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Composting: Nature's Most Interesting Process · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Chuck here with another edition of our think
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Spring playlist, and right now this is something you should
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: all be doing, which is composting, and you can learn
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a thing or two about it in this episode. Composting
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: colon Nature's most interesting process. It's really not too hard
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: and it really means a lot, so give it a shot.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh the Man Clark.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and I think I'm neglected
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: to say last time you did. Guest producer Nola is
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: with us.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: That's right. So if you listen to the Shroud of
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Turin episode and.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: You're like, man, that's not was great.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was no thanks.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Nol this.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Show. Today, I've been replaying my one of my favorite
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Simpsons jokes ever, it's over and over in my head.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: I laughed already just hearing Simpsons jokes.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: It was from the one of the Halloween episodes when
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: they did the Nightmare on Elm Street riff, these old
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: old ones where groundskeeper Willie was Freddy Krueger and he
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: turned into a I think like a shred or attractor
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: or something and ran over people or something, sure, and said, uh,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: when you'd when you'd done, When I'm done, they're gonna
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: need to do a compost border them.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Oh wow, that is a bad joke.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really good one of the I mean,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: the Simpsons didn't get too punny, but that was a
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: that was a good one.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Well, anything goes on a treehouse before.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, agreed.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: So you know, there's a bunch of cities that have
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: kind of gotten woke to the idea that we should
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: be recycling or composting our food. Did you know that? Sure,
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: I saw a stat that said something like forty percent
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: of food gets wasted. But I got suspicious because I
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: also saw that forty percent of the stuff that goes
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: to municipal landfills or trash is food waste, which doesn't
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: necessarily mean it's wasted food, because I don't think you
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: would count like a banana peel as food waste. Is
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: wasted food waste? No, it's a box.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: They're not counting food. Packaging is food.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: No, But I think they're counting everything that has to
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: do with food that could conceivably be eaten as wasted food,
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: which is not the same as food waste. The point is,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: the legitimate stat that I saw just about everywhere is
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: that if you took all the garbage that the United
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: States rose away into a landfill, forty percent of that
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: is food waste. And I'm sure some of it is
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: a whole cake some complete moron through a whole cake
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: away for no good reason.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I was on a diet.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: Well that's actually a pretty good reason. But you know
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: what I'm saying, forty percent of all that trash is food.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: The problem is you might say, well, who cares trash?
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: It decomposes. That's great, that's true. It does decompose, But
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: in the landfills that the United States uses, we make
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: sure they're anaerobic. Oxygen doesn't get down there, so a
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: whole different decomposition process takes place, and in a landfill,
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: in anaerobic decomposition, methane is produced. And methane is bad news.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Methane is something on the order of seventy percent worse.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: I know, there's a much more scientific way to put it,
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: but it's seventy percent badter than carbon dioxide as far
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: as greenhouse gases go. Yeah, seventy percent more potent. How
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: about that? Yeah, okay, so you don't want methane. If
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: you have to choose between methane and carbon dioxide, you
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: want to go with carbon dioxide. And it just so
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: happens that if you compost food waste, mostly carbon dioxide
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: is produced. Methane's not. So if you're diverting this food
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: waste from the landfill, there's a whole bunch of different
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: stuff you're doing. Number One, you're saving all that forty
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: percent of the space for actual trash, So you're extending
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: the life of your land shirts. You're keeping all that
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: methane from being produced. And as if it couldn't get
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: any better, you are creating an amazing fertilizer that you
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: can use to grow. You could grow a tree out
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: of a shoe. This fertilizer is.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: So good, the old shoe tree. Sure, uh, yeah, it's
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: We've danced around this a lot. We Well, you just
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: referenced our and I don't like to tootor on horns
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: a lot, But that Landfills episode was great.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: Landfills, and don't forget the plasma incinerator one.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Great. Basically any of our waste management ones.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Are yeah, what else I think gorilla gardening. We touched
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: on this sum and a couple of others. We've mentioned
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: composting and to the extent where I thought we had
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: done one on composting, not yet, but we had not
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: until about five and a half minutes ago. And that's
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: a guess. So if you write and say like.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: It was eight minutes, chuck, you're grounded.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: So, like you mentioned, we did, I don't think these
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: numbers are accurate anymore. But we generate, let's just say,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of millions of tons, hundreds of millions of
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: tons of trash, and about twenty five to thirty percent
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: of that is recovered through recycling, which includes composting, which
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: is good. But that number, if it was seventy percent,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: would be amazing.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Does it include composting that that recycling number? Yeah, oh okay, yeah,
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: if it be seventy it'd be great.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, eighty, why not, Yeah, let's shoot for ninety.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Well, supposedly Seattle itself has a goal of something like
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: sixty to seventy percent of all of its trash being
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: recycled by the end of the year.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Of course they do, because Seattle does it right.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: And they actually have compulsory mandatory composting now, like you
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: have to compost if you live in the city of Seattle.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Why don't I live there?
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know. I asked myself that
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: a lot.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: You know. Emily and I went for our two shows
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: ago on that lovely spring weekend.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: Oh it was gorgeous and.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: We stayed extra in Seattle and after we were like,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: we're moving here. That's it.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: It's a great town.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I've said it before on the show Dogs and Bars.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: That was all it took.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Dog Bartenders, but.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Again, Dog's plain poker again. It's easy to fall in
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: love Seattle on a perfect weekend in April.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I hear it rains there a lot, though.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I'd still live there. That's a great place. And you
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: know what, you may see us again this year Seattle. Tease.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: Tease, You're such a tease, all right.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: So composting is great for a thousand reasons, but one
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: first and foremost is that it's not hard to do
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: and it's not expensive to do. No, if you just
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: want to be And there are many different levels of composting,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: from big city programs to the home farmer that takes
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: it super seriously to just if you just want to
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: lessen the impact a little bit on your landfill, your
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: local landfill, feel like you're doing the right thing, and
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: get a little bit of nutrient rich goodness fertilizer to use.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: You can have just a little, small, little composting operation
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: going on at your house.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is all. This is all you need organic waste.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: And we don't even mean something that is like organic.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: We mean like organic meaning it's composed mostly of carbon.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: It was once alive at one point, right.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I made a poopy noise, which you can't
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: use poop.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: So no, that's night soil.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: That's the opposite of what I should have done.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: What's a banana Soundoo? That's a banana sound right?
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: You need soil, you need water, you need air or oxygen.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Right. So the organic waste is the stuff you're going
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: to have broken down, which in this case, in the
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: case of a compost pile, is food the.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Soil well partially sure, but.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: No, no, it's food for the things that are in
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: the soil, yes, right, it's an energy source, yes, yes,
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: and nutrient source for what's in the soil. So you
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: add soil. When you're adding soil, you're basically adding starter
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: culture to the compost. What you're doing is grabbing microbes
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: from say in your yard, and putting them on the
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: compost pile and say, dinner's ony.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: They eat and poop, yes, but you don't want to
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: poop in it.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: You need a little bit of water, like you said,
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: to keep it moist, but you don't want to keep
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: it over wet, because microbes like slightly moist soil and
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: then air because again again this is really really important.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: You can let your compost pile degrade anaerobically, but it's
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: going to produce methane, which is bad for the for
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: the environment, bad for your neighbors, bad for your neighbors,
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: bad for you. It's gonna stink, it might blow up,
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: who knows. You don't want to smoke near what's called
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: a passive compost pile, so you want to just introduce oxygen.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: And all this sounds very complicated. It's not. It's hitting
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: it with your hose. It's and by that I mean
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: spraying water on it with your hose. Is realized. You
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: can HiT's turning with your hose too. It's like turning
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: it over right with pitchfork. To add oxygen. It's as
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: simple as that.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really easy. So what you're going to end
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: up with the end, like we said, is really fertilizer.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: But it's uh, it's called humus. Don't call it hummus.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: No, that's different.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: That's two m's right. Uh, this has just one M.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And those little microorganisms in there, they're going to break
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: this stuff down. They're gonna eat it, they're gonna poop
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: it out and going to multiply, and there's gonna be
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about the critters a little more later, but
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: there're gonna be different critters along the way that eat
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: those critters than critters that eat those critters. And it's
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: gonna get really hot up in there. It might steam,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: then it's gonna cool back down. It's gonna get smaller,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: and it's just like this little micro environment. It is
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: really really neat.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: There's actually a food web in there. There's a lot
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: of physics and chemistry that's going on. It is very neat.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: I'm fascinated by it too. But the upshot of composting
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: is that you're taking something and it's being broken down
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: into its constituent parts so that it can be reused
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: by plants and the whole circle of life can start
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: over again.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're sort of just accelerating the natural process of like.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: Rot, you're optimizing it.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like you mentioned a passive composter, which is to say,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: you know, lazy hippies, you could just throw all that
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: junk out of your window if you want it in
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: a big pile and throw your some grass clippings on
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: and throw uh, throw your your fall leaves on there.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Just leave it there, and that thing will eventually compost itself.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: Well again, it'll produce methane. You'll blow up, or you can.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: You know, you could turn it every now and then
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and maybe avoid that.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: But uh no, I think that makes it an active pile.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Well, uh, slightly active pile then, right, I don't mean
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: like every other day just to avoid methane.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Maybe, but that would still technically be an active pile.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: It'd be a poorly managed active pile. Slightly active, poorly managed.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: So I'm serious, that's what they call it.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I know, Okay, I've just we'd like to make up
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: our own names for things. I didn't know you were
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: going to cease that, and oh I was in your
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: nine I gotcha.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Sorry, we'll call that the doobie pile.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, no, it's called active management.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: I just wanted to make sure that we got it
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: on the record.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: So the big goal here is to reduce your waste.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: They say in this article ultimately will save you tax
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: money because your landfill won't.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: I thought that was hilarious.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, don't count on seeing any any tax
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: breaks coming anytime soon.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: But that got William F. Buckley's attention.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Probably, So so do you how do you do this?
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Let's say you want to start composting. Hmm, there's a one, two, three, four,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: five step process to get this thing going.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: Okay, well, let's talk about them.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: The first thing you want to do is just pick
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: out the place you want to do it right, because it's,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: you know, it's a bit of a mess.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: It's it doesn't have to be necessarily, but depending on
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: your neighbors, they might be like, well, great, I'm glad
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: you started an unsightly pile of kitchen rubbish. Yeah, in
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: food waste that I can see from my deck. Thanks
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: a lot for that. So that's something you want to
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: keep in consideration. Apparently, even if you do have a
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: very well managed active pile, what would you call.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: That I'm not making up funny name. No more jokes.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: Ruined it it still it still may stink here there. Sure,
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: so you want it kind of away from the house,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: but not so far away that if you're feeling lazy,
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: you're not going to go out and tend to it
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: on a daily or every other dayly basis.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And if you have that much land that you
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: have a compost pile a mile from your house, good
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: for you. Yes, sure you got some acreage. There might
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: be some local rules, either from your hoa heaven forbid
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: if you have to belong to one of those, or
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: maybe just your municipality might have rules and regulations.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so check with them first. Sure, that's what everyone
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: does before they start a compost pile. They go down
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: to city hall and say, what tell me the rules
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: and regulations surrounding composting in my yard?
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Now, I think the first thing everyone does is start
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: throwing their eggshells out the window. Sure, that's how it
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: all starts. It's like, I'm tired of these things being
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: in my trash. They recommend downwind because, like you said,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: it might stink a bit. Sun is good in a way,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: but you don't want it baking in the sun all.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Day, No, because it'll dry it out. Remember you want
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: it to be kind of moist, yes, and the sunlight
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: can actually dry it out. Sure, so you want apparently
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: the best place to put it is under a deciduous tree.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Good spot.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because in the winter time there's no leaves on
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: the tree, so the sun's going to keep it warm
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: when it's cold. But during the summer it's going to
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: be shaded by the tree, so it won't dry out.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: It's just perfect. It is a deciduous tree equals love.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Wind is good to provide little air, but you don't
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: want it blowing, scattering the stuff all over the place,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: drying it out. Again, No good. What else? Drainage? Don't
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: start one in that old baby pool that you don't
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: want to throw.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Out, especially if your baby's in there.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you want good drainage. Like generally you build either
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: build a bin. We'll talk about this stuff actually right now. Yeah,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: but it's off the ground. Sure, it's on legs. Yeah,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: although you can't have a pile, right, but you know,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: generally you want to you want to build a bin
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: or buy a bin, right, And those things sit off
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: the ground, right because of drainage.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: That's part of it for sure. Yeah, you also want
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: dirt rather than say like a concrete pad or something
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: like that.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, don't compost in your driver, Right, it's not a
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: good idea.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: As far as structures go. You can, like you said,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: you can go buy one. They're not very expensive from
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: what I understand, right, Yeah, it depends on the size.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: You can also say go buy some cinder blocks and
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: build something like that. Sure, But basically you can cut
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: compost structures into two. There's a single bin and there's
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: a three bind system. So in the single bin system,
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: you put new stuff on top, new and appeals. This
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: is what I think of when I think composting.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: You know bananabul.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Sure, Yeah, you put new stuff on top, and then
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: you take a pitchfork or shovel or something like that
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: and you work, you work it in to the compost.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: And at the bottom of this structure, say it's open,
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: when you're walking up to it, the finished compost will
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: accumulate at the bottom. And the reason it accumulates at
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: the bottom is because it's a finer, finer grain. Yeah,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: and that's it. Single bin new stuff at the top,
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: easy peasy stuff. That's in process in the middle, stuff
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: that's finished in the bottom, and it will just naturally
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: kind of separate like that.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And when we're talking structure like that, if you
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: want to build one, you know, build a wood frame
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and it's like got chicken wire walls and a chicken
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: wire bottom, and that gives you the air and if
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: you've got something to collect it underneath, it's going to fall.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: You know, when it's small enough, right, some other stuff
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: might follow. You may need to add it back in.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: But with the three bin system, you've got, well you've
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: got three bends, you've got the starter stuff, you got
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the once it starts to break down, little stuff, and
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: then you have the more finished product, right, and you
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: have to actively manage that system.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that say some sounds unnecessarily difficult, kind of like it,
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: Oh you're a three bin guy.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Well, we're about to get into this for real. We've
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: been lazily composting for a while, but we're we're doing
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: our whole backyard like we're getting rid of our grass.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: Basically, what are you going to do?
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Compost mulch and beds and plants and herbs.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: And zerouscape cackdye in and all that.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: No cackdye though we do have a palm tree. We've
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: had that forever though, you yeah, just getting rid of
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the grass basically.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: Because it takes up so much water.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: It's just it's not good grass to begin with, and
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not the best about cutting it. Lawn mowers are terrible.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: Plus you don't water enough. You never let a quarter
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: inch of water accumulate exactly.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just and you know it'll look nicer. So part
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: of this in this company that's doing it is it's
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: not just a landscaping company. They're they're a there're a
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: bunch of hippies. So they're they're designing it in such
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: a way that that feeds itself. And part of that
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: is composting. Gotcha, anyway, long, long way of saying, we're
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: going to start, like for real composting very shortly.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: And you're going with the three bin structure.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I'm going to build it.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: It's well, it's the structure Emily tells me to build. Okay,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: that's the easiest way to say it.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Got yeah.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Uh, But if you buy one, like you were saying,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: there's all different kinds just you know, look, look it
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: up online or go to a hardware store, and you know,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: many of them will look like a big barrel on
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: legs and it literally turns like has a crank on
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: it to where you can turn this thing in circles.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: It's old timing, so you don't have to use a
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: pitchfork at all. Right, you don't have to must your
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: hands or your hair.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: It's like a bingo yeah, spinner, but with banana picks.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Have you ever played bingo, like legit bingo in a
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: room with hundreds of people, not hundreds, well more than
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: like you and you me, yes, like a bingo parlor?
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Is that what they're called. Yeah.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: I've actually gone to a couple of like senior retirement
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: homes and helped out with bingo. Wow, And that's a
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: pretty pretty cool experience actually, because.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Do you run the bingo?
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: It's, uh, you just play kind of qualified to run
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: the bingo right right, just walk around and point out
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: if somebody missed one that they you know that was
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: called that kind of thing, But did you want to
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: talk about taking it seriously? Do they?
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: My god?
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: And then you have to be a certified bingo master
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: to run the show.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and they'll like tell you to hurry up and
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: like shout if you're if you're not like loud enough
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: or fast enough or going too fast like.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: So, the point is not to have fun, you know,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the point is to win. Wow, what do they win
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: their prizes?
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Nothing much usually, I mean, but you can, I think,
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: like you can play bingo and casinos for thousands and
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: thousands of dollars. Yeah, usually at old folks homes. They don't,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: you know, sure there's not thousands of dollars prizes like
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: honey and nugarettes, right right, exactly?
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: All right, Well let's take a break here after we
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: have talked structure and uh, we'll talk a little bit
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: about what you want what kind of junk you want
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: to throw in that pile?
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: All right, chuck, So we're talking what you want to
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: throw on the pile.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Right, You got your ben either a triple three banger,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: got your site or single. You got your site.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: You bribed your neighbor to look the other way.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Your neighbor exactly. You bought a goat.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Oh man, talk about green living.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: My neighbor has goats now like five of them?
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: Are they loud?
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: No?
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's great.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Everyone's a while to hear them, but it's a joy
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: to hear. So it's not like it's not like a rooster.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: Do you wake up and look out and say morning satan.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: No, Well, goat's one of my favorites, so it's kind
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: of nice to have them around.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: Are they baby goats or adult goat?
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: No, they're big ones. I mean she got them to
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: maintain their property because she was tired of cutting. I
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: guess she didn't want to zero escape it, so she
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: bought goats. Right, anyway, it's it's awesome. Kitchen waist Josh,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: that's what you want to throw in there?
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that's the first one. That's the one that
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: everybody says. That's why you compost, right, Yeah, and yeah
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: banana peals everybody knows that. But did you also know
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: you can compost apple cores in orange rindes.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: You can also eat apple cores.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you believe there is no such thing as a core, right,
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: because there's not seeing people who leave their apple corese
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: left over. They can compost those things. Those are the
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: easy ones. You can also do coffee grounds.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good one.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Paper filters, throw that filter and all in there. Well, okay,
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: so let's just say I ate maybe a whole pizza
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: to myself. I've got a couple of napkins wadded up.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: What do I do with those? Chuck?
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Uh? I think you can throw those napkins in there, Josh.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Isn't that crazy?
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: It is crazy.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: Newspaper Yeah, corn cobs if you still.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Read a newspaper, if you get your news on the internet,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: throw your laptop in there. Watermelon rds, yeah, seeds, leaves,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: you know, the butt end of the asparagus that no
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: one cooks. Throw that junk in there.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: You can also do yard waste too, sure, right, so
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: you've got grass clippings, which we'll talk about in a second.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: We've got a couple of warnings as far as grass
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: clippings goes.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Not too much.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: But like let's say you're raking leaves or something like that.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: Throw some leaves on there.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good crunchy brown ones.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: And you can also throw like trimmings from your like shrubs,
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: if you trim your woody shrubs. Okay, the key here
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: is this, chuck. You want to cut all this stuff
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: up in small bits.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, don't throw a whole corn cob in there. You can.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: Your compost pile will just throw it right back out.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it'll just spit it right back out right. Very funny.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: It'll make a burping noise. Yeah, they say to shred
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: the corn cob. I don't have a corn cob shredder.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: I don't either.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I've never thought about that.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't waste like my blender blade on chopping up
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: corn cobs. I think the point is that's breaking into
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: a little piece of Sure, you can break it into
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: little pieces though.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you probably cut a corn cob up.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you can also, like you can take all
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: this stuff and chop it. Anything you can put in
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: a smaller pieces the better. Yeah, because, as we'll see,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: what you're really doing is you're not just breaking it up.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: You have to look at it like what you're doing
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: is increasing the surface area. Some more microbes can work
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: on it at once.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like if if you have I know you hate broccoli,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: butli you cut the little florettes off and you've got
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: that big green broccoli stalk. Yeah, cut that thing up
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: as small as you can, set it on fire you
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: have patience for, and throw that junk in there.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, basically channel your inner anal chef Chris, you remember him.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: The anal chef. Yeah, was that a real thing?
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Insert live Phil Hartman. No, I don't remember anal
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: retain of chef. Oh okay, I forgot the retentive part.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember, big qualifier. It's like, I
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: don't get that joke.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Mommy, remember the anal retain of chef?
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do remember that.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Now. He'd like start to if he was dicing like
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: green peppers and one of them was bigger than the rest,
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: he'd just be like, okay, well, you want to take
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: those chunks and you want to put them into a
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: paper towel, and then you want to fold that up,
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: and then you put that into some aluminum foil. You
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: fold that up, and you put that in a paper
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: bag and you roll it up and then you staple
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: it and then you throw it away.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Boy man, that was Oh still makes me sad. So
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: you mentioned newspaper earlier. If you live near the ocean
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: and you've got your hands on some seaweed or some kelp,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: you can rinse that stuff off, right, So you don't
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: want all that salt content in there. No, but it's
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: really good and nutrient rich if you rinse that off
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: and put it in your compost pile.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's also good for you to eat too.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: I know I sound nuts, but just eat that stuff.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: What do you mean people, it's so good for you?
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Sawdust?
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: Do you know I eat that?
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: No? But like I'm building my compost, man, I can
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: put that saldust back in it. How about that?
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Pretty neat circle of life.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: Baby?
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: What should not you compost night soil which is poopy soil?
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: Yep?
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: And you don't go take a big dumpos No, no
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: you want to.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: No, that's not good.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: No.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: Diseased garden plants, that's a big one.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: Some of this stuff, though, as we'll find, doesn't quite
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: make sense. But it's just good to err on the
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: side of garbage in garbage out, except with compost. If
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: you put garbage garbage in, then it's going to be
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: really bad. If you put good, healthy garbage in, it's
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: going to come out as is quite good. So you
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: don't want to put any disease plants in there. Invasive
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: weeds are another one too.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it says you can also put weeds in there,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: So I guess you just need to figure out which
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: ones are the bad ones.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So this specifically calls out buttercups, morning glory, and
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: quack grass. I'm quite sure that there's plenty of seeds
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: that wouldn't survive the composting process. Yeah, but apparently these do.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: So stay away from the quack grass.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was I think that was the big mantrat woodstock.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: Sure it's a gateway drug.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Don't have the yellow sunshine or the quack grass.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: It was the brown the brown ass brown acid, which
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, who about the brown acid? You know?
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: And what about you're talking about kitchen stuff? What about
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: meat and dairy?
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: Oh okay, that's that's controversial.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: It is because Emily has taken classes and they were like, no,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: don't use any of that.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's like animal cells and fats in particular, they putrefy,
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: they don't decompose, and putrefaction makes some stinky stuff, and
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: I think it can also generate a lot of disease
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: bearing pathogens. So I was surprised to see this article
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: say yeah, yeah, put it in there.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Well, And they kind of said in this article, if
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: if you're really heavily managing this thing, you can do it.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: But I don't know, I've just heard don't.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: They said, turn it into a slurry, which I don't
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: want to see freud Rich's blender at home fat slurry
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: groas with corn cob leavings on it. But he said,
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: whip it up into a slurry, and as long as
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: it's a good, hot, actively managed pile, it'll it won't
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: be a problem. I'm gonna go ahead and say, I
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: don't think you should do that. Okay, I don't know
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: what to do with the animal leavings, but I don't
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: think you should compost it.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: All right, it might make sense to you to say, hey,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I have an outdoor fire pit. I bet that would
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: be great in my composter.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: No incorrect, Although this specifically says charcoal ashes. I think
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: that's any kind of charred ashes.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like burnt wood is called charcoal.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: So are you sure? Because I know what you just
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: said was true. But supposedly the entire Amazon basin, and
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: I learned this from the Greatest Book of All Time
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: fourteen ninety one by Charles C. Mann. The entire was
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: on basin. It was a managed forest that the indigenous
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: peoples down there had made completely fertile and feakend by
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: instead of slash and burn, they were using slash and
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: char techniques, and there was way more carbon locked into
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: the charred tree stumps than there was the ashes, so
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: it became more fertile. So I have a question about
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: that one.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to back off of my determined
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: stance because I don't know.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: It would make sense if it was coal, like if it.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Was like charcoal briquettes, whcause they have cement and all
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: sorts of chemicals and junk in them.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: But if it's charred wood or would ash I wonder.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: All right, well, somebody let us know, Charles C. Mann,
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: tell us.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: The pesticide treated plants. You you know, you know my
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: stance on pesticides period, don't use them. But if you do,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: definitely don't put that stuff in there. Because your whole
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: thing here is you want to you want a more
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: or less organic compost pot right in the end.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: And so one of the things that people love about
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: composts is it actually is organic. And we're going to
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: explain how. I didn't know this until we did this research,
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: but we'll explain how because we're going to go through
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: the process that your compost pile undergoes.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: Right after this shit, all right, I did something we
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: rarely do which is look something up as we're podcasting,
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: because it just sounded lazy.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: To be like, oh, we don't know this one. Gardenslive
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: dot com says wood ashes are so strongly alkaline that
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: it doesn't take a lot to upset the balance in
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: the pile and stop the processing. You can add a
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: very small amount of wood ash from like your fireplace
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: or wood burning stove, but apparently not much. So okay,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I think you know, like you're kind of right in
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: that it's it's not completely fore boting, but but it
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: sounds like too much is not a good thing.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: I think that's what Freuden was just saying, like, don't
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: even mess with it, okay, put in animal fats instead.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Well, and that's what the person from gardens Alive was saying,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: is like, it's so little that it's not really going
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: to make a difference. And if you're trying to get
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: rid of it in a different way, right, She's like,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: it's not really gonna matter.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: But the but it raises a great question, Chuck, why
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: in the name of all things holy would it matter
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: what the alkalinity is of your compost pile? And I'll
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: tell you why.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Because it's a chemistry experiment.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: It is. It's a it's a chemistry experiment, but it's
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: also a biological experiment. You have a microcosm growing there,
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: and there's actually really easy things you can do to
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: optimize this and basically create a XANADU pair dice for
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: the the microbes and primary and secondary and tertiary consumers
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: of this stuff that you're putting in there to break
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: down so that they just have the greatest life that
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: any invertebrate or microbe ever had.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: All right, should we talk chemistry a bit then come
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: back to just the management and stuff.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: Huh?
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: All right, what you're really talking about here. For an
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: ideal composting scene, you need a disco ball, right, and
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: you need a proper c in ratio, which is carbon
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: to nitrogen ratio. And depending on how wonky you want
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: to get, if you want to start measuring things, you
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: can do that. But from what I gather, just try
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: and do a lot too, a little about thirty to
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: one carbon to nitrogen r and eyeball it.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: When the rule of thumb is this, if it's green
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: and recently deceased and by green, like a nice banana peel,
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: would qualify as this. Right, if it's pliable and green
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: or you know, again recently deceased, it is high in nitrogen.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: If it's brown and dried, it's high in carbon. So
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: you want to actually when you're adding the compost, you
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: want to just kind of layer this stuff in about
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: those ratios thirty to one. And there's actually tables, like
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: if you're a big time into this, there are tables
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: out there that tell you just about exactly the carbon
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: and nitrogen ratio in each individual thing. But what we
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: said earlier, you want to avoid grass clippings. This is why,
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: because they're too high in nitrogen. And what happens when
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: you have too much nitrogen it's bad, right, It makes
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: your pile stinky.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's is that where the methane starts creeping in.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: That actually leads to ammonia gas. Okay, But you also
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: don't want too much carbon either, Yeah, because so carbon
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: and nitrogen. Carbon is like the building block, and it's
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: an energy source for these microbes. Nitrogen is essential to
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: their growth and their metabolic activity as well. Yeah, but
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: when they have this in these concentrations, that's when they flourish.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And the other problem with carbon too is it's
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: just that it breaks down so slowly.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: Well, it depends on the source.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. But generally a lot of the carbon
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: sources like newspaper and corn cobs and stuff like that,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: it's just a much slower process.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: Right right, So like they have much tougher structural support
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: in their cells.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: They have structural integrity exactly. They need to have a
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: good saying that rhymes like if it's yellow, let it meto.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: If it's brown, flush it down. Sure, I thought you
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: were heading toward that. I was just kind of like
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: on the edge of my seat. No, like, if it's.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: Green, I've walked right past.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: That's brown. Maybe there is one that we don't know,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: or maybe someone can write one, like a creative listener.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: I would love to hear it. I'll bet we get a
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: bunch of those.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: All right, oxygen if you're talking, if we're talking ratios
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: and again, you can walk out as much as possible.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: But the good news is about your compost piles. It's
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: not like it needs to be like the oxygen that
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: you need no walking around to breathe.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: Which is I think twenty one percent in the atmosphere.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what we have going on. It can get
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: by these aerobic microbes as low as five percent.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's cutting it close.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: It's cutting it close. They say, try to hover somewhere
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: around ten or up right. And how do you measure that?
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: You don't? You just aerrate your pile and it's fine.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: By either turning it or you can do hold PVC.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: And I guess it brings us kind into the management part. Sure,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: you don't just sit there unless you want to have
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: a totally passive pile. And who wants that? You have
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: to manage this thing, either every day or every other day.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Turn it, like we were saying, sure, either with the
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: little crank if you've got a handy little barrel unit,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: or with a pitchfork or they call it a composting
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: fork in here.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: That's pretty fancy.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Probably the same thing in there.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: It's the same thing as a pitchfork, except like fifty
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: dollars more.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: You want to water it some, but again, do you
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: want to give watering advice?
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: You don't want it for me. You don't want it
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: to be soaking wet. No, you wanted to be moist. Yeah, damp.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: People hate that word, so we'll say damp. And again
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: I mentioned the perforate of PVC pipes that can help it.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Says you can avoid turning it by having those pipes.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: I would still turn it.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: I would too, just to mix it up right.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but putting PVC pipes throughout your pile would make
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: it really difficult to turn.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: So well, you can pull them out, I guess you could,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: But getting them back in is a real pain.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: You can stick them back in.
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: Another way to get to introduce oxygen is earthworms.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Oh man, this is where I go crazy. Oh yeah,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: we have a lot of worms on our property, just
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: because there's a lot of worms in Georgia. Yeah.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: We did a great episode on earthworms, remember.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And every time I find them, I pick them up,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: I show them to Emily and she immediately says, throw
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: it in the garden. You know. And that's because we
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: weren't composting heavily. Now it's going to be throwing in
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: the compost pile.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: But these guys are great because they naturally I mean,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: they do a lot of things, but one of the
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: things they do is naturally airrate by just tunneling through
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: that stuff.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So earthworms and then worms in general are probably
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: the most important non microscopic resident in your compost pile. Yeah,
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: because they do so much. So worms and especially earthworms
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: and most types of nematodes, they actually go in and
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: like eat a lot of the stuff that's in the
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: compost pile, a lot of the food waste, right or
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: organic waste, and in doing so they break it down,
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: and as they break it down, they make it easier
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: for the microbes to digest themselves. Should we start with
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: the microbes? Yeah, okay, So again this compost pile, when
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: you add food waste to the pile and add soil,
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: you're introducing energy source to energy consumer. Okay, yes. And
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: at the base of this is the is microbial life,
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: bacteria mostly, but the bacteria go to town. They start
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: eating this stuff, and the smaller it is, the more
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: serface area there is, the more the bacteria can eat.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: And they actually take the nutrients out of this and
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: use it for cellular respiration, which is why they need oxygen,
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: because they take oxygen and combine them with the carbon
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: and they create atp which they use as an energy
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: source to power their cells and live and frolic and play,
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: and in doing so they create carbon dioxide.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: So as they're doing this, they're actually breaking the stuff
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: down from what you'd recognize as a banana peel closer
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: and closer to that finished humor miss project product. Yes,
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: so you got bacteria and they're a big part of it.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: And depending on the phase that the compost pile is in, uh,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: the there will be different kinds of bacteria in your
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: compost pile.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not you know, just bacteria. There's a
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: fung guy doing lots of work. We mentioned nebatodes. You're
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: gonna eventually get mites in there, and slugs. You've already
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: thrown your worms in. Some millipedes doing some action, right
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: with all those cute little legs. And overall these are
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: known as primary consumers.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: Some are are are all of them primary consumers?
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Well they're listed, okay by this person who made this
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: fancy chart.
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: So then above that, chuck, you've got the secondary consumers. Secondo,
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: and those are right, those are the those are the
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: predators of the primary consumers, right, yeah, and then you
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: have tertiary consumers. They're the predators of the secondary consumers.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: And so you put all this together and what you
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: have is a food web. If microbe is breaking the
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: stuff down, worms and stuff doing the same thing in
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: some ways, and then other predators, different graduated levels of
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: predators preying on the smaller animals to keep their population
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: in check and to keep everything in a perfect balance
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: so that it's as efficient as possible.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: And eventually a great white shark comes along.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: What gets me, eats the whole pile thanks to a
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: shark nade. What gets me thought, the best part of
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: all this to me is that if you look at
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: the lifespan of a compost pile from brand new.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: To finished humans, from to.
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: Humus, Yes, it's it forms a bell as far as
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: the temperature gradient.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Goes, right, Yeah, it's really kind of cool.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: So the first stage is the mesophilic stage. Yeah, temperatures
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: get up to I think forty degrees celsius. I can't
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: remember what that is in fahrenheight.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah we'll go with celsius though.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: Okay, so it's warmish. And then as the cellular respiration
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: mounts and builds, more more bacteria born and start eating
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: and carry this cellular respiration out. The byproducts are CO
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: two and heat, and heat starts to accumulate in the
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: compost pile so much so that it gets up to
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: something like fifty to sixty degrees celsius, which is like
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: one hundred to one hundred and fifty degrees farrenheights.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's hot. At this point, your organisms are
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: going to change. You're going to have thermophilic. These are
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: a little heat loving critters and they move in because
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: it's nice and warm. They're snowbirds, they're desert dwellers, and
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: they like it when it's warm. But here's the thing
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: is you want to like you want you don't want
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: it to get too hot, so you want to continue
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: to aerate and keep that temperature in check. What you
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: want is that natural bell to happen on its own right.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: So the mesophilic bacteria die off or they go kind
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: of dormant as it enters the thermophilic face, and then
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: after the thermophilic phase ends. The reason it ends is
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: because they've eaten up all of the stuff that's there
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: to eat, and only the hard stuff's left over. And
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: so the thermophiles go away, and some of the meso
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: files come back and new stuff comes in, like ecxinemi
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: seats ectinemi seats, which are kind of like a weird fungi,
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: bacteria cross and they break down like the really hard
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: woody shrubby stuff and they finish it off. And this
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: third phase is called the curing phase. Right, And at
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: the end of all of it, you have this great
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: nutrient rich hummus humus. But in the middle of that,
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: when it gets really hot, it gets so hot, chuck
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: that pathogens that can make you sick, that can make
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: animals sick, that can make plants sick, are actually killed
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: off in the phase, which is why when you get
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: your hands on compost on humus, it's organic. It's been
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: basically treated naturally to rid itself of parasites, pathogens, all
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: sorts of bad stuff, and all that's left is the
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: nutrients that have been broken down in the process that
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: a plant can use very easily. And again the circle
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: of life starts over again.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know I mentioned sun earlier can dry
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: it out, but if it gets over sixty five celsius,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: it's gonna kill off so many microbes. It's gonna really
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: slow down your process. Right, So that's another reason you
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: turn it is to kind of keep and again don't
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: have it direct sunlight, but it's going to keep that
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: temperature where it does its thing naturally, right where you
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: don't want to, you know, put a heat lamp on it.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: I just want to keep it moist, turn it over
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: and let it do its thing. And you might come
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: out there on a chili morning there might be steams
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: coming off of that sucker. And dude, that's when you
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: just like you go hot dog, Yeah, hot diggity the hog,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: and you go inside and you eat a banana and
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: you throw it on the on the pile. So when
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: is it all over?
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: Man? I just love this is why I love Earth's science.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really amazing because it's like it requires a
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: little bit of human management, but then you kind of
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: just step away and say, do your thing. Yeah, it's
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: really neat.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: When is it over? Well, you can tell. There's a
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: few ways of being able to tell. The temperature starts
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: to go down. If it's below one hundred degrees fahaheight,
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: it's out of the thermophilic phase, yes, and it's now
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: into the mesophilic phase. This says that it's probably done.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: I disagree. I think you probably want it even cooler
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: than that, because the longer you let it cure, the
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: more diverse the microbes inside are going to be the better.
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: The soil that you use to amend it with is
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: going to be sure. Temperature is one.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: One of it is just eyeball it. And if it's
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: if it's about fifty percent decomposed, like if you still
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: see clearly a banana peel, then it's not done right.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: You don't want to recognize this stuff as food at
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: this point, or an egg or whatever. And is it
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: is it smaller? Is if it's been reduced by fifty
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: to seventy five percent and it's dark brown or black
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: and crumbly and it looks kind of like soil, then
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: you're you're cooking with gas. As my dad used to say.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: The texture, did you say smooth or crumbly?
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: What about the smell, Well, it shouldn't.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: It shouldn't stink bad at this point.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: No, it should smell earthy. And actually one of my
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: favorites the actinum my sights. Yeah, the actin of my seats. Okay,
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: they are the reason that soil and dirt has its smell.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: It's those guys, Yeah, they give it its earthy smell. Isn't
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: that cool?
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah? And I think we didn't mention you know that
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: it's doing well along the way if it stops smelling
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: like it doesn't just stink the whole time.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: Right, And it's not gonna smell earthy. The soil that
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: you add will smell earthy. But when you grab a
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: handful of humus, it should just fall through your fingers.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: It should be the closer to black, the better. Yeah,
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: and it should smell like every everything associated with earth
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: should smell like. It's like the word earth. That's what
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: it should smell like. Like, you'll understand what earth smells like.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they said peat moss. If you if none of
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: this makes sense.
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: Go to your local hardware store or lawn and garden
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: center and smell the peat moss exactly.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: So, now that it's done, Yeah, you've got your wonderfully
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: natural fertilizer. Use it. Put it, Spread it out in
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: your garden, Spread it out around your trees, throw it
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: in your yard.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: Spread it around your naked body, and run around your
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: yard if you want to. It's got a doobie pile,
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: will make it do or quack grass.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, stay away from that stuff. It's basically like the
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: easiest way to put it without getting too scientific, is
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: it's going to make everything better. Right, It's going to
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: increase soil microbes, it's going to increase nutrients and enhance them.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: It's going to improve the pH and chemistry of your soil.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: Your yard. It's going to structure and again, like what
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: you've just done is taken stuff and had it broken
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: down into its components, unlocked it for your plants to use.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: So your plants are going to say thank you brother.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Pretty amazing.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Uh. Some people create a lot of it and sell it,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: but you know, mainly people do this to just use
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: around their house.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and increasingly towns are starting to do curbside composting.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: Pickup food waste, pickup neat where you got trash, recycling
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: bin food waste, banana PILs, banana piels.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Right, that's it, all right, go forth and composts.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you want to know more about composting, you
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: can type that word in the search bar at housetif
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: works dot com. Cornell actually also has a really great
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: site about composting if you want to know more about
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: the science of it.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: You were very excited about.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: I love that site. And since I said Cornell, it's
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: time for the listener mail.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this wild life specialists. We had a
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: couple of these that wrote in.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: Remember we talked about this in the Pain Scale EPs.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: And we kind of surmise what it was, and we
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: turns out we were right. And by the way, we
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: heard from paramedics doctors quite a few people about the
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: worst pain.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't want a long bone fracture.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, almost one hundred percent of them said of broken
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: femur is like the worst pain you can experience.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: And should we say why?
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, go ahead, So several reasons, Right.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: We are right because apparently it's a very sensitive area,
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: but also because without that structure, your muscles start spasming, right,
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: which just rocks the whole thing back and forth even more.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: And then then like fragmented bone hitting nerve and all
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: kinds of badness.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, who, So steer clear of that.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: All right? So we heard from from two. I'm going
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: to read the one, but I'm going to shout them
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: both out. Hey, guys, very excited to hear you mentioned
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: childlife specialists during your recent episode on Pain Scales. As
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: a child life specialist myself, I thought would take the
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: opportunity to tell you a little bit about our profession,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: you are right, Chuck, a child life specialist is we
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: help kids deal with being hospitalized. That's really the essence
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: of our job. We support children and families throughout stressful
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: situations such as hospitalizations, using our knowledge of child development
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: and play to facilitate coping. Child life specialists provide children
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: with developmentally appropriate education about diagnoses and treatments, preparation and
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: support for procedures and opportunities for normalization and play. What
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: a great job.
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: Seriously, I can't think of too many jobs that are
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: more rewarding than that.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Seriously. We also provide support for siblings and provide legacy
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: building and memory making and end of life situations. Our
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: profession is very rewarding. Josh, you are right. She predicted
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: that you would say that, and I love going to
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: work every day. To become a CLS, you must have
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: a bachelor's or master's child development or a related field,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: complete a six hundred and forty hour childlife internship, and
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: pass the National Certification Exam. You can visit www dot
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: childlife dot org to learn more about it. Thanks for
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: what you guys do. You've made all my road trips
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: interesting and thanks for spreading the word about childlife. Maybe
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: you can do entire episode on our profession in the
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: future if she said pease okay, And that is Natalie Valentine.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: And also a big shout out to Amanda Butler from
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Auburn University who does that there. Thanks for writing in Ladies,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: it sounds like just a really, really great job.
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks to you both for that, and thanks for
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: everybody who has anything to do with making kids who
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: are hospitalized feel better. Hats off to you. If you
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: want to get in touch with us, you can tweet
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: to us at SYSK podcast or Josham Clark. You can
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: hang out with us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: you Should Know or slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: dot com and has always joined us at our home
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: on the web, stuff you Should Know dot com.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: HowStuffWorks dot com.