Trench composting fits perfectly into my crazy gardening life. It’s much simpler than trying to constantly have a pile of cooking compost.
As much as I love gardening there is one aspect that I have always struggled with. And that is composting.
Yes, I know I should be doing it! I should be returning as much into my soil every year as I have taken outright!
I also know that composting keeps a bunch of green material out of my local landfill! Again this is great for the environment and something I feel strongly about!
The problem is, I just never seem to get around to it. I’ve had nice compost bins at all of our other places (this is our 3rd home) but I just haven’t been able to settle on a spot here at our new house. And even when we had a compost bin I just never seemed to get it right, how much green material, how much brown, when to turn it, do I need to water the pile, it is “hot” enough. Urgh!!
Now don’t get me wrong, I know the value of a compost pile. I know I should be doing one and I’m sure I will get back to it someday soon. But right now building a new compost bin is just not on the radar!!
So what do I do with all the excess, lawn clippings, leaves and food scraps coming out of our garden? I simply take care of them by trench composting.
What is Trench Composting?
Here’s a video I filmed on this composting method:
Trench Composting is a simple and quick method to return all the excess organic material in your yard and garden, back into the garden! And it REALLY is simple!
Just dig a trench (hence the name trench composting) in an open spot in your garden. The trench needs to be about 10 to 12 inches deep. You fill the bottom 4 to 6 inches of the trench with your organic material and then fill the trench back in! Over the next few months, all that organic material you put in the trench will slowly decompose and leave a nice layer of organic material in the perfect spot (right in the root zone) of your garden beds. The roots of your growing plants will stretch down to that zone and find all kinds of yummy goodness to snack on!!
If you don’t have a spot big enough for a trench, then just dig a hole! Fill it with compostable materials cover it up and away you go!!
What sort of things can I put in my Trench Composting?
Vegetable Scraps
This method is a perfect way to get rid of vegetable scraps that are coming from your kitchen or from your canning and food preservation efforts. You will be surprised to see how quickly you can fill up a trench if you are eating a lot of fruits and veggies.
This year in only 45 days (during August & September) we filled 2 trenches like you see above that were 25 feet long in this garden bed.
Coffee grounds and eggshells are also perfect additions to your trench composting.
Grass Clippings
If you have a small grass lawn this can also be a way to get rid of many if not all of your grass clippings. That is a bit harder to do in the middle of the summer when your garden is in full swing and you really don’t have beds to put the grass clippings in, but any time I have open space in the garden I try to dig a trench and fill it with grass and other organics.
Fall Leaves
Fall leaves can also go in your trench compost system, but be cautious. Leaves are considered a “brown” when composting and if not balanced with a lot of greens (like grass clippings) you can damage your soil fertility in the short term as all the nitrogen in your soil will be taken up by the soil bacteria to help decompose those leaves. You can add some leaves to your trench composting in the fall but be sure to cover those leaves with other high nitrogen items like grass clippings and food scraps.
Fall is a perfect time to practice trench composting. After your garden has been mostly pulled up for the year it can be easy to dig trenches, holes, or even large pits and fill them with your leaves, veggie scraps and grass clippings. Just be sure you are finished and have your trenches filled in before the ground freezes. Then all that organic material you left in the ground will have all winter and early spring to decompose and improve the soil.
A few things to watch out for when Trench Composting
As with any composting, there are a few things you shouldn’t be included in your trench composting efforts.
Animal Products
Meat (cooked or uncooked), bones, and feces from meat-eating animals (cats, dogs, people) should be avoided.
Diseased Plant Material
You should also avoid any plant material that you suspect has any type of disease. Putting diseased plant material back into your soil will just spread the problem. With trench composting, there is very little heat (unlike pile composting) to destroy pathogens.
Weeds with Seeds
I also try to avoid any weeds that have gone to seed (no sense putting weeds back in the garden) or any weeds that can grow back from the root or stems.
Veggie Seeds
Another thing I try to avoid is seeds! I’m not perfect with this, but I try not to include any seeds from my veggie scraps. I’m particularly careful with tomato scraps. I don’t want those seeds working their way back to the surface and sprouting for the next few years.
Wood
Anything wooden should not be added to your trench composting. Sticks, branches, and wood chips all take way too long to decompose (years in fact). And while those wooden items are decomposing they will rob your soil of nitrogen.
I also try to avoid really heavy thick-stemmed plants like corn stalks and sunflowers. Again these will take some time to decompose and will rob nitrogen from the soil in the meantime.
Well, there you have it! My lazy man’s way of composting. I hope you think about ways you can incorporate trench composting into your garden.
I really want to try this..once we move to the farm..one of the first things on my to do list! 🙂
can i try putting just an inch or so in a 5 gallon bucket now (autumn) and then filling with dirt to plant in spring?
No, the idea is to get it out in the garden where the worms and native bacteria and other critters can go to work on it. I’m afraid it would just turn into a smelly mess in a bucket all winter.
During the winter months I keep scraps that the chickens can’t eat in a bucket. I cover it with shavings once and a while as I add more and keep it in the garage where it stays cold/frozen and not smelly. In the spring I add the scraps to everything we clean out of the coop. Everything hot composts for a couple of months and then ready for the garden.
I compost in a wire “barrel” from about February on. The material on the bottom is almost decomposed by September when I remove the bulk of my fresh garden clippings when I put my garden to bed. I dig a big round hole in my potato patch after I dig my spuds. I put the fresh garden clippings on the bottom with some compost accelerator and a layer of soil followed by a good watering. Then the partially composted material from the barrel goes on top with more accelerator and a cap of soil. More watering then I leave it uncovered to get the fall rains. In October I cover the pit with black garbage bags held down with long boards. With the accelerator by early April the decomposition is complete enough to plant my potatoes in the same spot. I have limited gardening space so this method helps me compost and use the area for growing the very next season. – Margy
All these ideas are very helpful. Can’t wait for the snow to melt to get started on the trench.
Why don’t you want tomatoes to sprout? Isn’t that an added benefit? Or do you expect to dig that site again. May be a dumb quedtion, but I’m new to composting and my attempts have not been successfull so far
I don’t want the tomatoes sprouting any where in my garden except where I intentionally planted them. Having volunteer seeds come up in random spots just means they are weeds. I only want plants coming up where I intended them.
I don’t consider volunteers weeds, I look at them as backups or mulch.
I’ll let them do their thing for a while then chop and drop in place if not needed.
I really agree with your view on composting. With so much going on in the garden, finding ways to minimize work for sake of it is important to me too.
I use trench composting a lot, but still try to run a hot compost pile once a year.
I’m just about to start playing with the Bokashi composting method, have you tried it? Seems like a good way to compost more, scraps that a normal system wouldn’t allow.
I wrote a lot about composting on my own blog, might be interesting to some of your readers?
https://betterhomesteading.com/gardening/composting/beginners-guide-to-making-compost-at-home/
All the best
Steve
We have had a ‘Hotbin’ composter for a year. and had a good compost yield about 4 months ago. Since then, my hubby has managed to get the bin to the working temperature and (mainly) keep it there so we should be able to take out another supply of compost over the next few days. I was unsure when we bought it -but it is great, stops r*** foraging and looks fine just opposite our back door.
What do you recommend doing in the winter for this method? I don’t know what I should be doing with my scraps during the winter here in New England. Thanks!
If you live in an area where the ground will freeze then I don’t recommend adding fresh items to a trench compost system in the winter. Digging in frozen (or wet) soil is really bad for the soil structure and will cause more harm than good. If you “pre-dug” the trench you could add things to the trench, but again filling in the trench would cause damage to the soil. In the winter it would be better to just add scraps to a traditional compost pile.
I have not figured out composting in our new house. Our back yard is woods . However, my concern is that having all the food scraps in the woods will attract wild animals. We already have many animals without feeding them. Thoughts?
That is a possibility. One thing that will help is to not use any meat or dairy, that would attract fewer animals. The other option is to not use food scraps and just use grass and leaves. Depending on your climate time of year may also help. Usually, you do this in the fall and animals would be less active that time of the year.