Easy Composting

Learn how to simplify this gardening chore.

I do most of my composting the lazy way, by putting it right in the garden instead of in a pile.

There’s a big bonus to this method: earthworms. Worms love to eat rotting plant debris, and this helps their population build fast.

As the worms come to feed on my veggie scraps and grass clippings, they aerate the soil and enrich it by moving nutrients deeper. I never have to lift a shovel to dig in finished compost from a pile. The worms do all the work for me. Another plus: Robins and thrushes come to visit more often, too, feasting on the earthworms.

Tips From Mother Nature

I call composting in place “the lazy way,” but actually I’m just taking my cue from the very best gardener of all, Mother Nature. Every autumn, she takes care of millions of leaves that fall from oaks, maples and other trees in forests, as well as dead plants everywhere, by turning them into black, crumbly soil.

Lots of helpers move the process along. Moisture breaks down the materials, and a myriad of critters, from worms and beetles to bacteria and other microscopic organisms, help themselves to anything they can eat in the decaying matter.

What they leave behind is a wonderful compost of friable soil that’s delightful to crumble in your hands and full of natural goodness for living plants. Compost contains major nutrients that give plants a boost, and it improves the texture, or tilth, of any soil. It also supplies equally important trace elements, specialized bacteria and natural antibiotics that help keep plants healthy—goodies you can’t buy in a bag.

Composting Tricks

The simplest way to compost is to follow nature’s example and let things rot. Try these easy tricks to beckon the earthworms and improve your soil without ever lifting a pitchfork:

1. Pull noninvasive, annual weeds that have not gone to seed or perennial weeds that don’t reroot and let them lie there; they’ll act as a water-conserving mulch.

2. Bury vegetable scraps right in your garden, covering them with an inch or two of soil for appearance’s sake.

3. Mulch around perennials and veggies with a 2-inch layer of herbicide-free grass clippings; they add growth-boosting nitrogen as they decay.

4. In the fall, put down the rake and let the wind blow the leaves on the soil around perennials and under shrubs and hedges. They’ll provide insulation over winter and quickly decay into compost come spring.

Learn how to make what Sally calls a "Compost Layer Cake".