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

0:00
Speaker 1: M Hey, everybody, it's Josh and for this week's select,
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Speaker 1: I picked our episode on composting. You'll hear Chuck and
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Speaker 1: Me get super jazzed about earth science, gardening, invertebrates, all
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Speaker 1: of our favorite things. I hope you enjoy it, and
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Speaker 1: I hope it inspires you to start composting, or at
0:18
Speaker 1: least start pocket mulching. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know,
0:27
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to
0:36
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh, the man Clark. There's Charles w
0:41
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, and I think I neglected to say last
0:44
Speaker 1: you did. Guest producer Noel is with us. That's right.
0:49
Speaker 1: So if you listen to the Shroud of Turn episode
0:51
Speaker 1: and you're like, man, that sounds great. Yeah, that was anual.
0:55
Speaker 1: Thanks Noel. Uh this show today, I've been replaying my
1:01
Speaker 1: one of my favorite Simpsons jokes ever over my head.
1:05
Speaker 1: I laughed already just hearing. It was from the one
1:09
Speaker 1: of the Halloween episodes when um they did the Nightmare
1:13
Speaker 1: on Elm Street Riff. There's old old ones Um where
1:18
Speaker 1: groundskeeper Willie was Freddy Krueger and he turned into a
1:24
Speaker 1: I think like a shredder or a tractor or something
1:26
Speaker 1: and ran over people or something and said, uh, when
1:33
Speaker 1: you when you had done, when I'm done, that they're
1:35
Speaker 1: going to need to do a comb post bordered them.
1:38
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that is a bad joke. Yeah, it was
1:40
Speaker 1: really good, one of the I mean, the Simpsons didn't
1:42
Speaker 1: get too funny, but that was that was a good one. Well,
1:45
Speaker 1: anything goes on a treehouse of horror, you know, agreed,
1:50
Speaker 1: So you know, um, there's a bunch of cities that
1:54
Speaker 1: have kind of gotten woke to the idea that we
1:58
Speaker 1: should be recyce cleaner, composting our food. Did you know that? Sure?
2:03
Speaker 1: I saw a stat said something like of food gets wasted.
2:09
Speaker 1: But I got suspicious because I also saw that of
2:13
Speaker 1: the um stuff that goes to municipal landfills or trash
2:19
Speaker 1: is food waste, which doesn't necessarily mean it's wasted food,
2:24
Speaker 1: because I don't think you would count like a banana
2:26
Speaker 1: peal as food waste as wasted food because the box.
2:32
Speaker 1: They're not counting food packaging food no, but I think
2:35
Speaker 1: they're counting everything that has to do with food that
2:39
Speaker 1: could conceivably be eaten as wasted food, which is not
2:43
Speaker 1: the same as food waste. The point is the legitimate
2:47
Speaker 1: stat that I saw just about everywhere is that if
2:50
Speaker 1: you took all the garbage that the United States throws
2:52
Speaker 1: away into a landfill, that is food waste. And I'm
2:57
Speaker 1: sure some of it is the whole cake, some complete
3:00
Speaker 1: more on through a whole cake away for no good reason.
3:04
Speaker 1: Well that's actually a pretty good reason. But you know
3:06
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, um of all that trash is food.
3:11
Speaker 1: The problem is you might say, well, who cares trash?
3:13
Speaker 1: It decomposes. That's great, that's true. It does decompose. But
3:17
Speaker 1: in the landfills that the United States uses, we make
3:21
Speaker 1: sure they're anaerobic. Oxygen doesn't get down there, so a
3:24
Speaker 1: whole different decomposition process takes place. And in a landfill,
3:29
Speaker 1: in anaerobic decomposition, methane is produced. And methane is bad news.
3:36
Speaker 1: Methane is something on the order of seventy worse. I know,
3:41
Speaker 1: there's a much more scientific way to put it, but
3:44
Speaker 1: it's seventy batter than carbon dioxide as far as greenhouse
3:49
Speaker 1: gases go, more potent, how about that? Okay, so you
3:55
Speaker 1: don't want methane. If you have to choose between methane
3:57
Speaker 1: and carbon dioxide, you want to go with car monoxide.
4:00
Speaker 1: And it just so happens that if you compost food waste,
4:05
Speaker 1: mostly carbon dioxide is produced methanes not so if you're
4:09
Speaker 1: diverting this food waste from the landfill. There's a whole
4:11
Speaker 1: bunch of different stuff you're doing. Number One, you're saving
4:14
Speaker 1: all that the space for actual trash, So you're extending
4:18
Speaker 1: the life of your land, sir. You're keeping all that
4:21
Speaker 1: methane from being produced. And as if it couldn't get
4:25
Speaker 1: any better, you are creating an amazing fertilizer that you
4:30
Speaker 1: can use to grow. You could grow a tree out
4:34
Speaker 1: of a shoe. This fertilizer is so good the old
4:39
Speaker 1: shoe tree. Sure, uh, yeah, it's um. We've danced around
4:43
Speaker 1: this a lot. We well, you just referenced are and
4:46
Speaker 1: I don't like the tutor on horns a lot, but
4:48
Speaker 1: that landfills episode was great landfills And don't forget the
4:52
Speaker 1: plasma incinerator one. Yeah, basically any of our waste management
4:57
Speaker 1: ones are yeah what else where think grilla gardening. We
5:01
Speaker 1: touched on this sum and um a couple of others.
5:04
Speaker 1: We've mentioned composting and to the extent where I thought
5:08
Speaker 1: we had done one on composting, but we had not
5:11
Speaker 1: until about five and a half minutes ago, UM. And
5:15
Speaker 1: that's a guess. So if you're right in say it
5:17
Speaker 1: like it was eight minutes, chuck, you're grounded. So, like
5:22
Speaker 1: you mentioned, we didn't. I don't think these numbers are
5:24
Speaker 1: accurate anymore. But we generate let's just say, a lot
5:27
Speaker 1: of millions of tons, hundreds of millions of tons of trash,
5:30
Speaker 1: and about twenty five of that is recovered through recycling,
5:37
Speaker 1: which includes composting, which is good. But that number, if
5:42
Speaker 1: it was seventy, would be amazing. Does that include composting?
5:45
Speaker 1: That that recycling number? Yeah, okay, yeah, fib seventy would
5:50
Speaker 1: be great? Ye, why not let's shoot for ninety. Well,
5:54
Speaker 1: supposedly Seattle itself, UM has a goal of something like
5:58
Speaker 1: six seventy of all of its trash being recycled by
6:01
Speaker 1: the end of the year. Of course they do, because
6:03
Speaker 1: Seattle does it right, and they actually have compulsory mandatory
6:07
Speaker 1: composting now, like you have to compost if you live
6:10
Speaker 1: in the city of Seattle. I don't know I live there,
6:12
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. I asked myself that
6:15
Speaker 1: a lot you know, Emily and I went for our
6:18
Speaker 1: two shows ago on that lovely spring weekend was gorgeous,
6:23
Speaker 1: and we we stayed extra in Seattle and after we
6:25
Speaker 1: were like, we're moving here. That's it. It's a great town.
6:28
Speaker 1: I've said it before on the show Dogs and Bars.
6:31
Speaker 1: That was all it took, uh, Dog bar tenders, but
6:36
Speaker 1: again dog explain poker. Uh again, it's easy to fall
6:40
Speaker 1: in love a Seattle on a perfect weekend in April. Yeah,
6:42
Speaker 1: I hear it rains there a lot, though I'd still
6:45
Speaker 1: live there. It's a great place. And you know what,
6:48
Speaker 1: you may see us again this year's Seattle tease tease.
6:53
Speaker 1: It's such a tease, all right. So composting is great
6:55
Speaker 1: for a thousand reasons, but one, uh, first and foremost
6:59
Speaker 1: is that it's it's not hard to do and it's
7:02
Speaker 1: not expensive to do if you just want to be uh.
7:07
Speaker 1: And there are many different levels of composting, from big
7:10
Speaker 1: city programs to the home farmer that takes it super seriously,
7:15
Speaker 1: to just if you just want to lessen the impact
7:18
Speaker 1: a little bit on your landfill, your local landfill, feel
7:22
Speaker 1: like you're doing the right thing and get a little
7:24
Speaker 1: bit of nutrient rich goodness fertilizer to use. You can
7:29
Speaker 1: have it just a little, small, little composting operation going
7:32
Speaker 1: on at your house. Yeah, this is all. This is
7:34
Speaker 1: all you need organic waste. And we don't even mean
7:37
Speaker 1: something that's like organic. We mean like organic, meaning it's
7:41
Speaker 1: composed mostly a carbon. It was once alive at one point, right, Yeah,
7:45
Speaker 1: and I made a poopy noise, which you can't use poops.
7:47
Speaker 1: So no, that's night soil. It's the opposite of what
7:50
Speaker 1: I should have done. Uh, what's a banana sound? That's
7:59
Speaker 1: a bananas on. You need soil, you need water, need
8:04
Speaker 1: air or oxygen. Right, So the organic waste is the
8:07
Speaker 1: stuff you're gonna have broken down, which in this case,
8:10
Speaker 1: in the case of a compost pile, is food the
8:13
Speaker 1: soil well partially sure, but no, no, it's food for
8:17
Speaker 1: the things that in the soil. Right, it's an energy
8:20
Speaker 1: source and nutrient source for what's in the soil. So
8:24
Speaker 1: you add soil. When you're adding soil, you're basically adding
8:27
Speaker 1: starter culture to the compost. What you're doing is grabbing
8:32
Speaker 1: microbes from say, in your yard and putting them on
8:34
Speaker 1: the compost pile and say dinners on boys. Yes, but
8:41
Speaker 1: you don't want to poop in it. You need a
8:42
Speaker 1: little bit of water, like you said, to keep it moist,
8:44
Speaker 1: but you don't want to keep it over wet because
8:47
Speaker 1: microbes like slightly moist soil and then air because again
8:51
Speaker 1: again this is really really important. You can let your
8:54
Speaker 1: compost pile um degrade anaerobically, but it's gonna douce methane,
9:01
Speaker 1: which is bad for the for the environment, bad for
9:03
Speaker 1: your neighbors, bad for your neighbors, bad for you. It's
9:05
Speaker 1: gonna stink, it might blow up, who knows. You don't
9:08
Speaker 1: want to smoke near a what's called a passive compost pile.
9:12
Speaker 1: So you want to just introduce oxygen and all this
9:14
Speaker 1: sounds very complicated, it's not. It's hitting it with your hose.
9:18
Speaker 1: It's um and by that I mean spraying water on
9:21
Speaker 1: it with your hose. Just realized you can with your
9:24
Speaker 1: host to um. It's like turning it over right the
9:27
Speaker 1: pitchfork to add oxygen. It's as simple as that. Yeah,
9:31
Speaker 1: it's really easy. UM. So what you're gonna end up
9:34
Speaker 1: with the end, like we said, is is really fertilizer.
9:36
Speaker 1: But it's a it's called humus. Don't call it hummus, No,
9:41
Speaker 1: that's different. Has has two limbs, right, Uh, this is
9:45
Speaker 1: just one m and um. Those little microorganisms in there,
9:49
Speaker 1: they're gonna break this stuff down. They're gonna eat it,
9:50
Speaker 1: they're gonna poop it out, and they're gonna multiply and
9:53
Speaker 1: there's gonna be we'll talk about the critters a little
9:55
Speaker 1: more later, but they're gonna be different critters along the
9:57
Speaker 1: way that eat those critters than critters to eat those critters.
10:01
Speaker 1: And it's gonna get really hot up in there. It
10:04
Speaker 1: might steam, then it's gonna cool back down. It's gonna
10:07
Speaker 1: get smaller, and it's just like this little micro environment.
10:10
Speaker 1: It is really really neat. There's actually a food web
10:13
Speaker 1: in there. There's a lot of physics and chemistry that's
10:16
Speaker 1: going on. It's it is very neat. I'm fascinated by
10:18
Speaker 1: it too. But the upshot of composting is that you're
10:25
Speaker 1: taking something and it's being broken down into its constituent
10:29
Speaker 1: parts so that it can be reused by plants and
10:33
Speaker 1: the whole circle of life can start over again. Yeah,
10:36
Speaker 1: you're sort of just accelerating the natural process of like rot,
10:41
Speaker 1: you're optimizing it. Yeah, Like you mentioned a passive composter,
10:45
Speaker 1: which is to say, you know, lazy hippies, you could
10:50
Speaker 1: you could just throw all that junk out of your
10:52
Speaker 1: window if you wanted, in a big pile and throw
10:55
Speaker 1: your some grass clippings on and throw throw your your
11:00
Speaker 1: fall leaves on there. Just leave it there, and that
11:03
Speaker 1: thing will eventually compost itself. Well again, it'll produce methane,
11:09
Speaker 1: you'll blow up, or you can turn you know, you
11:11
Speaker 1: can turn it every now and then and maybe avoid that.
11:13
Speaker 1: But no, I think that makes it an active pile. Well, uh,
11:18
Speaker 1: slightly active pile then. I don't mean like every other
11:22
Speaker 1: day just to avoid methane maybe, but that would still
11:25
Speaker 1: technically be an active pile, would be a poorly managed
11:28
Speaker 1: active pile. Slightly active, poorly managed. So I'm serious, that's
11:35
Speaker 1: what they call it. I know, Okay, I just we'd
11:38
Speaker 1: like to make up our own names for things. I
11:39
Speaker 1: didn't know you were going to cease that and oh
11:41
Speaker 1: it was in year nine. I gotta sorry. We'll call
11:45
Speaker 1: that the dooby pile. Okay, you know it's called active management.
11:49
Speaker 1: I just wanted to make sure that we got it
11:52
Speaker 1: on the record. So, uh, the big goal here is
11:55
Speaker 1: to reduce your waste, they say in this article ultimately
11:58
Speaker 1: will save you tax money because you're landfill, won't I
12:00
Speaker 1: thought that was hilarious. Yeah, I mean, don't count on
12:03
Speaker 1: seeing any any tax breaks coming anytime soon. But you
12:07
Speaker 1: like that got William F. Buckley's attention. Probably, So, so
12:12
Speaker 1: how do you how do you do this? Let's say
12:13
Speaker 1: you want to start composting. There's a one, two, three,
12:17
Speaker 1: five step process to get this thing going. Okay, well,
12:21
Speaker 1: let's talk about them. The first thing you want to
12:23
Speaker 1: do is just pick out the place you want to
12:26
Speaker 1: do it, all right, because it's you know, it's a
12:28
Speaker 1: bit of a mess. It's it doesn't have to be necessarily,
12:33
Speaker 1: but it depending on your neighbors, they might be like, well, great,
12:36
Speaker 1: I'm glad you started an unsightly pile of kitchen rubbish
12:42
Speaker 1: in food waste that I can see from my deck.
12:44
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot for that. So that's something you want
12:47
Speaker 1: to keep in consideration. Apparently, even if you do have
12:51
Speaker 1: a very well managed active pile. Um, what would you
12:56
Speaker 1: call that? I'm not making it funny name anymore. Then
12:59
Speaker 1: we're jokes. I've ruined it. Um, it's still it's still
13:03
Speaker 1: may stink here there. So you want to kind of
13:06
Speaker 1: away from the house, but not so far away that
13:10
Speaker 1: if you're feeling lazy, you're not gonna go out and
13:12
Speaker 1: tend to it on a daily or every other day
13:15
Speaker 1: le basis. Yeah. And if you have that much land
13:19
Speaker 1: that you have a compost pile a mile from your house,
13:23
Speaker 1: good for you. You got some acreage. Uh. There might
13:27
Speaker 1: be some local rules, either from your h o A
13:30
Speaker 1: heaven forbid if you have to belong to one of those,
13:33
Speaker 1: or maybe just your municipality might have rules and regulations. Yeah,
13:38
Speaker 1: to check with them first. That's what everyone does. Be
13:41
Speaker 1: for they started compost Piley, go down to city hall
13:44
Speaker 1: and say what tell me even the rules and regulations
13:46
Speaker 1: surrounding composting in my yard? And I think the first
13:48
Speaker 1: thing everyone does is start throwing their eggshells out the window.
13:52
Speaker 1: That's how it always starts. It's like I'm tired of
13:54
Speaker 1: these things being in my trash than Uh. They recommend
13:59
Speaker 1: down when because like you said, it might stink a bit. Uh.
14:02
Speaker 1: Sun it's good in a way, but you don't want
14:05
Speaker 1: it baking in the sun all day, no, because it
14:06
Speaker 1: will dry it out. Remember, you want it to be
14:08
Speaker 1: kind of moist, and the sunlight can actually dry it out,
14:12
Speaker 1: so you want Apparently the best place to put it
14:16
Speaker 1: is under a deciduous tree. Good spot. Yeah, because in
14:19
Speaker 1: the in the winter time there's no leaves on the tree,
14:22
Speaker 1: so the sun is gonna keep it warm when it's cold.
14:24
Speaker 1: But during summer it's going to be shaded by the tree,
14:27
Speaker 1: so it won't dry out. It's just perfect. It is
14:30
Speaker 1: deciduous tree equals love. Uh. Wind is good to provide
14:35
Speaker 1: a little air, but you don't want it blowing scattering
14:37
Speaker 1: the stuff all over the place, drying it out again.
14:39
Speaker 1: No good? What else drainage? Don't start one in that
14:42
Speaker 1: old baby pool that you don't want to throw out,
14:45
Speaker 1: especially if your baby's in there. Uh. Yeah, you want
14:50
Speaker 1: good drainage. Like generally you build either build a bin.
14:53
Speaker 1: We'll talk about this stuff actually right now. But it's
14:57
Speaker 1: off the ground. Sure, it's on legs. Yeah, although you
15:02
Speaker 1: can't have a pile, but um, you know generally you
15:06
Speaker 1: want to you want to build a bin or buy
15:07
Speaker 1: a bin, right, and those things sit off the ground
15:12
Speaker 1: right because of drainage. That's part of it for sure. Yeah. Um.
15:17
Speaker 1: You also want dirt rather than say like a concrete
15:20
Speaker 1: pad or something like that. Yeah, I don't come post
15:23
Speaker 1: in your driver, Right, it's not a good idea. Um.
15:26
Speaker 1: As far as structures go, you can, like you said,
15:28
Speaker 1: you can go buy one. They're not very expensive from
15:31
Speaker 1: what I understand, right, it depends on the size. You
15:34
Speaker 1: can also say go buy some cinder blocks and build
15:37
Speaker 1: something like that. Sure, um, But basically you can cut
15:40
Speaker 1: compost structures into two. There's a single bin and there's
15:46
Speaker 1: a three bin system. So in the single bin system,
15:50
Speaker 1: you put new stuff on top new binan appeals. This
15:54
Speaker 1: is what I think of when I think composting. You know,
15:56
Speaker 1: banana peles um. You put new stuff on top, and
16:00
Speaker 1: then you take a pitchfork or shovel or something like
16:03
Speaker 1: that and you work, you work it in to the compost.
16:07
Speaker 1: And at the bottom of this structure, say it's open
16:11
Speaker 1: when you're walking up to it, the the finished compost
16:15
Speaker 1: will accumulate at the bottom. And the reason it accumulates
16:17
Speaker 1: at the bottom because it's of a finer, finer grain
16:22
Speaker 1: um And that's it. Single bin new stuff at the top,
16:25
Speaker 1: easy peasy, stuff that's in process in the middle, stuff
16:29
Speaker 1: that's finished in the bottom, and it will just naturally
16:31
Speaker 1: kind of separate like that. Yeah, And when we're talking
16:33
Speaker 1: structure like that, if you want to build one, you know,
16:35
Speaker 1: build a wood frame and it's like got chicken wire
16:38
Speaker 1: walls and a chicken wire bottom, and that gives you
16:41
Speaker 1: the air. And if you've got something that collected underneath,
16:44
Speaker 1: it's gonna fall, you know when it's small enough. Uh,
16:47
Speaker 1: some other stuff might fall. You may need to add
16:49
Speaker 1: it back in. But with the three bend system, you've got,
16:53
Speaker 1: well you've got three bends, you've got the starter stuff,
16:56
Speaker 1: you've got the once it starts to break down a
16:58
Speaker 1: little stuff, and then you have the finished product. And
17:01
Speaker 1: you have to actively manage that system. Yeah, that system
17:06
Speaker 1: sounds unnecessarily difficult, kind of like it. Oh you're a
17:10
Speaker 1: three bing guy. Well, we're about to get into this
17:13
Speaker 1: for real. We've been um lazily composting for a while,
17:17
Speaker 1: but um, we're doing our whole backyard, Like we're getting
17:21
Speaker 1: rid of our grass. Basically, what are you gonna do
17:24
Speaker 1: compost mulch in beds and plants and herbs and cacti
17:32
Speaker 1: in and all that. Uh no cacti, but we do
17:35
Speaker 1: have a palm tree. We've had that forever though. Um, yeah,
17:38
Speaker 1: just getting rid of the grass. Basically because it takes
17:41
Speaker 1: up so much water. Just it's just it's not good
17:45
Speaker 1: grass to begin with, and I'm not the best about
17:49
Speaker 1: cutting it. Lawmars are terrible. Plus you don't water enough.
17:53
Speaker 1: You never let a quarter inch of water accumulating exactly. Yeah,
17:57
Speaker 1: just and you know it'll it'll look nicer. So part
18:00
Speaker 1: of this in this company that's doing it is it's
18:03
Speaker 1: not just a landscaping company there. There are a bunch
18:07
Speaker 1: of hippies. So they're they're designing it in such a
18:10
Speaker 1: way that that feeds itself. And part of that is
18:13
Speaker 1: composting anyway, long long way of saying, we're gonna start,
18:17
Speaker 1: like for real composting very shortly. And you're going with
18:20
Speaker 1: the three bin structure. I don't know, I think I'm
18:23
Speaker 1: gonna build it. It's well, it's the structure Emily tells
18:28
Speaker 1: me to build. It's the easiest way to say it. Yeah.
18:32
Speaker 1: But if you buy one, like you were saying, um,
18:33
Speaker 1: there's all different kinds just you know, look look it
18:37
Speaker 1: up online or go to a hardware store, and you
18:39
Speaker 1: know many of them will look like a big barrel
18:43
Speaker 1: on legs and it literally turns like has a crank
18:46
Speaker 1: on it. To where you can turn this thing in
18:49
Speaker 1: circles so you don't have to use a pitchfork at all.
18:53
Speaker 1: You don't have to muss your hands or your hair.
18:55
Speaker 1: It's like a bingo, yes, spinner, but with banana pi.
19:00
Speaker 1: Have you ever played bingo, like legit bingo in a
19:02
Speaker 1: room h with hundreds of people, not hundreds, well more
19:07
Speaker 1: than like you and you me, yes, like a bingo parlor?
19:10
Speaker 1: Is that what they're called. I've actually gone to um
19:14
Speaker 1: a couple of like uh senior retirement homes and helped
19:18
Speaker 1: out with bingo and that's a pretty pretty cool experience actually,
19:24
Speaker 1: because do you run the bingo? It's kind unqualified to
19:28
Speaker 1: run the bingo? Right, just walk around and point out
19:31
Speaker 1: if somebody missed one that they you know that was
19:34
Speaker 1: called that kind of thing, but did you want to
19:36
Speaker 1: talk about taking it seriously? Oh my god? And then
19:39
Speaker 1: you have to be a certified bingo master to run
19:41
Speaker 1: the show. Yeah, and they'll like tell you to hurry
19:45
Speaker 1: up and like shout if you're if you're not like
19:48
Speaker 1: loud enough for fast enough, for going too fast. Like
19:51
Speaker 1: so the point is not to have fun, you know,
19:53
Speaker 1: The point is to win. What do they win? The prizes. Yeah,
19:57
Speaker 1: nothing much usually, I mean, but you can I think
20:00
Speaker 1: like you can play bingo and casinos for thousands and
20:03
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars usually at old folks humes. They don't,
20:07
Speaker 1: you know, sure there's not thousands of dollar prizes like
20:10
Speaker 1: honey buns and cigarettes, right right exactly? All right, Well
20:14
Speaker 1: let's take a break here after we have talked structure
20:18
Speaker 1: and uh, we'll talk a little bit about what you
20:20
Speaker 1: want what kind of junk you want to throw in
20:21
Speaker 1: that pile? All right, chuck, So we're talking what you
20:45
Speaker 1: want to throw on the pile. Right, you got your
20:47
Speaker 1: bin either a triple three banger cat, your site or single.
20:52
Speaker 1: You got your site. You bribed your neighbor to look
20:54
Speaker 1: the other way, right exactly. You bought a goat. Oh man,
20:59
Speaker 1: talking about green living. My neighbor has goats, now, like
21:02
Speaker 1: five of them. Are they a loud No? Oh, that's great.
21:06
Speaker 1: Everyone's a while to hear them. But it's a joy
21:08
Speaker 1: to hear. So it's not like it's not like a rooster.
21:11
Speaker 1: Do you wake up and look out and say morning satan. No, Well,
21:16
Speaker 1: goats one of my favorites, so it's kind of nice
21:18
Speaker 1: to have them around the baby goats or adult coat. No,
21:20
Speaker 1: they're big ones. I mean she got them to maintain
21:22
Speaker 1: the property because she was started cutting. I guess she
21:25
Speaker 1: didn't want a zero escape it, so she bought goats. Anyway,
21:29
Speaker 1: it's it's awesome. Uh, kitchen waiste Josh, that's what you
21:34
Speaker 1: want to throw in there? Well? Yeah, that's the first one.
21:36
Speaker 1: That's the one that everybody says. That's why you compost, right, Yeah,
21:40
Speaker 1: and yeah, banana peals everybody knows that. But did you
21:44
Speaker 1: also know you can compost apple cores in orange rines?
21:48
Speaker 1: You can also eat apple cores. Yeah. You you believe
21:51
Speaker 1: there is no such thing as a core, right that
21:53
Speaker 1: because there's not um seeing people who leave their apple
21:57
Speaker 1: course left over. They can compost those things. Those are
22:00
Speaker 1: the easy ones. You can also do coffee grounds. Yeah,
22:04
Speaker 1: that's a good one. Paper filters through that filter and
22:07
Speaker 1: all in there. Okay, so let's just say a maybe
22:10
Speaker 1: a whole pizza to myself. I've got a couple of
22:13
Speaker 1: napkins wadded up. What do I do with those? Chuck? Uh?
22:17
Speaker 1: I think you can throw those napkins in there, Josh,
22:21
Speaker 1: isn't that crazy? It is crazy? Newspaper? Yeah, corn cobs.
22:26
Speaker 1: If you still read a newspaper, if you get your
22:27
Speaker 1: news on the internet, throw your laptop in there. Watermelon rhymes, yeah, seeds, leaves, Uh,
22:37
Speaker 1: you know the butt end of the asparagus that no
22:40
Speaker 1: one cooks, but that junk in there. Um. You can
22:43
Speaker 1: also do yard waste too, sure. Right, So you've got
22:47
Speaker 1: grass clippings, which we'll talk about in a second. We've
22:49
Speaker 1: got a couple of warnings as far as grass clippings goes,
22:52
Speaker 1: not too much. Um, but like, let's say you're raking
22:55
Speaker 1: leaves or something like that, throw some leaves on there. Yeah,
22:58
Speaker 1: good crunchy brown ones. And you can also throw like,
23:01
Speaker 1: um trimmings from your like shrubs if you trim your
23:05
Speaker 1: woody shrubs. Um. The key here is this chuck. You
23:10
Speaker 1: want to cut all this stuff up in small bits. Yeah,
23:15
Speaker 1: don't throw a whole corn cob in there. You can
23:18
Speaker 1: know your compost pile. Just throw it right back out. Yeah,
23:21
Speaker 1: it'll just spit it right back out right, very funny.
23:23
Speaker 1: It'll make a burping noise. Uh. They say to shred
23:27
Speaker 1: the corn cob. I don't have a corn cobs shredder.
23:29
Speaker 1: I don't either. Um, I've never thought about that I
23:33
Speaker 1: wouldn't waste like my blender blade on chopping up corn cops.
23:38
Speaker 1: I think the point is that's breaking into a little pieces.
23:41
Speaker 1: Sure you can break it into little pieces though, Yeah,
23:44
Speaker 1: you probably have a corn cob up. Yeah, and you
23:46
Speaker 1: can also, like you can take all this stuff and
23:50
Speaker 1: chop at anything. You can put in smaller pieces the
23:53
Speaker 1: better because as we'll see, what you're really doing is
23:55
Speaker 1: you're not just breaking it up. You have to look
23:58
Speaker 1: at it like what you're doing is increasing the surface
24:00
Speaker 1: area some more microbes can work on it at once. Yeah,
24:04
Speaker 1: Like if if you have I know you hate broccoli,
24:06
Speaker 1: but I hate broccoli, cut the little florets off and
24:10
Speaker 1: you've got that big green broccoli stalk. Uh, cut that
24:14
Speaker 1: thing up as small as you can and set it
24:16
Speaker 1: on fire you have patience for and throw that junk
24:19
Speaker 1: in there. Yeah, basically channel your inner Anal Chef. You
24:24
Speaker 1: remember him, the anal Chef? Yeah? Was that a real thing? Yeah?
24:28
Speaker 1: And Saturday a Live Bill Hartman. No, I don't anal
24:32
Speaker 1: retain of chef. Okay, I forgot the retinive part that. Yeah,
24:35
Speaker 1: I remember the qualifiers, Like I don't get that joke. Mommy,
24:41
Speaker 1: remember the anal retin of chef. Yeah, I do remember that. Now.
24:44
Speaker 1: He'd like start to if he was dicing like green
24:46
Speaker 1: peppers and one of them was bigger than the rest,
24:48
Speaker 1: he'd just be like, okay, well, you want to take
24:50
Speaker 1: those chunks and you want to put him into a
24:52
Speaker 1: paper towel, and then you want to fold that up,
24:54
Speaker 1: and then you put that into some aluminum fold. You
24:57
Speaker 1: fold that up, and you put that into paper bag
24:59
Speaker 1: and you roll up and then you staple it and
25:01
Speaker 1: then you throw it away. Boy man, what a price
25:04
Speaker 1: that was. Oh, it still makes me sad. So you
25:08
Speaker 1: mentioned newspaper earlier. Um, if you live near the ocean
25:12
Speaker 1: and you've got your hands on some seaweed or some kelp,
25:17
Speaker 1: you can rinse that stuff off so you don't want
25:20
Speaker 1: all that salt content in there. But it's really good
25:24
Speaker 1: and nutrient rich if you rent that off and put
25:26
Speaker 1: it in your compost pile. And it's also good for
25:29
Speaker 1: you to eat too. I know I sound nuts, but
25:31
Speaker 1: just eat that stuff. What do you mean? Yeah, sawdust?
25:38
Speaker 1: Do you don't eat that? No? But like I'm building
25:41
Speaker 1: my compost, ben, I can put that salve dust back
25:43
Speaker 1: in it. How about that? Yeah? Pretty neat circle of life. Baby,
25:48
Speaker 1: what should not you compost night soil, which is poopy soil?
25:54
Speaker 1: Cat you don't go take a big dump post dump post.
25:59
Speaker 1: I know you want to know. That's not good. UM
26:03
Speaker 1: disease garden plants, that's a big one. Some of this
26:07
Speaker 1: stuff though, as we'll find, it doesn't quite make sense.
26:10
Speaker 1: But it's just good to air on the side of
26:13
Speaker 1: um garbage in, garbage out, except with compost. If you
26:18
Speaker 1: put garbage garbage in, then it's going to be really bad.
26:22
Speaker 1: If you put good, healthy garbage in, it's going to
26:25
Speaker 1: come out is quite good. So you don't want to
26:27
Speaker 1: put any disease plants in there. UM Invasive weeds are
26:31
Speaker 1: another one too, Yeah, but it says you can also
26:34
Speaker 1: put weeds in there, so I guess you just need
26:35
Speaker 1: to figure out which ones are the bad ones. Yeah,
26:39
Speaker 1: So this specifically calls out buttercups, morning glory, and quack grass.
26:45
Speaker 1: I'm quite sure that there's plenty of seeds that wouldn't
26:48
Speaker 1: survive the composting process, but apparently these two. So stay
26:52
Speaker 1: away from the quack grass. That was I think that
26:57
Speaker 1: was the big mantra woodstock. It's a gateway drug don't
27:01
Speaker 1: have the yellow sunshine or the quack grass. It was
27:03
Speaker 1: the brown the browns, which I mean, who wants brown acid?
27:08
Speaker 1: You know? And what about uh, you're talking about kitchen stuff?
27:12
Speaker 1: What about meat and dairy? Okay, that's that's controversial. It
27:16
Speaker 1: is because Emily had taken classes and they were like, no,
27:19
Speaker 1: don't use any of that. That's like an animal cells
27:24
Speaker 1: and and fats in particular, they putrefy, they don't decompose,
27:30
Speaker 1: and puture faction makes some stinky stuff, and I think
27:33
Speaker 1: you can also generate a lot of disease bearing pathogens.
27:36
Speaker 1: So I was surprised to see this article say yeah,
27:39
Speaker 1: put it in there. Well, and they kind of said
27:41
Speaker 1: this article if you if you're really heavily managing this thing,
27:45
Speaker 1: you can do it. But I don't know. I've just
27:47
Speaker 1: heard don't They said turn it into a slurry, which
27:51
Speaker 1: I don't want to see freud and riches blender at
27:54
Speaker 1: home with corn cob leavings on it. But um, he's
28:00
Speaker 1: a whip it up into a slurry. And as long
28:02
Speaker 1: as it's a good, hot, actively managed pile, it'll it
28:07
Speaker 1: won't be a problem. I'm gonna go ahead and say
28:09
Speaker 1: I don't think you should do that. I don't know
28:11
Speaker 1: what to do with the animal leavings, but I don't
28:17
Speaker 1: think you should compost it. All right, Uh, it might
28:21
Speaker 1: make sense to you to say, Hey, I have an
28:23
Speaker 1: outdoor fire pit. I bet that would be great in
28:26
Speaker 1: my compost. Her incorrect, Although this specifically says charcoal ashes.
28:33
Speaker 1: I think that's any kind of charred ashes. Yeah, like
28:36
Speaker 1: burnt wood is called charcoal. So are you sure? Because
28:41
Speaker 1: I know what I know what you just said was true.
28:43
Speaker 1: But supposedly the entire Amazon Basin, and I learned this
28:47
Speaker 1: from the Greatest Book of All Time by Charles C. Mann,
28:51
Speaker 1: the entire Amazon Basin was a managed forest um that
28:57
Speaker 1: the indigenous people's down there had made completely fertile and
29:02
Speaker 1: fikoned by instead of slash and burn, they were using
29:07
Speaker 1: slash and char techniques, and there was way more carbon
29:10
Speaker 1: locked into the charred tree stumps and there was the ashes,
29:14
Speaker 1: so it became more fertile. So I have a question
29:17
Speaker 1: about that one. You know, I'm gonna back off of
29:20
Speaker 1: my determined stance because I don't know it would make
29:24
Speaker 1: sense if it was coal, like if it's like charcoal briquettes,
29:28
Speaker 1: because they have cement and all sorts of chemicals and
29:30
Speaker 1: junk in them. But if it's charred wood or would ash,
29:33
Speaker 1: I wonder. All right, well, somebody let us know, CHARLC.
29:37
Speaker 1: Man tell us the pesticide treated plants. You you know,
29:42
Speaker 1: you know my stands on pesticides period. Don't use them.
29:45
Speaker 1: But if you do, definitely don't put that stuff in there.
29:48
Speaker 1: Because your whole thing here is you want to you
29:50
Speaker 1: want to more or less organic compost pile right in
29:54
Speaker 1: the end, and so one of the things that people
29:56
Speaker 1: love about composted is it actually is organic. And we're
30:00
Speaker 1: going to explain how. I didn't know this until um
30:02
Speaker 1: we did this research, but we'll explain how because we're
30:05
Speaker 1: going to go through the process that your compost pile undergoes.
30:09
Speaker 1: Right after this. Yeah, all right, I did something we
30:31
Speaker 1: rarely do, which is looks something up as we're podcasting,
30:33
Speaker 1: because it just sounded lazy to be like, oh, we
30:36
Speaker 1: don't know this one. Um gardens alive dot com says,
30:40
Speaker 1: um wood ashes are so strongly alkaline that it doesn't
30:47
Speaker 1: take a lot to upset the balance in the pile
30:50
Speaker 1: and stop the processing. You can add a very small
30:53
Speaker 1: amount of wood ash from like your fireplace or a
30:56
Speaker 1: woodburning stove. Um, it apparently not much, so I think,
31:03
Speaker 1: you know, like you're kind of right, and then it's
31:05
Speaker 1: it's not completely for boating, right, But it sounds like
31:08
Speaker 1: too much is not a good thing. I think that's
31:10
Speaker 1: what freud And was just saying, like, don't even mess
31:11
Speaker 1: with it. Put an animal fasts instead. Well, and that's
31:16
Speaker 1: what the person from Gardens Alive was saying this, like
31:19
Speaker 1: it's so little that it's not really going to make
31:20
Speaker 1: a difference. And if you're trying to get rid of
31:22
Speaker 1: it in a different way, she's like, it's not really
31:24
Speaker 1: gonna matter. But the but it raises a great question, Chuck,
31:27
Speaker 1: why in the name of all things holy would it
31:30
Speaker 1: matter what the alkalinity is of your compost pile. And
31:35
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why. Because it's a chemistry experiment. It
31:39
Speaker 1: is it's a it's a chemistry experiment. It's also a
31:41
Speaker 1: biological experiment. You have a microcosm growing there, and there's
31:46
Speaker 1: actually really easy things you can do to optimize this
31:50
Speaker 1: and basically create a Zanna Do paradise for the the
31:54
Speaker 1: microbes and primary and secondary and tertiary um consumers of
32:00
Speaker 1: this stuff that you're putting in there to break down
32:02
Speaker 1: so that they just have the greatest life that any
32:05
Speaker 1: invertebrate or microbe ever had. All right, should we talk
32:09
Speaker 1: chemistry a bit then come back to just the management
32:12
Speaker 1: and stuff. All right, what you're really talking about here
32:15
Speaker 1: for an ideal composting scene, you need a disco ball,
32:20
Speaker 1: and you need a proper uh C in ratio, which
32:24
Speaker 1: is carbon to nitrogen ratio. And depending on how walky
32:28
Speaker 1: you want to get, if you want to start measuring things,
32:32
Speaker 1: you can do that. But from what I gather, just
32:36
Speaker 1: try and do a lot to a little about thirty
32:40
Speaker 1: to one carbon to nitrogen and and eyeball it. When
32:45
Speaker 1: the rule of thumb is this, if it's green and
32:48
Speaker 1: um recently deceased, and by green like a nice bananappeal
32:55
Speaker 1: would qualify as this right is appliable and green or
33:00
Speaker 1: you know, again recently deceased, it is um high in nitrogen.
33:08
Speaker 1: If it's brown and dried, it's high in carbon. So
33:13
Speaker 1: you want to actually when you're adding the compost, you
33:15
Speaker 1: want to just kind of layer this stuff in about
33:17
Speaker 1: those ratios thirty to one. And there's actually tables like
33:21
Speaker 1: if you're a big time into this. There are tables
33:23
Speaker 1: out there that tell you just about exactly the carbon
33:26
Speaker 1: and nitrogen ratio in each individual thing. But what we
33:31
Speaker 1: said earlier, you want to avoid grass clippings. This is why,
33:35
Speaker 1: because they're too high in nitrogen. And what happens when
33:38
Speaker 1: you have too much nitrogen it's bad, right, It makes
33:42
Speaker 1: your pile stinky. Yeah, that's is that where the methane
33:45
Speaker 1: starts creeping in that Actually it leads to ammonia gas. Right.
33:50
Speaker 1: But you also don't want too much carbon either, chuck,
33:54
Speaker 1: because so you carbon and nitrogen. Carbon is like the
33:57
Speaker 1: building block and it's an energy source for these micro
34:00
Speaker 1: Nitrogen is um essential to their growth and their metabolic
34:04
Speaker 1: activity as well. But when they have this in these concentrations,
34:08
Speaker 1: that's when they flourish. Yeah. And the other problem with
34:11
Speaker 1: carbon two is it just it breaks down so slowly. Um. Well,
34:15
Speaker 1: it depends on the source. Yeah that's true. But generally
34:19
Speaker 1: a lot of the carbon sources like newspaper and corn
34:22
Speaker 1: cobs and stuff like that, it's just a much slower process, right. Right,
34:26
Speaker 1: So like they have um much tougher uh structural support
34:31
Speaker 1: in their cells, have structural integrity exactly. Um, they need
34:35
Speaker 1: to have a good saying that rhymes. If it's yellow,
34:39
Speaker 1: let it mellow, If it's brown, flush it down. Um,
34:42
Speaker 1: I thought you were heading towards that. I was just
34:44
Speaker 1: kind of like on the edge of my seat, like
34:46
Speaker 1: if it's greens brown. Maybe maybe there is one that
34:50
Speaker 1: we don't know, or maybe someone can write one like
34:53
Speaker 1: a creative listener. I would love to hear it. I'll
34:56
Speaker 1: bet we get a bunch of those. All right, oxygen
34:59
Speaker 1: if you're talking uh, if we're talking ratios, and again,
35:04
Speaker 1: you can walk out as much as possible. But the
35:06
Speaker 1: good news is about your compost piles. It's not like
35:09
Speaker 1: it needs to be like the oxygen that you need
35:12
Speaker 1: walking around to breathe, which is in the atmosphere. Yeah,
35:16
Speaker 1: that's what we have going on. It can get by
35:19
Speaker 1: these aerobic microbes as low as five percent. Yeah, that's
35:23
Speaker 1: cutting it close. That's getting it close. They say, try
35:25
Speaker 1: to hover somewhere around ten or up. How do you
35:29
Speaker 1: measure that? You don't? You just airate your pile and
35:32
Speaker 1: it's fine by either turning it or you can do
35:34
Speaker 1: hold PVC. And I guess that brings us kind of
35:38
Speaker 1: to the management part um. You don't just sit there
35:43
Speaker 1: unless you want to have a totally passive pile, and
35:46
Speaker 1: who wants that? You have to manage this thing either
35:49
Speaker 1: every day or every other day. Turn it, like we're saying,
35:52
Speaker 1: either with the little crank if you've got a handy
35:54
Speaker 1: little barrel unit, or with a pitch fork or they
35:57
Speaker 1: call it a composting fork in here. That's pretty fancy.
36:01
Speaker 1: Probably the same thing. And it's the same thing as
36:03
Speaker 1: a pitchfork, except like fifty dollars more. Uh, you want
36:07
Speaker 1: to water it some, but again, um, do you want
36:10
Speaker 1: to give watering advice? You don't want it for me.
36:14
Speaker 1: You don't want it to be soaking wet. No, you
36:16
Speaker 1: want to be moist. Damp. People hate that word, so
36:20
Speaker 1: we'll say damp um. And again I mentioned the perforated
36:24
Speaker 1: PVC pipes that can help. Uh. It says you can
36:27
Speaker 1: avoid turning it by having those pipes. I would still
36:30
Speaker 1: turn it. I would too, just to mix it up right. Yeah,
36:32
Speaker 1: but putting PBC pipes throughout your pile would make it
36:36
Speaker 1: really difficult to turn. So well, you can pull them out,
36:39
Speaker 1: I guess you could, you know, but getting them back
36:41
Speaker 1: into real pain. You can stick him back in another
36:45
Speaker 1: way to get to introduce oxygen is earthworms. Oh man,
36:48
Speaker 1: this is where I go crazy. Oh yeah, we have
36:51
Speaker 1: a lot of worms on our property. And just because
36:54
Speaker 1: there's a lot of worms in Georgia. Yeah, um, we
36:57
Speaker 1: did a great episode on earthworms, remember, Yeah, And every
37:00
Speaker 1: time I find them, Um, I picked them up. I
37:04
Speaker 1: show them to Emily and she immediately says, throw it
37:07
Speaker 1: in the garden, you know. And that's because we weren't
37:10
Speaker 1: composting heavily. Now it's gonna be thrown in the compost pile.
37:13
Speaker 1: But these guys are great because they naturally and may
37:15
Speaker 1: do a lot of things, but one of the things
37:16
Speaker 1: they do is naturally aerate by just tunneling through that stuff. Yeah.
37:20
Speaker 1: So earthworms and then worms in general are probably the
37:24
Speaker 1: most important non microscopic resident in your compost pile. Yeah,
37:31
Speaker 1: because they do so much. So worms and especially earthworms
37:35
Speaker 1: and most types of nematodes um. They actually go in
37:39
Speaker 1: and like eat a lot of the stuff that's in
37:42
Speaker 1: the compost pile, a lot of the food waste, right
37:44
Speaker 1: or organic waste, and in doing so they break it down,
37:49
Speaker 1: and as they break it down, they make it easier
37:52
Speaker 1: for the microbes to digest themselves. Should we start with
37:56
Speaker 1: the microbes. Okay. So again this com postpile. When you
38:00
Speaker 1: add food waste to the pile and add soil, you're
38:03
Speaker 1: introducing energy source to energy consumer. Okay. And at the
38:09
Speaker 1: base of this is the is microbial life bacteria mostly
38:15
Speaker 1: but um, the bacteria go to town. They start eating
38:18
Speaker 1: this stuff, and the smaller it is, the more service
38:21
Speaker 1: area there is, the more the bacteria can eat. And
38:23
Speaker 1: they actually take the nutrients out of this and use
38:26
Speaker 1: it for cellular respiration, which is why they need oxygen,
38:29
Speaker 1: because they take oxygen and combine them with the carbon
38:32
Speaker 1: and they create a t P which they use as
38:35
Speaker 1: an energy source to power their cells and live and
38:37
Speaker 1: frolic and play, and in doing so they create carbon dioxide.
38:41
Speaker 1: That's right. So um, as they're doing this, they're they're
38:46
Speaker 1: actually breaking the stuff down from what you'd recognize as
38:50
Speaker 1: a banan appeal closer and closer to that finished humus
38:53
Speaker 1: project product. So you've got bacteria and they're a big
38:56
Speaker 1: part of it. And depending on the phase that the
38:59
Speaker 1: compost miles in, uh, the there will be different kinds
39:02
Speaker 1: of bacteria in your compost pile. Yeah, and it's not
39:06
Speaker 1: you know, just bacteria there's a fun guy doing lots
39:10
Speaker 1: of work. Um. We mentioned neba toads there. You're gonna
39:15
Speaker 1: eventually get mites in there, and slugs. You've already thrown
39:19
Speaker 1: your worms in, some millipedes doing some action, all these
39:23
Speaker 1: cute little legs, and overall these are known as primary consumers.
39:28
Speaker 1: Some are are are all of them primary consumers? While
39:32
Speaker 1: they're listed okay by this person who made this fancy chart.
39:36
Speaker 1: So then above that, chuck, you get the secondary consumers, secundo,
39:40
Speaker 1: and those are right, those are the um, those are
39:43
Speaker 1: the predators of the primary consumers, right yeah. And then
39:47
Speaker 1: you have tertiary consumers. They're the predators of the secondary consumers.
39:51
Speaker 1: And so you put all this together and what you
39:53
Speaker 1: have is a food web if microbs breaking the stuff down,
39:57
Speaker 1: worms and stuff doing the same thing in some way. Um,
40:00
Speaker 1: and then other predators, different graduated levels of predators preying
40:05
Speaker 1: on the smaller animals to keep their population in check
40:08
Speaker 1: and to keep everything in a perfect balance so that
40:11
Speaker 1: it's as efficient as possible. And eventually a great white
40:14
Speaker 1: shark comes along. What gets me eats the whole pile
40:18
Speaker 1: thanks to a shark, Nato. What gets me though, Um,
40:21
Speaker 1: the best The best part of all this to me
40:24
Speaker 1: is that if you look at the lifespan of a
40:27
Speaker 1: compost pile from brand new to finished humans to humus,
40:34
Speaker 1: it's a It forms a bell as far as the
40:36
Speaker 1: temperature gradient goes, right, Yeah, it's really kind of cool.
40:39
Speaker 1: So the first stage is the mesophilic stage. Temperatures get
40:43
Speaker 1: up to I think forty degrees celsius. I can't remember
40:47
Speaker 1: what that is in fahrenheight. Yeah, we'll go with celsius. Okay, um,
40:51
Speaker 1: so it's warmish. And then as the cellular respiration mounts
40:57
Speaker 1: and builds, a more and more bacteria born and start
41:00
Speaker 1: eating and carry this cellular respiration out. The byproducts are
41:04
Speaker 1: CEO two and heat, and heat starts to accumulate in
41:09
Speaker 1: the compost pile so much so that it gets up
41:11
Speaker 1: to something like um fifty to sixty degrees celsius, which
41:15
Speaker 1: is like a hundred to a hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit. Yeah,
41:18
Speaker 1: and it's hot. At this point, your organisms are going
41:20
Speaker 1: to change. You're gonna have thermophilic there. These are a
41:22
Speaker 1: little heat loving critters and they move in because it's
41:25
Speaker 1: nice and warm. Their snowbirds, their desert dwellers, and they
41:30
Speaker 1: like it when it's warm. Um. But here's the thing
41:33
Speaker 1: is you want to like you want you don't want
41:36
Speaker 1: it to get too hot, so you want to continue
41:38
Speaker 1: to airate and keep that temperature and check. What you
41:41
Speaker 1: want is that natural bell to happen on its own, right,
41:44
Speaker 1: So the mesophilic um bacteria die off or they go
41:49
Speaker 1: kind of dormant as it enters the thermophilic phase. And
41:53
Speaker 1: then after the thermophilic phase ends. The reason it ends
41:56
Speaker 1: is because they've eaten up all of the stuff that's
41:59
Speaker 1: there to eat and only the hard stuffs left over.
42:04
Speaker 1: And so the thermophiles go away, and some of the
42:07
Speaker 1: mesophiles come back and new stuff comes in like um
42:11
Speaker 1: acts in of my seats actin of my seats, which
42:15
Speaker 1: are kind of like a weird fungi. Bacteria cross and
42:18
Speaker 1: they break down like the really hard woody shrubby stuff
42:21
Speaker 1: UM and they finish it off. And this third phase
42:24
Speaker 1: is called the curing phase. Right, And at the end
42:28
Speaker 1: of all of it you have this great nutrient rich
42:31
Speaker 1: hummus humus. But in the middle of that, when it
42:35
Speaker 1: gets really hot, it gets so hot, chuck that pathogens
42:39
Speaker 1: that can make you sick, that can make animals sick,
42:41
Speaker 1: that can make plants sick, are actually killed off in
42:44
Speaker 1: the face, which is why when you get your hands
42:47
Speaker 1: on compost on humus, it's organic. It's been basically treated
42:53
Speaker 1: naturally to rid itself of parasites, pathogens, all sorts of
42:57
Speaker 1: bad stuff, and all that's left off does the nutrients
43:01
Speaker 1: that have been broken down in the process that a
43:03
Speaker 1: plant can use very easily, and again the circle of
43:07
Speaker 1: life starts over again. Yeah, and you know, I mentioned
43:10
Speaker 1: sun earlier can dry it out, but if if it
43:12
Speaker 1: gets over sixty five celsius, it's gonna kill off so
43:16
Speaker 1: many microbes. It's gonna really slow down your process. Uh
43:20
Speaker 1: So that's another reason you turn it is to kind
43:22
Speaker 1: of keep and again don't have it direct sunlight, but
43:24
Speaker 1: it's going to keep that temperature where it does its
43:28
Speaker 1: thing naturally. Where you don't want to, you know, put
43:31
Speaker 1: a heat lamp on it. I just want to keep
43:33
Speaker 1: it moist, turn it over and let it do its thing,
43:36
Speaker 1: and you might come out there on a chilly morning
43:39
Speaker 1: there might be steam coming off of that sucker, and dude,
43:42
Speaker 1: that's when you just like you go hot dog. Yeah,
43:45
Speaker 1: hot diggity dog and you go inside and you eat
43:48
Speaker 1: a banana yea, and you throw it on the on
43:51
Speaker 1: the pile. All right, So when is it all over? Man?
43:54
Speaker 1: I just love this is why I love earth science.
43:57
Speaker 1: It's really amazing because it's like it requires a little
43:59
Speaker 1: bit the human management. But then you kind of just
44:01
Speaker 1: step away and say, do your thing. It's really neat.
44:04
Speaker 1: Uh when is it Overwell, you can tell. There's a
44:07
Speaker 1: few ways of being able to tell. Um. The temperature
44:10
Speaker 1: starts to go down. If it's below a hundred degrees fahrenheit,
44:14
Speaker 1: it's out of the thermophilic phase and it's now into
44:17
Speaker 1: the mesophilic phase. This says that it's probably done. I disagree.
44:22
Speaker 1: I think you probably wanted even cooler than that, because
44:25
Speaker 1: the longer you let it cure, the more um diverse
44:29
Speaker 1: the microbes inside are going to be, the better the
44:32
Speaker 1: soil that you use to amend it with is going
44:34
Speaker 1: to be sure. Temperature is one uh, one of it
44:38
Speaker 1: is just eyeball it. And if it's if it's about decomposed,
44:43
Speaker 1: like if you still see clearly a banana peal, then
44:46
Speaker 1: it's not done. Right. You don't want to recognize this
44:49
Speaker 1: stuff is food at this point, um or an eggshell
44:53
Speaker 1: or whatever? Um? And is it? Is it smaller? Is
44:56
Speaker 1: if it's been reduced by and it's dark brown or
45:02
Speaker 1: black and crumbly and it looks kind of like soil,
45:05
Speaker 1: then you're you're cooking with gas. It's my dad used
45:08
Speaker 1: to say, Um, the texture, did you say smooth or crumbly? Yeah?
45:14
Speaker 1: What about the smell, Well, it shouldn't um, it shouldn't
45:17
Speaker 1: stink bad at this point. No, it should smell earthy.
45:20
Speaker 1: And actually one of my favorites the actin of my sites,
45:25
Speaker 1: the actin of my seats. Okay, they are the reason
45:29
Speaker 1: that soil and dirt has its smell. It's those guys.
45:33
Speaker 1: They give it its earthy smell and that cool. Yeah,
45:36
Speaker 1: and I think we didn't mention you know that it's
45:38
Speaker 1: doing well along the way if it stopped smelling like
45:41
Speaker 1: it doesn't just stink the whole time, right, And it's
45:44
Speaker 1: not gonna smell earthy. The soil that you add will
45:47
Speaker 1: smell earthy. But when you grab a handful of humus,
45:51
Speaker 1: it should just fall through your fingers. It should be
45:53
Speaker 1: the closer to black, the better, and it should smell
45:56
Speaker 1: like every everything associated with earth would smell like. It's
46:01
Speaker 1: like the word earth. That's what it should smell like.
46:03
Speaker 1: Like you'll understand what earth smells like. Yeah, they said
46:06
Speaker 1: pete moss. If you if none of this makes sense,
46:08
Speaker 1: go to your local hardware store or lawn and garden
46:11
Speaker 1: center and smell the pete moss exactly. Um. So, now
46:15
Speaker 1: that it's done, you've got your wonderfully natural fertilizer. Use it,
46:22
Speaker 1: Put it, Spread it out in your garden, Spread it
46:25
Speaker 1: out around your trees, throw it in your yard, spread
46:27
Speaker 1: it around your naked body, and run around your yard
46:30
Speaker 1: if you want to. Um, it's got a doobie pile
46:36
Speaker 1: or quack grass. Yeah, stay away from that stuff. Um.
46:42
Speaker 1: It's basically like the easiest way to put it without
46:45
Speaker 1: getting too scientific, is it's gonna make everything better. It's
46:49
Speaker 1: gonna increase soil microbes. It's gonna increase nutrients and enhance them.
46:53
Speaker 1: It's gonna improve the pH and chemistry of your soil,
46:57
Speaker 1: your yards structure and again. And like, what you've just
47:00
Speaker 1: done is taken stuff and had it broken down into
47:04
Speaker 1: its components, unlocked it for your plants to use. So
47:07
Speaker 1: your plants are gonna say thank you brother. Pretty amazing. Ye. Uh,
47:12
Speaker 1: some people create a lot of it and sell it,
47:14
Speaker 1: but you know, mainly people do this to just use
47:17
Speaker 1: around their house. Yeah, and increasingly towns are starting to
47:20
Speaker 1: do curb side composting. Pickup food waste, pickup where you
47:24
Speaker 1: got trash, recycling bin food waste. Been an appeals, You've
47:28
Speaker 1: been an appeals? Right, that's it all right, go forth
47:32
Speaker 1: and composts. Yeah, if you want to know more about composting,
47:35
Speaker 1: you can type that word in the search part house
47:37
Speaker 1: to works dot com. Cornell actually also has a really
47:40
Speaker 1: great site about composting if you want to know more
47:42
Speaker 1: about the science of it. Were very excited. I love that.
47:45
Speaker 1: Um And since I said, Cornell, it's time for listening mail,
47:51
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this child Life Specialists made a couple
47:55
Speaker 1: of these it road And remember we talked about this
47:57
Speaker 1: in the pain scale and kind of reminds what it was,
48:01
Speaker 1: and we turns out we were right. And by the way,
48:03
Speaker 1: we heard from paramedics doctors quite a few people about
48:08
Speaker 1: the worst pain. Yeah, you don't want a long bone fracture. Yeah,
48:11
Speaker 1: almost of them said a broken femur is like the
48:15
Speaker 1: worst pain you can experience. And should we say why, Yeah,
48:18
Speaker 1: go ahead, So several reasons. Right, We are right because
48:22
Speaker 1: apparently it's a very sensitive area, but also because without
48:26
Speaker 1: that structure, your muscles start um spasm ng, which just
48:31
Speaker 1: rocks the whole thing back and forth even more and
48:33
Speaker 1: then in like fragmented bone, hitting nerve and like all
48:37
Speaker 1: kinds of badness. So steer clear of that, all right.
48:43
Speaker 1: So we heard from from two. I'm gonna read the one,
48:47
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna shout them both out. Hey, guys, very
48:49
Speaker 1: excited to hear you mentioned child life Specialists during your
48:51
Speaker 1: recent episode on pain Scales. As a child life specialist myself,
48:54
Speaker 1: I thought we'd take the opportunity to tell you a
48:56
Speaker 1: little bit about our profession. You are right, Chuck, A
49:00
Speaker 1: child Life Specialists is uh. We help kids deal with
49:03
Speaker 1: being hospitalized. That's really the essence of our job. We
49:07
Speaker 1: support children and families throughout stressful situations such as hospitalizations,
49:11
Speaker 1: using our knowledge of child development and play to facilitate coping.
49:16
Speaker 1: Child Life Specialists UM provide children with developmentally appropriate education
49:20
Speaker 1: about diagnoses and treatments, preparation and support for procedures, and
49:25
Speaker 1: opportunities for normalization and play. Um. What a great job. Seriously,
49:30
Speaker 1: I can't think of too many jobs that are more
49:32
Speaker 1: rewarding than that. Seriously, we also provide support for siblings
49:36
Speaker 1: and provide legacy building and memory making and end of
49:39
Speaker 1: life situations. Our profession is very rewarding. Josh, you are right.
49:45
Speaker 1: She predicted you would say that, and I love going
49:47
Speaker 1: to work every day. To become a c l S
49:51
Speaker 1: you must have a bachelor's or master's degree in child
49:53
Speaker 1: development or a related field, complete a six hundred and
49:57
Speaker 1: forty our Childlife internship, and pass a national certification exam.
50:03
Speaker 1: You can visit uh www dot child life dot org
50:07
Speaker 1: to learn more about it. Uh thanks for what you
50:10
Speaker 1: guys do. You've made all my road trips interesting and
50:13
Speaker 1: thanks for spreading the word about child life. Maybe you
50:15
Speaker 1: can do entire episode on our profession in the future,
50:19
Speaker 1: she said, Okay, and that is Natalie Valentine. And also
50:23
Speaker 1: a big shout out to Amanda Butler from Auburn University
50:27
Speaker 1: who does that there. Thanks for writing in ladies, it
50:30
Speaker 1: sounds like just a really, really great job. Yeah, thanks
50:34
Speaker 1: to you both for that, and thanks for everybody who
50:36
Speaker 1: has anything to do with making kids who are hospitalized
50:40
Speaker 1: feel better. Um, hats off to you. If you want
50:43
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, you can go on
50:46
Speaker 1: to stuffy Shado dot com and check out our social links,
50:49
Speaker 1: and you can also send us a good old fashioned email,
50:52
Speaker 1: Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom with some
50:54
Speaker 1: good old country goodness, and send it off to Stuff
50:57
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Radio Stuff you Should
51:03
Speaker 1: Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
51:06
Speaker 1: podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
51:09
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51:18
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