Composting: Nature's Most Interesting Process

8:11Josh Clark:You know, Emily and I went for our two shows ago on that lovely spring weekend. Oh, it was gorgeous. And we stayed extra in Seattle, and after we were like, we're moving here, that's it.

8:22Chuck Bryant:It's a great town.

8:23Josh Clark:I've said it before on the show, dogs and bars.

8:26Chuck Bryant:That was all it took.

8:28Josh Clark:Yeah. Dog bartenders. But again, dogs playing poker. Sure. Again, it's easy to fall in love with Seattle on a perfect weekend in April.

8:37Chuck Bryant:Yeah. I hear it rains there a lot though.

8:40Josh Clark:I'd still live there. It's a great place. And you know what? You may see us again this year, Seattle. Tease, tease.

8:48Chuck Bryant:You're such a tease.

8:49Josh Clark:All right, so composting is great for a thousand reasons, but one, first and foremost, is that it's not hard to do and it's not expensive to do. No. If you just want to be, and there are many different levels of composting from big city programs to the home farmer that takes it super seriously. 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.

9:28Chuck Bryant: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?

9:40Josh Clark:Yeah, and I made a poopy noise, which you can't use poop, so.

9:43Chuck Bryant:No, that's night soil.

9:44Josh Clark:That's the opposite of what I should have done.

9:47Chuck Bryant:What's a banana sound?

9:54Chuck Bryant:That's a banana sound, right?

9:56Josh Clark:You need soil, you need water, you need air or oxygen.

10:01Chuck Bryant:Right, so the organic waste is the stuff you're gonna have broken down, which in this case, in the case of a compost pile, is food. The soil... Well, partially, sure. But no, no, it's food for the things that are in the soil. Yes. Right? It's an energy source. and nutrient 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.

10:33Josh Clark:They eat and poop. Yes. But you don't want to poop in it.

10:37Chuck Bryant: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, again, this is really, really important. You can let your compost pile degrade anaerobically but it's gonna produce methane which is bad for the environment. Bad for your neighbors. Bad for your neighbors, bad for you, it's gonna stink. It might blow up, who knows? You don't wanna smoke near a, what's called a passive compost pile. So you wanna just introduce oxygen and all this sounds very complicated, it's not. It's hitting it with your hose.

11:14Chuck Bryant:It's, 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.

11:26Josh Clark:Yeah, it's really easy. So what you're gonna end up with the end, like we said, is really fertilizer, but it's called humus, don't call it humus.

11:36Chuck Bryant:No, that's different.

11:37Josh Clark:It has two M's, right? Mm-hmm. This has just one M, and those little microorganisms in there, they're gonna break this stuff down, they're gonna eat it, they're gonna poop it out, and they're gonna multiply, and there's gonna be, we'll talk about the critters a little more later, but there are gonna be different critters along the way that eat those critters, then critters that eat those critters, and it's gonna get really hot up in there, it might steam, then it's gonna cool back down, it's gonna get smaller, and it's just like this little micro-environment.

12:06Chuck Bryant:It is. It's really, really neat. 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 the whole circle of life can start over again.

12:31Josh Clark:Yeah, you're sort of just accelerating the natural process of rot.

12:36Chuck Bryant:But you're optimizing it.

12:37Josh Clark:Yeah, like you mentioned a passive composter, which is to say, you know, lazy hippies. You could just throw all that junk out of your window if you wanted in a big pile and throw some grass clippings on and throw your fall leaves on there. Just leave it there and that thing will eventually compost itself.

13:02Chuck Bryant:Well, again, it'll produce methane. You'll blow up.

13:05Josh Clark:Or you could turn it every now and then and maybe avoid that. No, I think that makes it an active pile. Well, a slightly active pile then. Right. I don't mean like every other day. Right. I mean just to avoid methane maybe.

13:19Chuck Bryant:But that would still technically be an active pile. It'd be a poorly managed active pile. Yeah, slightly active. Poorly managed. So.

13:29Josh Clark:I'm serious, that's what they call it. I know. Okay. We like to make up our own names for things. I didn't know you were going to cease that in year nine.

13:38Chuck Bryant:I got you. Sorry. We'll call that the doobie pile.

13:41Josh Clark:Okay. No, it's called active management.

13:45Chuck Bryant:I just wanted to make sure that we got it on the record.

13:48Josh Clark: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.

13:56Chuck Bryant:I thought that was hilarious.

13:57Josh Clark:Yeah. I mean, don't count on seeing any tax breaks coming anytime soon. but that got William F.

14:04Chuck Bryant:Buckley's attention.

14:05Josh Clark:Probably so. So how do you do this? Let's say you wanna start composting. There's a one, two, three, four, five step process to get this thing going.

14:16Chuck Bryant:Okay, well let's talk about them.

14:18Josh Clark:First thing you wanna do is just pick out the place you wanna do it. Right. Because it's a bit of a mess.

14:26Chuck Bryant: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 and food waste.

14:38Josh Clark:That I can see from my deck.

14:39Chuck Bryant:Thanks a lot for that. So that's something you wanna keep in consideration. Apparently, even if you do have a very well-managed active pile, what would you call that?

14:52Josh Clark:I'm not making up funny names anymore. No more jokes.

14:55Chuck Bryant:I've ruined it. It still may stink here or there. Sure. So you want it kind of away from the house, but not so far away that if you're feeling lazy, you're not gonna go out and tend to it on a daily or every other daily basis.

15:12Josh Clark:Yeah, and if you have that much land, you have a compost pile a mile from your house, good for you. Yeah, sure. 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. So check with them first.

15:35Chuck Bryant:Sure, that's what everyone does before they start a compost pile. They go down to City Hall and say, tell me the rules and regulations surrounding composting in my yard.

15:43Josh Clark:I think the first thing everyone does is start throwing their eggshells out the window. That's how it always starts. Right. It's like, I'm tired of these things being in my trash.

15:52Chuck Bryant:Blink.

15:53Josh Clark:They recommend downwind, because like you said, it might stink a bit. But sun is good in a way, but you don't want it baking in the sun all day.

16:01Chuck Bryant:No, because it'll dry it out. Remember, you want it to be kind of moist. Yes. And the sunlight can actually dry it out. Sure. So you want, apparently the best place to put it is under a deciduous tree. Good spot. Yeah, because in the winter time, there's no leaves on the tree, so the sun's gonna keep it warm when it's cold. Yeah. But during the summer, it's gonna be shaded by the tree so it won't dry out. It's just perfect. It is good. It's assiduous tree equals love.

16:29Josh Clark: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. Right. No good. What else, drainage, don't start one in that old baby pool that you don't want to throw out.

16:41Chuck Bryant:Especially if your baby's in there.

16:45Josh Clark:Yeah, you want good drainage. Like generally you build, either build a bin, we'll talk about this stuff actually right now. Yeah. But it's off the ground. Sure. It's on legs. Yeah. Although you can have a pile. Right. But generally, you want to build a bin or buy a bin. Right.

17:04Chuck Bryant:And those things sit off the ground.

17:07Josh Clark:Right. Because of drainage.

17:09Chuck Bryant:That's part of it for sure. Yeah. You also want dirt rather than, say, like a concrete pad or something like that. Yeah, don't compost in your driveway. Right.

17:19Josh Clark:It's not a good idea.

17:21Chuck Bryant:As far as structures go, So you can, like you said, you can go buy one. They're not very expensive from what I understand, right? Yeah, it depends on the size. 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.

18:02Chuck Bryant: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.

18:28Josh Clark:Yeah, and when we're talking structure like that, if you want to build one, build a wood frame and it's got chicken wire walls and a chicken wire bottom, and that gives you the air, and if you've got something to collect it underneath, it's gonna fall when it's small enough. Right. Some other stuff might fall, you may need to add it back in.

18:45Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

18:45Josh Clark:But with the three bin system, you've got, well you've got three bins. You've got the starter stuff. You've got the, once it starts to break down little stuff, and then you have the more finished product. Right. And you have to actively manage that system.

19:00Chuck Bryant:Yeah, that system sounds unnecessarily difficult.

19:04Josh Clark:Ah, kinda like it. Oh, you're a three bin guy? 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, we're getting rid of our grass basically. Oh yeah? 100 % of it. What are you gonna do, compost? Mulch and beds and plants and herbs and walking paths.

19:25Chuck Bryant:Xeriscape, you're gonna put cacti in and all that?

19:29Josh Clark:No cacti, though we do have a palm tree. We've had that forever though. There you go. Yeah, just getting rid of the grass basically. Because it takes up so much water? Nah, it's just, it's not good grass to begin with, and I'm not the best about cutting it. Lawn mowers are terrible for the environment. Plus you don't water enough.

19:48Chuck Bryant:You never let a quarter inch of water accumulate on the surface.

19:52Josh Clark:Yeah, just, and it'll look nicer. So part of this, and this company that's doing it is, it's not just a landscaping company, they're a bunch of hippies. Oh, gotcha. So they're designing it in such a way that it feeds itself and part of that is composting. Gotcha. Anyway, long way of saying we're gonna start like for real composting very shortly.

20:15Chuck Bryant:And you're going with the three bin structure?

20:16Josh Clark:I don't know. I think I'm going to build it. Well, it's the structure Emily tells me to build. Okay. That's the easiest way to say it. Gotcha. Yeah. But if you buy one, like you were saying, there's all different kinds. Just look it up online or go to a hardware store. Many of them will look like a big barrel on legs, and it literally turns, like has a crank on it, to where you can turn this thing in circles. It's old-timey. so you don't have to use a pitchfork at all.

20:48Chuck Bryant:Right.

20:48Josh Clark:You don't have to must your hands or your hair.

20:50Chuck Bryant:It's like a bingo spinner. Yeah. Yeah. But with banana picks.

20:55Josh Clark:Have you ever played bingo? Like legit bingo in a room? Huh? With hundreds of people? Not hundreds, no. Well, more than like you and Yumi. Yes. Like a bingo parlor, is that what they're called?

21:06Chuck Bryant:Yeah. I've actually gone to a couple of senior retirement homes and helped out with bingo. Wow. And that's a pretty cool experience, actually.

21:19Josh Clark:Do you run the bingo?

21:21Chuck Bryant:Or do you just play and kind of crack jokes? I'm not qualified to run the bingo. Right, right. Just walk around and point out if somebody missed one that was called, that kind of thing. But do you want to talk about taking it seriously? Do they? Oh, my God.

21:34Josh Clark:And then you have to be a certified bingo master to run the show?

21:38Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and they'll tell you to hurry up and shout if you're not loud enough or fast enough or going too fast. So the point is not to have fun. No, the point is to win.

21:50Josh Clark:Wow, what do they win? Do they have prizes?

21:52Chuck Bryant:Yeah, nothing much usually. I mean, but you can, I think you can play bingo in casinos for thousands and thousands of dollars. Yeah. Usually at old folks' homes, they don't, you know. Sure. There's not thousands of dollar prizes. Just honey buns and cigarettes. Right, right, exactly.

22:08Josh Clark:All right, well, let's take a break here after we have talked structure. And we'll talk a little bit about what you want, what kind of junk you want to throw in that pile.

22:17Chuck Bryant:Who knows stuff you should know.

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22:48Chuck Bryant:Yep, that's why LinkedIn ads generates the highest B2B ROAS of all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them.

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23:25Chuck Bryant:They're now the best network, according to the experts at Ookla Speedtest. And they use that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage.

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25:09Chuck Bryant:All right, Chuck. So we're talking what you want to throw in the pile, right?

25:13Josh Clark:You got your bin. Either a triple, three banger. Got your sight. Or a single. You got your sight.

25:19Chuck Bryant:You bribed your neighbor to look the other way.

25:21Josh Clark:You bribed your neighbor. Exactly. You bought a goat. Oh, man. Talk about green living. My neighbor has goats now, like five of them.

25:30Chuck Bryant:Are they loud? No. Oh, that's great.

25:33Josh Clark: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.

25:37Chuck Bryant:Do you wake up and look out and say, morning, Satan? No.

25:42Josh Clark:Well, goat's one of my favorites, so it's kind of nice to have them around. Are they baby goats or adult goats? 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 zero-scape it, so she bought goats. Right. Anyway, it's awesome. Kitchen waste, Josh. That's what you want to throw in there.

26:01Chuck Bryant:Well, yeah, that's the first one. That's the one that everybody says. That's why you compost, right?

26:05Josh Clark:Yeah.

26:06Chuck Bryant:And yeah, banana peels, everybody knows that. But did you also know you can compost apple cores in orange rinds? You can also eat apple cores. Yeah, you believe there is no such thing as a core, right? Yeah, it's because there's not. 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.

26:30Josh Clark:Yeah, that's a good one.

26:31Chuck Bryant:Paper filters.

26:32Josh Clark:Throw that filter and all in there.

26:35Chuck Bryant: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?

26:44Josh Clark:I think you can throw those napkins in there, Josh. Yeah, isn't that crazy? It is crazy. Newspaper? Yeah. Corn cobs? If you still read a newspaper, if you get your news on the internet, throw your laptop in there. Watermelon rinds? Yeah, seeds, leaves. You know the butt end of the asparagus that no one cooks? Yeah. Throw that junk in there.

27:09Chuck Bryant:You can also do yard waste too.

27:12Josh Clark:Sure.

27:12Chuck Bryant: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 let's say you're raking leaves or something like that, throw some leaves on there.

27:24Josh Clark:Yeah, good crunchy brown ones.

27:26Chuck Bryant:And you can also throw trimmings from your 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.

27:41Josh Clark:Yeah, don't throw a whole corn cob in there. You can.

27:45Chuck Bryant:No, your compost pile will just throw it right back out.

27:47Josh Clark:Yeah, it'll just spit it right back out. Right. It's very funny. It'll make a burping noise. Yeah. They say to shred the corn cob. I don't have a corn cob shredder. I don't either. I've never thought about that.

28:00Chuck Bryant:I wouldn't waste my blender blade on chopping up corn cobs. I think the point is you can break it into little pieces. Sure. You can break it into little pieces, though.

28:10Josh Clark:Yeah, you'd probably cut a corn cob up.

28:12Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and you can also take all this stuff and chop it. Anything you can put into smaller pieces, the better. Yeah. 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.

28:30Josh Clark:Yeah, like if you have, I know you hate broccoli, but. Man, I hate broccoli. You cut the little florets off, and you've got that big green broccoli stalk. Yeah. Cut that thing up as small as you can. Set it on fire. You have patience for, and throw that junk in there.

28:46Chuck Bryant:Yeah, basically channel your inner anal chef. Gross. You remember him?

28:52Josh Clark:The anal chef?

28:53Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

28:54Josh Clark:Was that a real thing?

28:55Chuck Bryant:Yeah, on Saturday Night Live. I've, Phil Hartman. No, I don't remember that. The anal retentive chef.

28:59Josh Clark:Oh, okay.

29:00Chuck Bryant:I forgot the retentive part. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that. That's a big qualifier. I was like, I don't get that joke, mommy. Remember the anal retentive chef? Yeah, I do remember that 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.

29:29Josh Clark:Boy, man, what a loss that was. RIP. Ugh, it 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. Right. 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.

29:53Chuck Bryant:Yeah. Yeah, and it's also good for you to eat too. I know I sound nuts, but just eat that stuff.

29:59Josh Clark:What do you mean? People eat so good for you. Yeah, sawdust? You don't eat that. No, but like I'm building my compost bin, I can put that sawdust back in it. How about that? Yeah. Pretty neat.

30:12Chuck Bryant:Circle of life, baby.

30:15Josh Clark:What should not you compost?

30:16Chuck Bryant:Night soil.

30:18Josh Clark:Which is poopy soil. Yep, any kind of poop. You cat, you, don't go take a big dump over your compost pile. I know you want to.

30:26Chuck Bryant:No, that's not good. No. Diseased garden plants, that's a big one. Yeah. 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 gonna come out as quite good. So you don't wanna put any diseased plants in there. Invasive weeds are another one too.

30:59Josh Clark: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.

31:04Chuck Bryant: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. Yeah. But apparently these do. So stay away from the quack grass.

31:20Josh Clark:Yeah. That was, I think that was the big mantra at Woodstock. Sure. It's a gateway drug. Don't have the yellow sunshine or the quack grass.

31:29Chuck Bryant:It was the brown acid.

31:31Josh Clark:Brown acid.

31:31Chuck Bryant:Which I mean, who wants brown acid? You know, bleh.

31:36Josh Clark:And what about, you were talking about kitchen stuff, what about meat and dairy? Oh okay, that's controversial. It is, because Emily has taken classes and they were like, no, don't use any of that.

31:47Chuck Bryant: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.

32:07Josh Clark: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.

32:15Chuck Bryant:They said turn it into a slurry. Gross. I don't wanna see Freud and Rich's blender at home.

32:21Josh Clark:A steak fat slurry.

32:22Chuck Bryant:Gross, with corn cob 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 won't be a problem. I'm gonna go ahead and say I don't think you should do that. Okay. I don't know what to do with the animal leavings, but I don't think you should compost it. Alright.

32:47Josh Clark: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.

32:56Chuck Bryant:Although this specifically says charcoal ashes.

32:59Josh Clark:I think that's...

33:00Chuck Bryant:Any kind of charred ashes?

33:03Josh Clark:Yeah, like burnt wood is called charcoal.

33:05Chuck Bryant: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 and there was the ashes, so it became more fertile. So I have a question about that one.

33:44Josh Clark:You know, I'm gonna back off of my determined stance and say, I don't know.

33:50Chuck Bryant:It would make sense if it was coal. Like if it was coal.

33:53Josh Clark:Well, like charcoal briquettes, because they have cement and all sorts of chemicals and junk in them.

33:57Chuck Bryant:But if it's charred wood or wood ash, I wonder. Alright, well. Somebody let us know. Charles C. Mann, tell us.

34:06Josh Clark:The pesticide-treated plants, you know my stance on pesticides, period. 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 in the end.

34:21Chuck Bryant: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.

34:46Chuck Bryant:Hey, everybody, get this. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals and 130 million decision makers. And that's where it stands apart from other ad buys.

34:58Josh Clark:Yeah, for sure. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company, role, seniority, skills, even company revenue, so you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience.

35:07Chuck Bryant:Yep, that's why LinkedIn ads generates the highest B2B ROAS of all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them.

35:14Josh Clark:And get this, if you spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads, you get a free$250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash S-Y-S-K. That's LinkedIn.com slash S-Y-S-K. Terms and conditions apply.

35:35Josh Clark:In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal.

35:42Chuck Bryant:And T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the experts at Ookla Speedtest. And they use that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage.

35:57Josh Clark:That's right. With Supermobile, your performance, security, and coverage are supercharged. With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity even in times of high demand. With built-in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team, and your clients. And with seamless coverage from the world's tallest satellite to mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid.

36:21Chuck Bryant:That's your business supercharged. Learn more at supermobile.com.

36:26Josh Clark:Seamless coverage with compatible device in most outdoor areas in the U.S. where you can see the sky. Best network based on analysis by Ukla of Speedtest Intelligence, data 2H 2025.

36:41Chuck Bryant:We're always talking about how things work, and one thing that keeps your car running smoothly is regular oil changes. But life's busy, and the oil light always comes on at the worst time. Well, that's why there's Take 5 Oil Change. It doesn't just save time. It gives you control of your day back. You pull in, stay in your car, check something off your to-do list. No waiting room, no pressure. You're in and you're out in about 10 minutes. Oil changes include tire pressure checks and fluid top-offs, and the friendly staff explain everything and welcome you with a free water.

37:09Josh Clark:Take 5 fitting into your busy schedule is something you should know. Find your nearest shop at Take5.com.

37:28Josh Clark: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,

37:42Josh Clark: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 your fireplace or a wood burning stove, but apparently not much. So I think, you're kind of right in that it's not completely foreboding. Right, but I think. But it sounds like too much is not a good thing.

38:07Chuck Bryant:I think that's what Freud and Richard was saying, like don't even mess with it. Okay, so why bother? Put in animal fats instead.

38:13Josh Clark:Well, and that's what the person from Gardens Alive was saying is like it's so little that it's not really gonna 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 gonna matter.

38:23Chuck Bryant: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 -

38:35Josh Clark:It's a chemistry experiment.

38:36Chuck Bryant: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 the 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.

39:06Josh Clark:Alright, should we talk chemistry a bit and come back to just the management and stuff? Alright, what you're really talking about here for an ideal composting scene, you need a disco ball.

39:17Chuck Bryant:Right.

39:18Josh Clark: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 one carbon to nitrogen. Right. And eyeball it.

39:42Chuck Bryant: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 pliable and green or, you know, again, recently deceased, it is high in nitrogen. Right. 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 one. And there's actually tables. Like if you're big time into this, 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 wanna avoid grass clippings.

40:31Chuck Bryant:This is why, because they're too high in nitrogen. Right. And what happens when you have too much nitrogen? It's bad. Right, it makes your pile stinky.

40:42Josh Clark:Yeah, is that where the methane starts creeping in? That actually I think leads to ammonia gas. Oh, okay.

40:47Chuck Bryant:But you also don't want too much carbon either, Chuck. Because, so, 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.

41:08Josh Clark:Yeah, and the other problem with carbon too is it breaks down so slowly.

41:12Chuck Bryant:Well, it depends on the source.

41:14Josh Clark: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.

41:23Chuck Bryant:Right, right. So they have much tougher structural support in their cells.

41:30Josh Clark:They have structural integrity. Exactly. They need to have a good saying that rhymes. If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down. Sure. I thought you were heading toward that. I was just kind of like on the edge of my seat.

41:43Chuck Bryant:No.

41:44Josh Clark:Like if it's green.

41:45Chuck Bryant:I walked right past that one. It's brown.

41:47Josh Clark:Maybe there is one that we don't know. Or maybe someone can write one. Like a creative listener.

41:53Chuck Bryant:I'd love to hear it. I'll bet we get a bunch of those.

41:56Josh Clark:Alright, oxygen, if we're talking ratios. And again, you can walk out as much as possible, but the good news about your compost piles, it's not like it needs to be the oxygen that you need. No. Walking around to breathe.

42:11Chuck Bryant:Which is I think 21 % in the atmosphere.

42:13Josh Clark:Yeah, that's what we have going on. It can get by these aerobic microbes at as low as 5%.

42:20Chuck Bryant:Yeah, that's cutting it close.

42:22Josh Clark:That's cutting it close. They say try to hover somewhere around 10 or up. Right. How do you measure that?

42:27Chuck Bryant:You don't, you just aerate your pile and it's fine.

42:30Josh Clark:By either turning it or you can do hold PVC.

42:33Chuck Bryant:Mm-hmm.

42:35Josh Clark:And I guess that brings us kind of to the management part. Sure. 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. Sure. 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.

42:58Chuck Bryant:That's pretty fancy.

42:59Josh Clark:It's probably the same thing.

43:00Chuck Bryant:It's the same thing as a pitchfork except like$50 more.

43:04Josh Clark:You want to water it some but again, do you want to give watering advice?

43:10Chuck Bryant:You don't want it from me. You don't want it to be soaking wet. No. You want it to be moist. Yeah. Damp.

43:17Josh Clark: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. I would still turn it. I would too, just to mix it up, right?

43:30Chuck Bryant:Yeah, but putting PVC pipes throughout your pile would make it really difficult to turn. Well, you can pull them out. I guess you could. But getting them back in is a real pain. You can stick them back in. Another way to introduce oxygen is earthworms.

43:45Josh Clark:Oh man, this is where I go crazy. Oh yeah? We have a lot of worms on our property, just because there's a lot of worms in Georgia.

43:53Chuck Bryant:Yeah. We did a great episode on earthworms, remember?

43:57Josh Clark: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? Sure. And that's because we weren't composting heavily. now it's gonna be thrown in the compost pile. Sure. 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.

44:17Chuck Bryant:Yeah, so earthworms and then worms in general are probably the most important non-microscopic resident in your compost pile. Yeah. Because they do so much. So worms, especially earthworms and most types of nematodes, the hematodes, 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? Yeah. 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?

45:06Chuck Bryant:Yes. 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. And they actually take the nutrients out of this and use it for cellular respiration, which is why they need oxygen, because 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. That's right. 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.

45:52Chuck Bryant:Yes. So you got bacteria, and they're a big part of it. And depending on the phase that the compost pile is in, then there will be different kinds of bacteria in your compost pile.

46:03Josh Clark:Yeah, and it's not just bacteria. There's fungi doing lots of work. We mentioned nebitodes. You're gonna eventually get mites in there and slugs. You've already thrown your worms in. Some millipedes doing some action.

46:20Chuck Bryant:Right.

46:21Josh Clark:All those cute little legs. And overall, these are known as primary consumers.

46:26Chuck Bryant:Some are. Are all of them primary consumers?

46:29Josh Clark:Well, they're listed.

46:31Chuck Bryant:Okay.

46:32Josh Clark:By this person who made this fancy chart.

46:34Chuck Bryant:So then above that, Chuck, you've got the secondary consumers. Secondo. And those are the predators of the primary consumers, right? Yeah. 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. You have 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.

47:10Josh Clark:And eventually a great white shark comes along.

47:13Chuck Bryant:What gets me— It eats everything. It eats the whole pile, thanks to a sharknado. What gets me though, 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.

47:29Josh Clark:From banana peel.

47:30Chuck Bryant:To humus.

47:31Josh Clark:Yes.

47:32Chuck Bryant:It forms a bell as far as the temperature gradient goes, right?

47:36Josh Clark:Yeah, it's really kinda cool.

47:37Chuck Bryant:So the first stage is the mesophilic stage. Yeah. Temperatures get up to I think 40 degrees Celsius. I can't remember what that is in Fahrenheit.

47:46Josh Clark:Yeah, we'll go with Celsius though. Okay.

47:49Chuck Bryant: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 it gets up to something like 50 to 60 degrees Celsius, which is like 100 to 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

48:15Josh Clark:Yeah, and at this point your organisms are gonna change. You're gonna 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 wanna like, you don't want it to get too hot, so you wanna continue to aerate and keep that temperature in check. What you want is that natural bell to happen on its own.

48:41Chuck Bryant: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. Actinomyces, which are kind of like a weird fungi bacteria cross. They break down the really hard woody shrubby stuff. Yeah. And they finish it off. And this third phase is called the curing phase, right? Yeah. And at the end of all of it, you have this great nutrient rich humus, humus.

49:31Chuck Bryant: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.

50:06Josh Clark:Yeah, and 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 direct sunlight, but it's gonna keep that temperature where it does its thing naturally. Right. Where you don't wanna put a heat lamp on it. You just wanna keep it moist, turn it over and let it do its thing. Yeah. And you might come out there on a chilly morning, there might be steam coming off of that sucker. and dude, that's when you just like... You go, hot dog.

50:43Josh Clark:Yeah, hot diggity dog. And you go inside and you eat a banana. Yeah. And you throw it on the pile. Yeah. All right, so when is it all over? Oh, man.

50:52Chuck Bryant:I just love, this is why I love Earth science.

50:54Josh Clark: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.

51:02Chuck Bryant: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 phase. 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 gonna be, the better the soil that you use to amend it with is going to be, right? Temperature's one.

51:35Josh Clark: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. You don't wanna 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 kinda like soil, then you're cooking with gas, as my dad used to say.

52:08Chuck Bryant:The texture, did you say smooth or crumbly? Yeah. What about the smell?

52:13Josh Clark:Well, it shouldn't stink bad at this point.

52:16Chuck Bryant:No, it should smell earthy. And actually, one of my favorites, the actinomycites. Yeah. The actinomycetes. Okay. They are the reason that soil and dirt has its smell. It's those guys. Yeah. They give it its earthy smell.

52:33Josh Clark:Isn't that cool? 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.

52:41Chuck Bryant:Right, and it's not gonna 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. Yeah. 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.

53:03Josh Clark:Yeah, they said peat moss, if none of this makes sense.

53:06Chuck Bryant:Go to your local hardware store or lawn and garden center and smell the peat moss.

53:11Josh Clark:Exactly. So, now that it's done, you've got your wonderfully natural fertilizer. Use it. Spread it out in your garden, spread it out around your trees, throw it in your yard. Spread it around your naked body

53:27Chuck Bryant:and run around your yard.

53:28Josh Clark:If you want to.

53:30Chuck Bryant:That's what a doobie pile will make you do. Or quack grass.

53:36Josh Clark:Yeah, stay away from that stuff. It's basically, the easiest way to put it without getting too scientific is it's gonna make everything better. 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.

53:57Chuck Bryant:And again, what you've just done is taken stuff and had it broken down into its components, unlocked it for your plants to use. So your plants are gonna say thank you, brother.

54:08Josh Clark:Pretty amazing. Yep. Some people create a lot of it and sell it, but mainly people do this to just use around their house.

54:16Chuck Bryant:Yeah, and increasingly towns are starting to do curbside composting pickup, food waste pickup. Neat. Where you got trash, recycling bin, food waste bin. Banana peels. It would be banana peels, right? That's it.

54:29Josh Clark:All right, go forth and compost.

54:31Chuck Bryant:Yep, if you wanna know more about composting, you can type that word in the search bar at howstuffworks.com. Cornell actually also has a really great site about composting if you wanna know more about the science of it. You were very excited about that site. Love that site. And since I said Cornell, it's time for Listener Mail.

54:49Josh Clark:I'm gonna call this Child Life Specialists. We had a couple of these that wrote in. Remember we talked about this?

54:55Chuck Bryant:In the pain scale episode.

54:57Josh Clark:Uh-huh. And we kind of surmised what it was, and it turns out we were right. And by the way, we heard from paramedics, doctors, quite a few people about the worst pain.

55:07Chuck Bryant:Yeah, you don't want a long bone fracture.

55:09Josh Clark:Yeah, almost 100 % of them said a broken femur is like the worst pain you can experience.

55:14Chuck Bryant:And should we say why?

55:16Josh Clark:Yeah, go ahead. Several reasons, right?

55:19Chuck Bryant:Right, because apparently it's a very sensitive area, but also because without that structure, your muscles start spasming. Right. Which just rocks the whole thing back and forth even more.

55:31Josh Clark:And then like fragmented bone hitting nerve and like all kinds of badness.

55:36Chuck Bryant:Yeah. Woo. So steer clear of that.

55:40Josh Clark:All right. So we heard from two. I'm going to read the one, but I'm going to shout them both out. Hey, guys, very excited to hear you mention Child Life Specialist 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, 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.

56:13Josh Clark: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.

56:27Chuck Bryant:Seriously. I can't think of too many jobs that are more rewarding than that. Seriously.

56:31Josh Clark: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 exam 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.

57:17Josh Clark:She said future. Okay. 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.

57:31Chuck Bryant: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 SYSK Podcast or Josh Um Clark. You can hang out with us on Facebook.com slash Stuff You Should Know or slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com.

58:06Josh Clark:For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.

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