yard cannot be seen, unless you know where to look. So I'm posting a picture of it, knowing that this is my first blog post ever and I am revealing least attractive part of my garden.


The long deep pile in the foreground is my oak leaf gift. Behind that is this fall's compost pile made from kitchen scraps, Starbucks espresso grounds and chopped leaves soaked in rainwater. That pile has been cooking at 140 degrees for weeks, despite having been assembled with little water!

Why is water an issue? The Southeast US is experiencing an "exceptional drought" and our city's water restrictions forbid watering anything but garden plants for one hour on Saturday.

This fall, I started thinking about how to use water more efficiently when creating a compost pile. After some experimentation, I discovered that carbon materials soaked in rainwater retain the perfect amount of water needed for a hot pile. Since then I have been using this method to create hot piles without using city water

One last picture of compost -- I promise. This is last year's compost pile, composed of whole (unshredded) leaves from the fall and grass clipping from the summer. This pile required moving and mixing to properly compost the materials, but the pile is now resting at the leaf mold stage. I am now spreading this leaf mold as a mulch to ready spring blooming plants for the season.


Last year's pile was easy to create initially, but required turning, backbreaking work for someone of any age. This year, I hope that the initial investment in shredding and soaking will result in leaf mold by spring with no further attention.