Composting: Nature's Most Interesting Process

Summary

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

Air Date: March 20, 2026
Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Producer: Noel
Podcast Network: iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Josh and Chuck dig deep—literally and figuratively—into the science, practicalities, and environmental impact of composting. With their signature humor and chemistry, the duo breaks down why composting is more than just a “hippie hobby,” how it works on a biological and chemical level, and how listeners can get started, no matter their ambition or living situation. The conversation ranges from municipal programs to backyard piles, with clarity on both the how and the why of composting.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Food Waste: Why Composting Matters

• Food Waste by the Numbers

  • 40% of U.S. municipal landfill waste is food (04:07).
  • The main problem: landfills are designed to be anaerobic, leading to methane production, a greenhouse gas "on the order of 70% worse" than carbon dioxide (05:16).

• Environmental Benefits

  • Composting diverts waste, reduces methane emissions, and produces "amazing fertilizer" for soil health (05:56).

Josh: "If you compost food waste, mostly carbon dioxide is produced. Methane's not. ... You’re keeping all that methane from being produced. And as if it couldn't get any better, you are creating an amazing fertilizer that you can use to grow." (06:12)

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2. The Composting Basics: What It Is and How It Works

• Definition

  • Accelerates natural rot into a controlled, beneficial process (12:39).
  • Results in humus (not hummus!): a nutrient-rich, earthy-smelling end product (11:34).

• The Bare Minimums

  • Basic ingredients: organic waste, soil (starter culture for microbes), water (moist but not soggy), and oxygen (via turning/aeration).
  • Avoid using human/pet waste (night soil) and maintain a balance for good decomposition (09:36).

Chuck: "If you just want to lessen the impact a little bit on your landfill ... you can have just a little, small, little composting operation going on at your house." (09:08)

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3. Setting Up Your Compost Pile

• Location Considerations

  • Away from the house (due to occasional smells), with partial sun/shade—ideally under a deciduous tree for seasonal coverage (16:22).
  • Ensure good drainage, avoid concrete or enclosed plastic (17:20).
  • Check local HOAs or municipal rules first (15:27).

• Types of Compost Structures

  • Single Bin: New materials added on top, decomposed humus collected from the bottom (18:36).
  • Three Bin System: Materials progress between bins for staged decomposition; more "active management" (19:04).
  • Tumbling Barrels: Pre-fab, easy-turn systems for convenience (20:53).

Josh: "Single bin, new stuff at the top, easy peasy. Stuff that's in process in the middle, stuff that’s finished in the bottom." (18:36)

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4. What to Compost—and What Not To

• What’s In:

  • Kitchen waste: banana peels, apple cores, orange rinds, coffee grounds, paper filters, even napkins and newspapers.
  • Yard waste: leaves, small branches, grass clippings (in moderation), pruned shrub trimmings, sawdust, rinsed seaweed/kelp (if available) (26:32-30:16).
  • Smaller pieces decompose faster (28:41).

• What’s Out:

  • Poop (night soil), diseased plants, invasive weeds (like quack grass, buttercups, morning glory), pesticide-treated plants, meat/dairy (controversial—best to avoid due to odor and pathogens), charcoal or coal ash (see next point for nuance) (30:47-32:53).

  • Special Note on Charcoal/Wood Ashes:

    • A small amount of plain wood ash is okay, but too much raises alkalinity and can harm the pile (38:25-39:10).

Chuck: "You want a more or less organic compost pile right in the end." (34:42)

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5. The Science of Composting: Chemistry & Biology

• The Crucial Carbon-to-Nitrogen (C:N) Ratio

  • Ideal: 30:1 carbon to nitrogen.
  • "Greens" (high nitrogen): fresh, pliable, often kitchen scraps.
  • "Browns" (high carbon): dry, woody, paper, dead leaves.
  • Too much nitrogen = "stinky," ammonia smells. Too much carbon = slow decomposition (40:39-42:20).

• Oxygen Management

  • Aerobic microbes need 5–10% oxygen; turning or aeration pipes help keep the pile sweet (43:09).

• Water Content

  • Should be damp, not soaking wet (44:08).

Josh: "It’s a chemistry experiment, but it’s also a biological experiment. You have a microcosm growing there...a food web in there." (39:20, 12:15)

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6. The Compost Critters: Who Does the Work

• Microbes (Bacteria & Fungi):
  • Start breaking down the waste; need oxygen and the right balance for respiration and decomposition (46:02).
• Worms & Invertebrates:
  • Earthworms and nematodes eat and aerate; critical for breaking down and mixing compost (44:42-45:25).
• Food Web Structure:
  • Primary consumers (worms, fungi), secondary and tertiary consumers (predators on smaller critters).

Josh: "Worms, and especially earthworms and most types of nematodes...do so much." (45:25)

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7. The Stages of Composting

• Mesophilic Stage:
  • Moderate temp (up to ~40°C).
• Thermophilic Stage:
  • High temp (50–60°C, or 120–150°F). Kills pathogens and weed seeds; rapid breakdown (48:29).
• Curing Stage:
  • Cooling phase; actinomycetes and fungi break down tough materials, stabilize the final product.

Josh: "If you look at the lifespan of a compost pile, from brand new to finished humus, it forms a bell as far as the temperature gradient goes." (48:29)

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8. When Is Composing Done?

• Finished compost (“humus”) is:
  • Dark brown/black, crumbly, earthy-smelling
  • Reduced to 50–75% original size
  • No recognizable food fragments (53:05)
• Temp drops below 100°F and stays down (52:11)
• Should smell "like earth, like the word earth" (53:50)

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9. Using Your Compost

• Topdress gardens, lawn, trees, flower beds, or sell it
• Towns increasingly have curbside compost pickup—a hopeful sign for scaling impact (55:12-55:18)

Chuck: "It's basically like the easiest way to put it without getting too scientific, is it's gonna make everything better." (54:33)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Methane vs. CO2:

  "Methane is something on the order of 70% worse… 70% more potent. How about that?"
  — Josh, 05:16

• On Composting's Simplicity:

  "It's not hard to do and it's not expensive to do."
  — Chuck, 09:07

• On Picking a Spot:

  "Apparently the best place to put it is under a deciduous tree. In the wintertime, there's no leaves on the tree, so the sun's going to keep it warm when it's cold. But during the summer, it's going to be shaded by the tree, so it won't dry out. It's just perfect."
  — Josh, 16:21

• On Struggling With Broccoli:

  "Man, I hate broccoli… set it on fire… and throw that junk in there."
  — Josh, 29:04

• On Earthy Smell:

  "And actually, one of my favorites... the actinomycytes... They are the reason that soil and dirt has its smell."
  — Josh, 53:10

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Food Waste Problem & Methane: 04:07–06:42
• How Composting Works (Science, Activity): 11:34–13:35
• Setting Up a Compost Pile (Location & Structures): 14:26–20:56
• What to Compost; What Not To: 25:40–34:42
• Chemistry & Ratios: 39:08–42:20
• Managing the Pile (Turning, Watering, Oxygen): 43:27–44:27
• Compost Food Web: 45:25–47:31
• Temperature Phases/Stages: 48:29–51:36
• Is It Done? Signs of Completed Compost: 51:49–54:33
• Benefits & Using Finished Compost: 54:33–55:18

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Resources Mentioned

• Further Reading:
  • Howstuffworks.com
  • Cornell Composting Science for deeper scientific information (55:26)

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Final Takeaways

Composting is actionable, scalable, and surprisingly simple. By managing kitchen and yard waste and understanding just a little science, anyone can turn organic waste into garden gold—while helping the planet in the process. As Josh put it:

"What you've just done is taken stuff and had it broken down into its components, unlocked it for your plants to use." (54:54)

Go forth and compost!

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Transcript

[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Chuck Bryant]

should all be doing, which is composting.

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You can learn a thing or two about it in this episode. Composting Colon, nature's most interesting process. It's really not too hard and it really means A lot. So give it a shot.

[Josh Clark]

Welcome to stuff you should know from howstuffworks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh the Man Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And I think I neglected to say last time. Yeah, you did. Guest producer Noel is with us.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. So if you listen to the Shroud of Turin episode and you were like,

[Josh Clark]

man, that sounds great.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that was Noel. Yep.

[Josh Clark]

Thanks, Noel.

[Chuck Bryant]

This show today, I've been replaying one of my favorite Simpsons jokes ever over and over in my head.

[Josh Clark]

I laughed already just hearing Simpsons jokes.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was from one of the Halloween episodes when they did the Nightmare on Elm street riff. This is old, Old ones where Groundskeeper Willie was Freddy Krueger and he turned into a. I think like a shredder or a tractor or something and ran over people or something.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

And said, when you. When you're done. When I'm done, they're gonna need to do a compost borderdom.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, wow. That is a bad joke.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was really good. One of the. I mean, the Simpsons didn't get too punny, but that was a. That was a good one.

[Josh Clark]

Well, anything goes on a treehouse of horror.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Agreed.

[Josh Clark]

So, you know, there's a bunch of cities that have kind of gotten woke to the idea that we should be recycling or composting our food. Did you know that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

I saw a stat that said something like 40% of food gets wasted. But I got suspicious because I also saw that 40% of the stuff that goes to municipal landfills or trash is food waste, which doesn't necessarily mean it's wasted food, because I don't think you would count, like, a banana peel as food waste.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or is it wasted food waste?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

It's a box.

[Chuck Bryant]

They're not counting food packaging as food waste.

[Josh Clark]

No. But I think they're counting everything that has to do with food that could conceivably be eaten as wasted food, which is not the same as food waste. Okay. The point is, the legitimate stat that I saw just about everywhere is that if you took all the garbage that the United States throws away into a landfill, 40% of that is food waste. And I'm sure some of it is a whole cake. Some complete moron threw a whole cake away.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

For no good reason.

[Chuck Bryant]

I was on a diet.

[Josh Clark]

Well, that's actually a pretty good reason. But you know what I'm saying? 40% of all that trash is food. The problem is, you might say, well, who cares? Trash, decomposes. That's great. That's true. It does decompose. But in the landfills that the United States uses, we make sure they're anaerobic. Oxygen doesn't get down there, so a whole different decomposition process takes place. And in a landfill, in anaerobic decomposition, methane is produced. And methane is bad news. Yes, Methane is something on the order of 70% worse. I know there's a much more scientific way to put it, but it's 70% badder than carbon dioxide as far as greenhouse gases go. Yeah, 70% more potent. How about that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, so you don't want methane. If you have to choose between methane and carbon dioxide, you want to go with carbon dioxide. And it just so happens that if you compost food waste, mostly carbon dioxide is produced. Methane's not. So if you're diverting this food waste from the landfill, there's a whole bunch of different stuff you're doing. Number one, you're saving all that 40% of the space for actual trash. So you're extending the life of your land. You're keeping all that methane from being produced. And as if it couldn't get any better, you are creating an amazing fertilizer that you can use to grow. You could grow a tree out of a shoe. This fertilizer's so good.

[Chuck Bryant]

The old shoe tree.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. We've danced around this a lot. Well, you just referenced our. And I don't like to toot our own horns a lot, but that landfills episode was great.

[Josh Clark]

Landfills. And don't forget the Plasma Incinerator 1.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Basically any of our waste management ones are.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. What else? I think guerrilla gardening. We touched on this and a couple of others we've mentioned. Composting. And to the extent where I thought we had done one on composting. Not yet, but we had not until about five and a half minutes ago. And that's a guess. So if you write in, say, like it was eight minutes, Chuck, you're grounded. So, like you mentioned, I don't think these numbers are accurate anymore, but we generate, let's just say, a lot of millions of tons, hundreds of millions of tons of trash. And about 25 to 30% of that is recovered through recycling, which includes composting, which is good. But that number, if it was 70%, would be amazing.

[Josh Clark]

Does that include composting? That. That recycling number?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay. Yeah. If it'd be 70, that'd be great. Yeah, 80, why not?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, let's shoot for 90.

[Josh Clark]

Well, supposedly, Seattle itself has a goal of something like 60 to 70 of all of its trash being recycled by the end of the year.

[Chuck Bryant]

Of course they do, because Seattle does it right.

[Josh Clark]

And they actually have compulsory mandatory composting now. Like you have to compost if you live in the city of Seattle.

[Chuck Bryant]

Why don't I live there?

[Josh Clark]

I don't know. I don't know. I asked myself that a lot.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know, Emily and I went for our two shows ago on that lovely spring weekend.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, it was gorgeous.

[Chuck Bryant]

And we stayed extra in Seattle and after we were like, we're moving here. That's it.

[Josh Clark]

It's a great town.

[Chuck Bryant]

I've said it before on the show, dogs and bars. That was all it took.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Dog bartenders.

[Chuck Bryant]

But again, dogs playing poker again. It's easy to fall in love with Seattle on a perfect weekend in April.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I hear it rains there a

[Chuck Bryant]

lot, though I'd still live there. It's a great place. And you know what? You may see us again this year. Seattle. Tease. Tease.

[Josh Clark]

You're such a tease.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so composting is great for a thousand reasons, but one first and foremost is that it's. It's not hard to do and it's not expensive to do.

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

If you just want to be. And there are many different levels of composting from big city programs to the. The home farmer that takes it super seriously to just. If you just want to lessen the impact a little bit on your landfill, your local landfill, feel like you're doing the right thing and get a little bit of nutrient rich goodness fertilizer to use, you can have just a little, small, little composting operation going on at your house.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. This is all you need, organic waste. And we don't even mean something that's like organic. We mean like organic, meaning it's composed mostly of carbon. It was once alive at one point. Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I made a poopy noise, which you can't use poop.

[Josh Clark]

No, that's night soil.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's the opposite of what I should have done.

[Josh Clark]

What's a banana sound? That's a banana sound. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

You need soil, you need water, you need air or oxygen.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So the organic waste is the stuff you're going to have broken down, which in this case, in the case of a compost pile is food. The soil.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, partially, sure, but no, no, it's

[Josh Clark]

food for the things that are in the soil.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Right. It's an energy source.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes, yes.

[Josh Clark]

And nutri source for what's in the soil. So you add soil when you're adding soil, you're basically adding starter culture to the compost. What you're doing is grabbing microbes from, say, in your yard and putting them on the compost pile and say, dinner's on, boys.

[Chuck Bryant]

They eat and poop. Yes, but you don't want to poop in it.

[Josh Clark]

You need a little bit of water, like you said, to keep it moist. But you don't want to keep it over wet because microbes like slightly moist soil and then air. Because, again, this is really, really important. You can let your compost pile degrade anaerobically, but it's going to produce methane, which is bad for the environment, bad for your neighbors, bad for your neighbors, bad for you. It's going to stink. It might blow up. Who knows? You don't want to smoke near what's called a passive compost pile. So you want to just introduce oxygen and all this sounds very complicated. It's not. It's hitting it with your hose. And by that I mean spraying water on it with your hose. I just realized you can hit something with your hose, too. It's like turning it over, right, with a pitchfork to add oxygen. It's as simple as that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's really easy. So what you're going to end up with, Ian, like we said, is really fertilizer, but it's called humus. Don't call it hummus.

[Josh Clark]

No, that's different.

[Chuck Bryant]

That has two m's, right? This has just one M. And those little microorganisms in there, they're going to break this stuff down. They're going to eat it, they're going to poop it out, and they're going to multiply and there's going to be. We'll talk about the critters a little more later. But they're going to be different critters along the way that eat those critters, then critters that eat those critters. And it's going to get really hot up in there. It might steam. Then it's going to cool back down, it's going to get smaller, and it's just like this little micro environment. It is really, really neat.

[Josh Clark]

There's actually a food web in there. There's a lot of physics and chemistry that's going on. It is very neat. I'm fascinated by it, too. But the upshot of composting is that you're taking something and it's being broken down into its constituent parts so that it can be reused by plants and. And the whole circle of life can start over.

[Chuck Bryant]

Again, yeah, you're sort of just accelerating the natural process of, like, rot.

[Josh Clark]

You're optimizing it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like you mentioned, a passive composter, which is to say, you know, lazy hippies, you could, you could just throw all that junk out of your window if you wanted in a big pile and throw your. Some grass clippings on and throw, throw your, your fall leaves on there. Just leave it there. And that thing will eventually compost itself.

[Josh Clark]

Well, again, it'll produce methane. You'll blow up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or you can turn, you know, you could turn it every now and then and maybe avoid that.

[Josh Clark]

But no, I think that makes it an active pile.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, slightly active pile then.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't mean like every other day just to avoid methane.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe, but that would still technically be an active pile. It'd be a poorly managed active pile. Yeah, slightly active, poorly managed.

[Chuck Bryant]

So.

[Josh Clark]

I'm serious. That's what they call it.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm just. We'd like to make up our own names for things. I didn't know you were going to cease that in year nine.

[Josh Clark]

I gotcha. Sorry. We'll call that the doobie pile.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. No, it's called active management.

[Josh Clark]

I just wanted to make sure that we got it on the record.

[Chuck Bryant]

So the big goal here is to reduce your waste. They say in this article ultimately will save you tax money because your landfill won't.

[Josh Clark]

I thought that was hilarious.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, don't count on seeing any tax breaks coming anytime soon.

[Josh Clark]

But that got William F. Buckley's attention, probably.

[Chuck Bryant]

So. So how do you do this? Let's say you want to start composting. There's a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 step process to get this thing going.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, well, let's talk about them.

[Chuck Bryant]

The first thing you want to do is just pick out the place you want to do it right. Because it's, you know, it's a bit of a mess.

[Josh Clark]

It doesn't have to be necessarily, but depending on your neighbors, they might be like, well, great, I'm glad you started. An unsightly pile of kitchen rubbish.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And food waste that I can see from my deck. Thanks a lot for that. So that's something you want to keep in consideration. Apparently. Even if you do have a very well managed active pile, what would you call that?

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm not making up funny names anymore. No more jokes.

[Josh Clark]

I've ruined. Still may stink here or there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

So you want it kind of away from the house, but not so far away that if you're feeling lazy, you're not Going to go out and tend to it on a daily or every other day basis.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And if you have that much land that you have a compost pile a mile from your house, good for you.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

You got some acreage. There might be some local rules, either from your hoa, Heaven forbid, if you have to belong to one of those, or maybe just your municipality might have rules and regulations.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So check with them first.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. That's what everyone does for. They start a compost pile, they go down to city hall and say, what? Tell me the rules and regulations surrounding composting in my yard.

[Chuck Bryant]

Now, I think the first thing everyone does is start throwing their eggshells out the window.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's how it always starts.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's like, I'm tired of these things being in my trash. They recommend downwind because like you said, it might stink a bit. Sun is good in a way, but you don't want it baking in the sun all day.

[Josh Clark]

No. Because it'll dry it out. Remember, you want it to be kind of moist.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

And the sunlight can actually dry it out. So you want. Apparently the best place to put it is under a deciduous tree.

[Chuck Bryant]

Good spot.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because in the wintertime, there's no leaves on the tree, so the sun's going to keep it warm when it's cold. But during the summer, it's going to be shaded by the tree, so it won't dry out. It's just perfect.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is.

[Josh Clark]

Deciduous tree equals love.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wind is good to provide a little air, but you don't want it blowing, scattering the stuff all over the place. Drying it out again. No. Good. What else? Drainage. Don't start one in that old baby pool that you don't want to throw

[Josh Clark]

out, especially if your baby's in there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You want good drainage. Like generally, you build. Either build a bin, we'll talk about this stuff actually, right now. But it's off the ground.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's on legs.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Although you can have a pile.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

But, you know, generally you want to. You want to build a bin or buy a bin.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And those things sit off the ground. Right. Because of drainage.

[Josh Clark]

That's part of it for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You also want dirt rather than say like a concrete pad or something like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Don't compost in your driveway.

[Josh Clark]

Right. It's not a good idea as far as structures go. You can. Like you said, you can go buy one. They're not very expensive, from what I understand. Right. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

It depends on the size.

[Josh Clark]

You can also say, go buy some Cinder blocks and build something like that. Sure. But basically you can cut compost structures into two. There's a single bin and there's a three bin system. So in the single bin system, you put new stuff on top, new banana peels. This is what I think of when I think composting, you know, banana peels. Sure. Yeah. You put new stuff on top and then you take a pitchfork or shovel or something like that and you work it in to the compost. And at the bottom of this structure, say it's open. When you're walking up to it, the finished compost will accumulate at the bottom. And the reason it accumulates at the bottom is because it's a finer grain. Yeah. And that's it. Single bin, new stuff at the top, easy peasy. Stuff that's in process in the middle, stuff that's finished in the bottom. And it will just naturally kind of separate. Like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And when we're talking structure like that, if you want to build one, you know, build a wood frame and it's like got chicken wire walls and a chicken wire bottom, and that gives you the air. And if you got something to collect it underneath, it's gonna fall. You know, when it's small enough.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Some other stuff might fall. You may need to add it back in. Yeah, but with the three bin system, you've got. Well, you've got three bins, you've got the starter stuff, you got the. Once it starts to break down, little stuff, and then you have the more finished product.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And you have to actively manage that system.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that system sounds unnecessarily difficult.

[Chuck Bryant]

Kind of like it.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, you're a three bin guy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, we're about to get into this for real. We've been lazily composting for a while, but we're doing our whole backyard. Like we're getting rid of our grass, basically. Oh, yeah, 100% of it.

[Josh Clark]

What are you gonna do? Compost.

[Chuck Bryant]

Mulch in beds and plants and herbs and xeriscape.

[Josh Clark]

Walking cacti in and all that.

[Chuck Bryant]

No cacti. Although we do have a palm tree. We've had that forever, though.

[Josh Clark]

There you go.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, Just getting rid of the grass,

[Josh Clark]

basically, because it takes up so much water.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's just. It's not good grass to begin with. And I'm not the best about cutting it. Lawnmowers are terrible.

[Josh Clark]

Plus you don't water enough. You never let a quarter inch of water accumulate.

[Chuck Bryant]

Exactly. Yeah, just. And you know, it'll look nicer. So part of this in this company that's doing it is. It's not just a landscaping company. They're a bunch of hippies.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, gotcha.

[Chuck Bryant]

So they're designing it in such a way that it feeds itself, and part of that is composting.

[Josh Clark]

Gotcha.

[Chuck Bryant]

Anyway, long, long way of saying we're going to start like for real composting very shortly.

[Josh Clark]

And you're going with the three bin structure?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know. I think I'm going to build it. It's. Well, it's the structure Emily tells me to build.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's the easiest way to say it. Yeah. But if you buy one, like you were saying, there's all different kinds. Just, you know, look, look it up online or go to a hardware store and you know, many of them will look like a big barrel on legs and it literally turns, like has a crank on it right to where you can turn this thing in circles.

[Josh Clark]

It's old timey.

[Chuck Bryant]

So you don't have to use a pitchfork at all.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

You don't have to muss your hands or your hair.

[Josh Clark]

It's like a bingo spinner, but with banana peels.

[Chuck Bryant]

Have you ever played bingo, like legit bingo in a room with hundreds of people?

[Josh Clark]

Not hundreds.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, more than like you and Yumi.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like a bingo parlor? Is that what they're called?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I've actually gone to a couple of like senior retirement homes and helped out with bingo.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

And that's a pretty, pretty cool experience actually, because do you run the bingo it's.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or do you just play.

[Josh Clark]

Kind of qualified to run the bingo.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right, right.

[Josh Clark]

Just walk around and point out if somebody missed one that they, you know, that was called that kind of thing. But did you want to talk about taking it seriously? Do they? Oh, my God.

[Chuck Bryant]

And then you have to be a certified bingo master to run the show.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And they'll like tell you to hurry up and like shout if you're, if you're not like loud enough or fast enough or going too fast, like.

[Chuck Bryant]

So the point is not to have fun?

[Josh Clark]

No, the point is to win.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow. What do they win? Their prizes?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Nothing much usually. I mean, but you can. I think you can play bingo in casinos for thousands and thousands of dollars.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Usually at old folks homes. They don't, you know, there's not thousands of dollar prizes like honey buns and cigarettes. Right, Exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, well, let's take a break here after we have talked structure and we'll talk a little bit about what kind of junk you want to throw in that pile. You know what?

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[Josh Clark]

All right, Chuck, so we're talking what you want to throw in the pile, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

You got your bin.

[Josh Clark]

Either a triple three banger got your sight.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or a single. You got your sight.

[Josh Clark]

You bribed your neighbor to look the other way.

[Chuck Bryant]

Bribed your neighbor. Exactly. You bought a goat.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, man, talk about green living.

[Chuck Bryant]

My neighbor has goats now, like, five of them.

[Josh Clark]

Are they loud?

[Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that's great.

[Chuck Bryant]

Every once in a while I hear them, but it's a joy to hear. So it's not like. It's not like a rooster.

[Josh Clark]

Do you wake up and look out and say, morning, Satan?

[Chuck Bryant]

No. Well, goats. One of my favorites, so it's kind of nice to have them around.

[Josh Clark]

Are they baby goats or adult goats?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, they're big ones. I mean, she got them to maintain the property because she was tired of cutting. I guess she didn't want to Xer escape it, so she bought goats anyway. It's awesome. Kitchen waste, Josh. That's what you want to throw in there?

[Josh Clark]

Well, yeah, that's the first one. That's the one that everybody says. That's why you compost, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And, yeah, banana peels. Everybody knows that. But did you also know you can compost apple cores in orange rinds?

[Chuck Bryant]

You can also eat apple cores?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. You believe there is no such thing as a core, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes. Because there's nothing

[Josh Clark]

sane people who leave their apple cores left over, they can compost those things. Those are the easy ones. You can also do coffee grounds.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's a good one.

[Josh Clark]

Paper filters.

[Chuck Bryant]

Throw that filter and all in there.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, so let's just say I ate maybe a whole pizza to myself. I've got a couple of napkins wadded up. What do I do with those, Chuck?

[Chuck Bryant]

I think you can throw those napkins in there, Josh.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Isn't that crazy?

[Chuck Bryant]

It is crazy.

[Josh Clark]

Newspaper. Yeah. Corn cobs, if you still read a newspaper.

[Chuck Bryant]

If you get your news on the Internet, throw your laptop in there.

[Josh Clark]

Watermelon rinds.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Seeds, leaves, you know, the butt end of the asparagus that no one cooks.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Throw that junk in there.

[Josh Clark]

You can also do yard waste, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So you've got grass clippings, which we'll talk about in a second. We got a couple warnings. As far as grass clippings goes. Not too much, but, like, let's say you're raking leaves or something like that. Throw some leaves on there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Good crunchy brown ones.

[Josh Clark]

And you can also throw, like, trimmings from your, like, shrubs. If you trim your woody shrubs. Okay, the key here is this, chuck. You want to cut all this stuff up in small bits.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Don't throw a whole corn cob in there. You can.

[Josh Clark]

No, your compost pile will just throw it right back out.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it'll just spit it right back out.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's very funny. It'll make a burping noise.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

They say to shred the corn cob. I don't have a corn cob shredder.

[Josh Clark]

I don't either.

[Chuck Bryant]

I've never thought about that.

[Josh Clark]

I wouldn't waste, like, my blender blade on chopping up corn cobs. I think the point is, that's for breaking it. Break it into little pieces. Sure. You can break it into little pieces, though.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You probably cut a corn cob up.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And you can also, like, you can take all this stuff and chop it. Anything you can put into smaller pieces, the better.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Because as we'll see, what you're really doing is you're not just breaking it up. You have to look at it like, what you're doing is increasing the surface area so more microbes can work on it at once.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like, if you have. I know you hate broccoli, but.

[Josh Clark]

Man, I hate broccoli.

[Chuck Bryant]

You cut the little florets off and you've got that big green broccoli stalk. Cut that thing up as small as you can.

[Josh Clark]

Set it on fire.

[Chuck Bryant]

You have patience for. And throw that junk in there.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Basically channel your inner anal chef.

[Chuck Bryant]

Gross.

[Josh Clark]

You remember him?

[Chuck Bryant]

The anal chef?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Was that a real thing?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, on Saturday Night Live. Phil Hartman.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I don't remember that.

[Josh Clark]

The anal retain of chef. Oh, okay, I forgot the retentive part.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I remember that qualifier.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's like, I don't get that joke, Mommy.

[Josh Clark]

Remember the anal retentive chef?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I do remember that.

[Josh Clark]

Now he'd, like, start to. If he was dicing, like, green peppers and one of them was bigger than the rest, he'd just be like, okay, well, you want to take those chunks and you want to put them into a paper towel, and then you want to fold that up, and then you put that into some aluminum foil, and you fold that up and you put that into a paper bag and you roll it up and then you staple it and then you throw it away.

[Chuck Bryant]

Boy, man, what a loss that was. Still makes Me sad. So you mentioned newspaper earlier. If you live near the ocean and you've got your hands on some seaweed or some kelp, you can rinse that stuff off.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

So you don't want all that salt content in there. No, but it's really good and nutrient rich if you rinse that off and put it in your compost pile.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And it's also good for you to eat too. I know I sound nuts, but just eat that stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

What do you mean? People eat seaweed.

[Josh Clark]

So good for you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Sawdust.

[Josh Clark]

You don't eat that.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, but like I'm building my compost bin, I can put that sawdust back in it. How about that?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Pretty neat circle of life, baby.

[Chuck Bryant]

What should not you compost?

[Josh Clark]

Night soil, which is poopy soil. Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

Your cat. You don't go take a big dump out of your compost pile. No, I know you want to.

[Josh Clark]

No, that's not good.

[Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

Diseased garden plants. That's a big one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Some of this stuff though, as we'll find, doesn't quite make sense, but it's just good to err on the side of garbage in, garbage out. Except with compost, if you put garbage, garbage in, then it's going to be really bad. If you put good, healthy garbage in, it's going to come out as quite good. So you don't want to put any diseased plants in there. Invasive weeds are another one too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But it says you can also put weeds in there. So I guess you just need to figure out which ones are the bad ones.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So this specifically calls out buttercups, morning glory and quack grass. I'm quite sure that there's plenty of seeds that wouldn't survive the composting process, but apparently these do. So stay away from the quack grass.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think that was the big mantra at Woodstock.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. It's a gateway drug.

[Chuck Bryant]

Don't have the yellow sunshine or the quack grass.

[Josh Clark]

It was the brown, the brown acid, which, I mean, who wants brown acid, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

And what about. You were talking about kitchen stuff. What about meat and dairy?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay. That's controversial.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is. Because Emily has taken classes and they were like, no, don't use any of that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's like animal cells and fats in particular. They putrefy, they don't decompose and putrefaction makes some stinky stuff. And I think it can also generate a lot of disease bearing pathogens. So I was surprised to see this article say, heck yeah, put it in There.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, and they kind of said in this article, if you're really heavily managing this thing, you can do it. But I don't know. I've just heard don't.

[Josh Clark]

They said, turn it into a slurry, which I don't want to see Freud and Rich's blender at home.

[Chuck Bryant]

A steak fat slurry.

[Josh Clark]

Gross. With corncob leavings on it. But he said, whip it up into a slurry and as long as it's a good, hot, actively managed pile, it'll. It won't be a problem. I'm going to go ahead and say, I don't think you should do that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

I don't know what to do with the animal leavings, but I don't think you should compost it.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. It might make sense to you to say, hey, I have an outdoor fire pit. I bet that would be great in my composter. No, incorrect.

[Josh Clark]

Although this specifically says charcoal ashes. I think that's any kind of charred ashes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, like burnt wood is called charcoal.

[Josh Clark]

So are you sure? Because I know what you just said was true, but supposedly the entire Amazon basin, and I learned this from the Greatest Book of All Time, 1491, by Charles C. Mann. The entire Amazon basin was a managed forest that the indigenous peoples down there had made completely fertile and fecund by. Instead of slash and burn, they were using slash and char techniques. And there was way more carbon locked into the charred tree stumps than there was the ashes. So it became more fertile. So I have a question about that one.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know, I'm going to back off of my determined stance and say, I

[Josh Clark]

don't know, it would make sense if it was coal. Like, if it was coal.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, like charcoal briquettes, because they have cement and all sorts of chemicals and junk in them.

[Josh Clark]

But if it's charred wood or wood ash, I wonder. All right, well, somebody let us know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Charles C. Mann, tell us the pesticide treated plants. You know my stance on pesticides, period.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Don't use them. But if you do, definitely don't put that stuff in there. Because your whole thing here is you want a more or less organic compost pile right in the end.

[Josh Clark]

And so one of the things that people love about compost is it actually is organic. And we're going to explain how. I didn't know this until we did this research, but we'll explain how, because we're going to go through the process that your compost pile undergoes right after this. It's time to believe in the Hail Mary Project Hail Mary, one of the most beloved adventure stories by Andy Weir, is now a major motion picture. So there's never been a better time to immerse yourself in the bestselling audiobook.

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[Josh Clark]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Josh Clark]

Oh, and I want founders who are marathon runners.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's discipline. Yeah, let's see what that looks like.

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[Chuck Bryant]

All right, I did something we rarely do, which is look something up as we're podcasting because it just sounded lazy to be like, oh, we don't know this one. GardenSalive.com says wood ashes are so strongly alkaline that it doesn't take a lot to upset the balance in the pile and stop the processing. You can add a very small amount of wood ash from, like, your fireplace or wood burning stove, but apparently not much. So I think, you know, like, you were kind of right in that it. It's not completely verboten, right? But it sounds like too much is not a good thing.

[Josh Clark]

I think that's what Freud and Rich is saying. Like, don't even mess with it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so why bother?

[Josh Clark]

Put in animal fats instead.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, and that's what the, the person from Gardens Alive was saying is like, it's so little that it's not really going to make a difference. And if you're trying to get rid of it in a different way, right. She's like, it's not really going to matter.

[Josh Clark]

But it raises a great question, Chuck. Why in the name of all things holy would it matter what the alkalinity is of your compost pile? And I'll tell you why. Because it's a chemistry experiment. It is. It's a chemistry experiment, but it's also a biological experiment. You have a microcosm growing there, and there's actually really easy things you can do to optimize this and basically create a Xanadu paradise for the microbes and primary and secondary and tertiary consumers of this stuff that you're putting in there to break down so that they just have the greatest life that any invertebrate or microbe ever had.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, should we talk chemistry a bit then come back to just the management and stuff? All right, what you're really talking about here, for an ideal composting scene, you need a disco ball, right? And you need a proper CN ratio, which is carbon to nitrogen ratio. And depending on how wonky you want to get, if you want to start measuring things, you can do that. But from what I gather, just try and do a lot to a little about 30 to 1. Carbon to nitrogen, right. And eyeball it.

[Josh Clark]

And the rule of thumb is this. If it's green and recently deceased and by green, like a nice banana peel would qualify as this, right? If it's yellow pliable and green, or again, recently deceased. It is high in nitrogen.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

If it's brown and dried, it's high in carbon. So you want to actually, when you're adding the compost, you want to just kind of layer this stuff in about those ratios, 30 to 1. And there's actually tables, like, if you're big time into this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

There are tables out there that tell you just about exactly the carbon to nitrogen ratio in each individual thing. But what we said earlier, you want to avoid grass clippings. This is why. Because they're too high in nitrogen.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And what happens when you have too much nitrogen?

[Chuck Bryant]

It's bad.

[Josh Clark]

Right. It makes your pile stinky.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's. Is that where the methane starts creeping in?

[Josh Clark]

That actually leads to ammonia gas.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay.

[Josh Clark]

Right. But you also don't want too much carbon either, Chuck. Yeah, because so you. Carbon and nitrogen. Carbon is like the building block, and it's an energy source for these microbes. Nitrogen is essential to their growth and their metabolic activity as well. But when they have this in these concentrations, that's when they flourish.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And the other problem with carbon, too, is it's just it breaks down so slowly.

[Josh Clark]

Well, it depends on the source.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's true. But generally, a lot of the carbon sources, like newspaper and corn cobs and stuff like that, it's just a much slower process.

[Josh Clark]

Right, right. So, like, they have much tougher structural support in their cells.

[Chuck Bryant]

They have structural integrity.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

They need to have a good saying that rhymes. Like, if it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

I thought you were heading toward that. I was just kind of, like, on the edge of my seat.

[Josh Clark]

No, like, if it's green, I walked right past.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's brown.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe.

[Chuck Bryant]

Maybe there is one that we don't know. Or maybe someone can write one. Like a creative listener.

[Josh Clark]

I'd love to hear. I'll bet we get a bunch of those.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. Oxygen, if you're talking. If we're talking ratios. And again, you can wonk out as much as possible. But the good news about your compost pile is it's not like it needs to be like the oxygen that you need walking around to breathe, which is,

[Josh Clark]

I think, 21% in the atmosphere.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That's what we have going on. It can get by these aerobic microbes at as low as 5%.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. That's cutting it close.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's getting it close. They say try to hover somewhere around 10 or up.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And how do you measure that you don't.

[Josh Clark]

You just aerate your pile and it's

[Chuck Bryant]

fine by either turning it or you can do hold pvc. And I guess that brings us kind of to the management part.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

You don't just sit there unless you want to have a totally passive pile. And who wants that? You have to manage this thing either every day or every other day. Turn it, like we were saying.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Either with the little crank if you've got a handy little barrel unit, or with a pitchfork or they call it a composting fork in here.

[Josh Clark]

That's pretty fancy.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's probably the same thing, isn't it?

[Josh Clark]

It's the same thing as a pitchfork, except like $50 more.

[Chuck Bryant]

You want to water it some. But again, do you want to give watering advice?

[Josh Clark]

You don't want it for me. You don't want it to be soaking wet.

[Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

You want it to be moist.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Damp.

[Chuck Bryant]

People hate that word. So we'll say damp. And again, I mentioned the perforated PVC pipes that can help. It says you can avoid turning it by having those pipes.

[Josh Clark]

I would still turn it.

[Chuck Bryant]

I would too, just to mix it up. Right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But putting PVC pipes throughout your pile would make it really difficult to turn. So.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, you can pull them out.

[Josh Clark]

I guess you could, you know, but getting them back in is a real pain.

[Chuck Bryant]

You can stick them back in.

[Josh Clark]

Another way to get to introduce oxygen is earthworms.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man. This is where I go crazy.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

We have a lot of worms on our property. And just because there's a lot of worms in Georgia.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. We did a great episode on earthworms, remember?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And every time I find them, I pick them up, I show them to Emily and she immediately says, throw it in the garden, you know, and that's because we weren't composting heavily. Now it's going to be throw them in the compost pile.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

But these guys are great because they naturally. I mean, they do a lot of things, but one of the things they do is naturally aerate by just tunneling through that stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So earthworms and then worms in general are probably the most important non microscopic resident in your compost pile.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Because they do so much. So worms, and especially earthworms and most types of nematodes, they actually go in and eat a lot of the stuff that's in the compost pile. A lot of the food waste. Right. Or organic waste. And in doing so, they break it down. And as they break it down, they make it easier for the microbes to digest themselves. Should we start with the microbes?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, so again, this compost pile, when you add food waste to the pile and add soil, you're introducing energy source to energy consumer. Okay?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

And at the base of this is microbial life. Bacteria, mostly. But the bacteria go to town, they start eating this stuff, and the smaller it is, the more surface area there is, the more the bacteria can eat. They actually take the nutrients out of this and use it for cellular respiration, which is why they need oxygen. They take oxygen and combine it with the carbon and they create ATP, which they use as an energy source to power their cells and live and frolic and play. And in doing so, they create carbon dioxide.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

So as they're doing this, they're actually breaking the stuff down from what you'd recognize as a banana peel closer and closer to that finished humus product.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

So you got bacteria, and they're a big part of it. And depending on the phase that the compost pile is in, there will be different kinds of bacteria in your compost pile.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And it's not, you know, just bacteria. There's fungi doing lots of work. We mentioned nematodes. You're going to eventually get mites in there and slugs. You've already thrown your worms in some millipedes doing some action.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

All those cute little legs. And overall, these are known as primary consumers.

[Josh Clark]

Some are. Are all of them primary consumers?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, they're listed.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

By this person who made this fancy chart.

[Josh Clark]

So then above that, Chuck, you've got the secondary consumers.

[Chuck Bryant]

Secondo.

[Josh Clark]

And those are. Right, those are the. Those are the predators of the primary consumers, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And then you have tertiary consumers. They're the predators of the secondary consumers. And so you put all this together, and what you have is a food web of microbes breaking the stuff down, worms and stuff doing the same thing in some ways. And then other predators, different graduated levels of predators preying on the smaller animals to keep their population in check and to keep everything in a perfect balance so that it's as efficient as possible.

[Chuck Bryant]

And eventually a great white shark comes along.

[Josh Clark]

What gets me the whole pile, thanks to a sharknado. What gets me, though, the best. The best part of all this, to me, is that if you look at the lifespan of a compost pile, from brand new to finished humus, from banana peel to humus.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

It forms a bell as far as the temperature gradient goes. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It's really kind of cool.

[Josh Clark]

So the first stage is the mesophilic stage.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Temperatures get up TO I think 40 degrees Celsius. I can't remember what that is in Fahrenheit.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we'll go with Celsius though.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. So it's warmish. And then as the cellular respiration mounts and builds and more and more bacteria are born and start eating and carry this cellular respiration out. The byproducts are CO2 and heat. And heat starts to accumulate in the compost pile. So much so that that it gets up to something like 50 to 60 degrees Celsius, which is like 100 to 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And at this point your organisms are going to change. You're going to have thermophilic. These are little heat loving critters and they move in because it's nice and warm. They're snowbirds, they're desert dwellers and they like it when it's warm. But here's the thing is you want to like, you want, you don't want it to get too hot, so you want to continue to aerate and keep that temperature in check. What you want is that natural bell to happen on its own.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So the mesophilic bacteria die off or they go kind of dormant as it enters the thermophilic phase. And then after the thermophilic phase ends, the reason it ends is because they've eaten up all of the stuff that's there to eat and only the hard stuff's left over. And so the thermophiles go away and some of the mesophiles come back and new stuff comes in like ectinomycetes, actinomycetes, which are kind of like a weird fungi. Bacteria cross and they break down like the really hard, woody, shrubby stuff and they finish it off. And this third phase is called the curing phase, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And at the end of all of it you have this great nutrient rich hummus. Humus. But in the middle of that, when it gets really hot, it gets so hot, Chuck, that pathogens that can make you sick, that can make animals sick, that can make plants sick, are actually killed off in the face. Which is why when you get your hands on compost, on humus, it's organic, it's been basically treated naturally to rid itself of parasites, pathogens, all sorts of bad stuff. And all that's left is the nutrients that have been broken down in the process that a plant can use very easily. And again, the circle of life starts over again.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And you know, I Mentioned sun earlier can dry it out, but if it gets over 65 Celsius, it's gonna kill off so many microbes, it's gonna really slow down your process. So that's another reason you turn it is to kind of keep. And again, don't have it direct sunlight, but it's going to keep that temperature where it does its thing naturally. Right. Where you don't want to, you know, put a heat lamp on it. Just want to keep it moist, turn it over and let it do its thing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And you might come out there on a chilly morning. There might be steam coming off of that sucker.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And dude, that's when you just like,

[Josh Clark]

you go, hot dog.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, hot diggity dog. And you go inside and you eat a banana.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And you throw it on the. On the pile.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so when is it all over?

[Josh Clark]

I just love. This is why I love earth science.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's really amazing because it's like, it requires a little bit of human management, but then you kind of just step away and say, do your thing. Yeah, it's really neat.

[Josh Clark]

When is it over? Well, you can tell. There's a few ways of being able to tell. The temperature starts to go down. If it's below 100 degrees Fahrenheit, it's out of the thermophilic feel phase.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

And it's now into the mesophilic phase. This says that it's probably done. I disagree. I think you probably want it even cooler than that, because the longer you let it cure, the more diverse the microbes inside are going to be, the better the soil that you use to amend it with is going to be. Temperature is 1.

[Chuck Bryant]

One of it is just eyeball it. And if it's about 50% decomposed, like if you still see clearly a banana peel, then it's not done right. You don't want to recognize this stuff as food at this point or an eggshell or whatever. And is it smaller if it's been reduced by 50 to 75% and it's dark brown or black and crumbly and it looks kind of like soil, then you're cooking with gas, as my dad used to say.

[Josh Clark]

The texture. Did you say smooth or crumbly?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

What about the smell?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, it shouldn't stink bad at this point.

[Josh Clark]

No, it should smell earthy. And actually, one of my favorites, the actinomycytes. Yeah, the actinomycetes. They are the reason that soil and dirt has its smell. It's those guys. Yeah, they Give it its earthy smell. Isn't that cool?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I think we didn't mention, you know, that it's doing well along the way. If it stops smelling like, it doesn't just stink the whole time.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And it's not going to smell earthy. The soil that you add will smell earthy, but when you grab a handful of humus, it should just fall through your fingers. It should be the closer to black, the better.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And it should smell like everything associated with earth should smell like it's like the word earth. That's what it should smell like. Like you'll understand what earth smells like.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They said peat moss. If none of this makes sense, go

[Josh Clark]

to your local hardware store or lawn and garden center and smell the peat moss.

[Chuck Bryant]

Exactly. So now that it's done.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

You've got your wonderfully natural fertilizer. Use it. Put it. Spread it out in your garden, spread it out around your trees, throw it

[Josh Clark]

in your yard, spread it around your naked body and run around your yard

[Chuck Bryant]

if you want to.

[Josh Clark]

That's what a doobie pile will make you do. Or quack grass.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Stay away from that stuff. It's basically like the easiest way to put it without getting too scientific, is it's gonna make everything better.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's gonna increase soil microbes. It's gonna increase nutrients and enhance them. It's gonna improve the ph and chemistry of your soil, your yard soil structure.

[Josh Clark]

And again, like, what you've just done is taken stuff and had it broken down into its components, unlocked it for your plants to use.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So your plants are gonna say, thank you, brother.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pretty amazing.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

Some people create a lot of it and sell it, but, you know, mainly people do this to just use around their house.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And increasingly, towns are starting to do curbside composting. Pickup. Food waste pickup.

[Chuck Bryant]

Neat.

[Josh Clark]

Where you got trash? Recycling bin. Food waste bin.

[Chuck Bryant]

Banana peels.

[Josh Clark]

Banana peels. Right. That's it.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. Go forth and compost.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. If you want to know more about composting, you can type that word in the search bar. Howstuffworks.com Cornell actually also has a really great site about composting, if you want to know more about the science of it.

[Chuck Bryant]

You were very excited about this site.

[Josh Clark]

Love that site. And since I said, Cornell, it's time for listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm going to call this Child Life Specialists. We had a couple of these that wrote in. Remember we talked about this in the pain scale, and we kind of surmised what it was, and we turns Out. We were.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And by the way, we heard from paramedics, doctors, quite a few people about the worst pain.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, you don't want a long bone fracture.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Almost 100% of them said a broken femur is like the worst pain you can experience.

[Josh Clark]

And should we say why?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, go ahead. So several reasons.

[Josh Clark]

Right, Right. Because apparently it's a very sensitive area, but also because without that structure, your muscles start spasming.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Which just rocks the whole thing back and forth even more and then like

[Chuck Bryant]

fragmented bone hitting nerve and all kinds of badness.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So steer clear of that.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so we heard from, from two. I'm gonna read the one, but I'm gonna shout them both out. Hey, guys. Very excited to hear you mention child life specialists during your recent episode on pain scales. As a child life specialist myself, I thought we'd take the opportunity to tell you a little bit about our profession. You are right, Chuck. A child life specialist is we help kids deal with being hospitalized. That's really the essence of our job. We support children and families throughout stressful situations such as hospitalizations, using our knowledge of child development and play to facilitate coping. Child life specialists provide children with developmentally appropriate education about diagnoses and treatments, preparation and support for procedures and opportunities for normalization and play. What a great job.

[Josh Clark]

Seriously. I can't think of too many jobs that are more rewarding than that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Seriously. We also provide support for siblings and provide legacy building and memory making in end of life situations. Our profession is very rewarding. Josh, you are right. She predicted you would say that. And I love going to work every day. To become a cls, you must have a bachelor's or master's degree in child development or a related field, complete a 640 hour child life internship and pass a national certification examination. You can visit www.childlife.org to learn more about it. Thanks for what you guys do. You've made all my road trips interesting. And thanks for spreading the word about child life. Maybe you can do an entire episode on our profession in the future. She said.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that is Natalie Valentine. And also a big shout out to Amanda Butler from Auburn University, who does that there. Thanks for writing in, ladies. It sounds like just a really, really great job.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, thanks to you both for that. And thanks for everybody who has anything to do with making kids who are hospitalized feel better. Hats off to you. If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast or joshumclark. You can hang out with us on facebook.com stuffyouchouknow or Charles Wchuckbryant. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastowstuffworks.com and as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyou should know.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.

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