Welcome To Leave The Leaves - A Resource Dedicated To
The Advancement Of Human-Powered Composting

1. Compost Is A Verb
   07-27-22

2. Pile Pro Method Terminology
   01-07-24

3. Composting Myths And Questionable Conventional Wisdom
   11-27-19

4. Browns, Greens, Reds, and Beiges
   11-24-19

5. Meat And Dairy Can Be Composted
   11-24-19

6. The Ideal Compost Pile
   11-24-19

7. Turn A Dial Not A Pile
   11-24-19

8. The PilePro Outdoor Watering Systems
   11-24-19

9. The PilePro Indoor Watering System
   11-24-19

10. The Proper Compost Bin
    11-29-19

11. The Compost Bin Hall of Shame
    11-24-19

12. How Important Is "Good" Compost?
    11-25-19

13. Why Composting Does Not Evolve And The Upcoming Compost Renaissance
    11-25-19

“In the soft, warm bosom of a decaying compost heap, a transformation from life to death and back again is taking place. Life is leaving the living plants of yesterday, but in their death these leaves and stalks pass on their vitality to the coming generations of future seasons. Here in a dank and mouldy pile the wheel of life is turning.”

J.I. Rodale and Staff, The Complete Book Of Composting

Why Is This Web Project Online?

There are myriad books, websites, and videos dedicated to composting. So why add yet another resource to the mix...why not just advise people to "Read this book, open that website, or watch this video"? That is a great question and the answer is..."There is not a resource out there that I can emphatically recommend. Not one of them accurately describes the equipment or methods I employ. Not one of them recommends a single, best-practice solution to a defined problem. Some resources present several solutions to several problems and advise the novice composter to choose the one that most appeals to them. Compare this to the case of the novice bread maker who purchases a bread machine...the equipment and straightforward instructions insure success...they don't say 'try this try that and find what works for you and don't worry you are having fun and compost happens." I recall my first visit to a compost demonstration site...there were a dozen or so bin choices, including no bin at all...I guess the competitor in me wanted to know which one was the best, as surely one had to be better than the rest.

To make things worse, most if not all of them are full of bad advice and questionable equipment. In spite of educational efforts such as the Master Composter Program both compost participation and throughput are lower than they should be. In other words, too few people compost and those who do process far less material than they should for the effort expended. I say too few people compost based on the hundreds of bags of leaves and grass clippings I see every year that await their taxpayer funded one way ride aboard the landfill limousine. While some are rescued by composters, too many are not. I attribute this state to equipment and methods that have not been questioned, analyzed, and refined in decades which I submit has resulted in many frustrated composters. Why else has the Master Composter Program not taken off? Composting is in a Dark Age and will remain there unless something changes. Do you find it baffling that a bin maker has a section in their user manual on how to troubleshoot the compost operation? Does the breadmaker manual have such a section? Of course not - if the bread does not come out right you go back to the instructions and identify what you did wrong! When I made bread one loaf did not rise because the yeast was old...duh! Composting needs a foolproof combination of equipment and methods so "troubleshooting" is a thing of the past. It needs some serious myth debunking and the cessation of plagiarism and regurgitation of wrong information. I believe that the primary reason why composting does not evolve (unlike just about everything else in the world!) can be summed up as follows:

"Composting [human-powered] is a wonderful, beneficial, and rewarding hobby. However, it lacks standards. There are no competitions, no judges, no prestige, and no prize money. Bin manufacturers sheepishly market their products and do not point out obvious faults and deceptions in the competition. If golf were not a sport players would still be using wooden clubs; if bicycle racing was not a sport there would not be quick-release wheels or gearing systems."

Therefore I have launched this endeavor with the goal of seeing human-powered composting emerge from its Dark Age (no significant innovation in decades, folks!) and into a Renaissance. I cannot say exactly how this will happen but it will start with a specific solution to a specific problem - mine - diverting suburban organics from the landfill and instead enriching the local soil. Thank you for visiting and I hope you find this website to be helpful.

Intended Audience

I live in Richardson, Texas, an adjacent suburb of Dallas. My equipment and methods have evolved here and therefore this project is tailored towards forward-thinking suburbanites who want to . this project is The material I present is therefore One problem I see with compost resources is that they present solutions without defining the problem. By this I mean that general solutions are presented to general problems and it is not easy for the beginner to parse all of the information and extract only what is relevant to their particular situation. In my case, as a suburbanite (for the record I do not advocate suburbs but they are not going away any time soon and if all burbanites composted, burbs would be incrementally better than they are now) I do not have interest in "worm composting." I have nothing against it, but to me it does not make sense to harvest worm castings from a indoor container and spread them outdoors when I can simply feed the native worms and have them deposit their castings about, thus saving me some effort.

Comments? Please go to The Leave The Leaves Home Page Comment Page.