Its not even good fertilizer. But, like growing plants, if done right, its easy because the process was automated by moma nature.

Language first:

Compost, to rot, to decay, to putrify, to decompose biologically to completion under conditions where degredation is not limited by moisture or oxygen levels.--that would be on the floor of a forest for however long it takes. (mom's a tidy housekeeper and good food is usually not left lying around undisturbed for long

Compost: The fully mineralized residue that is left after all the carbon-hydrogen bonds that can be metabolized in an organic substrate have been. i.e. when there is no "food" value to anyone left in the material. Home compost is seldom aged to this state. Usually nitrogen is a limiting factor in the digestion of humus.

A compost pile is like an engine that is not coupled to a load, it does no useful work. A compost pile is a biological fire.a low temperature burning. The remaining residue after the process has run to completion is little different from ash save for its color and effect on coloids of clay.

There are very few natural examples of non-human compost piles, some bird and reptile nests, some insect dwellings, the stomachs of herbervours (though this seems a special case).

Sheet composting is the norm. Sheet composting and mulching are one and the same. Material is spread over area rather than aggregated in a pile.

Result is multi-fold---decay rate slows, decay is aerobic, temperature is closer to ambient, photodegredation and weathering are enhanced, errosion is reduced, nutrient release is moderated and spread in time, and most importantly, food is made available to soil and surface food chains that result in work (mass x distance). From a gardening persepctive the bioturbation and aeration of growing beds as a result of enhanced populations of worms, insects, bacteria, algae, et. al. may transcend any fertility increase.

Functionally, the active zone of this planet is six inches above and below grade. Water is almost always a limiting factor, both too much and too little change reaction rates. Limiting the avalability of oxygen shifts metabolism from high effeciency (and speed) pathways to much slower, more ancient forms of feeding. (Wetlands are so valuable and productive because they mix air, water, and earth more evenly in that one foot zone than most other habitats.)

Differentiate materials: Even though, at a cellular and sub-cellular level the differences between one piece of biota and another decreases, treating the world as homogeneous and uniform is an error.

Animal--whole or parts, vegetable---soft or woody,fresh or dry, mineral--large or small pieces, pH effects of solutes. toxic properties.

Fecal:herbivore, carnivore, omnivore? Closely related to human? fresh or aged, wet or dry, etc.

Destructive composting--composting performed for the purpose of destroying volume or a pathogen or toxin. As part of good garden hygine each area should have a small compost pile for processing plant residues that are unsafe to apply directly to the soil. Here the goal becomes numerous fluctuations between anerobic and aerobic conditions and between messophilic and thermophillic temperatures---(lots of air/no air/ cool/hot) so as to stress and degrade poisons,pests, and pathogens.

Woody material lends itself to a slow waltz. Somewhere you need a brush pile. It need not be rowdy and out of hand, nor need it be neat and manicured. It can be habitat for wildlife. If you do not want wildlife stack it tighter, throw more dirt on it, keep it wetter, add nitrogen, Periodically, once, twice/year, put on heavy boots and tromp it down, smash and bash it, reduce the size of the pieces physically. Then pile it back up and keep the process going. At the end of a decade there will be a residual pile of lovely black material, very similar to leaf mold/forest floor. Perfect for wildflowers, things that grow in woods,ferns, etc. Or you can just dump it on the garden.

Recalcitrant materials, Some stuff is more resistant to breakdown. Straw, equisitum, cane, bamboo, etc is slow to breakdown because of its high silica content. Pine needles are hard to hydrate, good weed mulch for acid loving plants, paths. Root balls, where the stem transitions to root, and some wood species--cyperus, juniper, ceder, etc. Patience, water,earth, nitrogen, periodic aeration/ turning do the trick. Why are we in a hurry?

Leaves don't rot because of nitrogen shortages and their tendency to waterlog or be too dry. If you can stockpile them, during the summer they can be mixed with fresh grass clippings. For most towns, the leaf mass and the nitrogen in the grass just about balance if averaged over a season. But that's work. Easy way is to bed the garden with them in fall, toss on some ferlizer and manure, water it down and turn it under in spring.

Grass clippings are the perfect mulch/slow release fertilizer for the garden, Do not pile it too deep, over 4 inches. Do not let it contact plant stems, it will cause rot. Its best to let it dry a bit before it is moved close to plants. The smell of fresh cut hay/grass is an exotic mixture of VOC's (volitile organic compounds) some of which can burn leaf tissue, as will an excessive ammonia release which results if you pile grass too deep.

Animals and animal like plant parts: are high in protein and will tend to prutrify rather than rot. Hair and leather will not usually cause problems, nor will bone but soft and connective tissues will breakdown very rapidly, overwhelming the capacity of a microbial food chain to deal with it. Meat and high protein vegetation are major sources of nitrogen for the garden, but there are attendent problems.

In nature large pieces of protein are cycled through all manner of creatures, rarely remaining undetected long enough to liquify and become available as nutrient for soil bacteria. Fish and other animal emulsions can be made in ways similar to making a nice manure tea, this can then be poured into a trench alongside an established planting. It may encourage digging by coons, dogs,skunks, etc. but then so will bone and blood meal..

Teleology---the finding of design in nature should be the foundation from which we work. The trial and error of evolution while perhaps blind in purpose, none-the-less conserves robust and elegant solutions. This is most clearly seen in the bio-geochemical cycling of contemporary materials and the elaborate cascade of energy through food chains as it heads back into space as heat.

Any horticultural use of Petrol or electric power for non-food production is immoral and insane. Immoral as a form of passive violence in a world with real needs, present and future. Insane because of the presuption that a dynamic planet ozing with messy sticky life can be regulated and shaped to human ends especially when those ends are as barren as the current aesthetic.

-- Anonymous, May 21, 2000