Compost, the rules man the rules

not a picture of poop

So we have three, going on four, compost bins right now.  We did quite a bit of research on compost and how to do it and believe it or not it appears to be pretty complex.  Most of the helpful pages are written by folks that are a shade different than me.  So after much reading I was left with a bunch of questions, more then I started with.  Apparently, there is an exact mixture, and temperatures to monitor and all kinds of really big words to learn.  And let us not forget the clock; yes there is a clock that resets.  I thought I was trying to make some stuff rot so I can use it for dirt.  As it turns out if you do not follow the rules, your stuff still rots and turns into dirt.  I read a lot of warnings about small stuff working better then really big stuff, yeah thanks for that.  We found about the best thing to use is horse manure, it comes already mixed with hay and is free if you have horse farms near you.  But let us not forget about the clock, it resets.  So I looked for this clock, and I went up the road and sat in a Volvo for a while and ate granola.  Still I could not find this clock everyone was talking about.  Right now someone in a Volvo is leaving soccer practice while reading this on her Ipod.  She just texted her husband in the matching Volvo who just picked up food from the organic kitchen at the farmers market, the one the hasn’t past a health inspection in years.  And she said “no he is going to tell the common people about the clock.”  Well here is the deal with the clock that always resets.  It appears our Volvo friends feel cheated if the entire compost is not converted to potting soil. So if you throw something on top, which is not broke down yet it will take longer for that one thing to break down than the stuff that is already soil.  Duh.  But you do not have to wait for it to break down to use it.  You can use it at any stage and it works fine.  The dude just spilled his organic coffee on his seats.  Whatever does not completely break down in the pile will finish in your garden.  So pile it up and pile it on.  You should mulch your plants 3 inches deep to cut down on the weeds.