Whos at Work in the Compost Pile?
Compost seems like slow-acting magic to the human eye. You start out with materials like food scraps, grass clippings, and autumn leaves that you put in a pile or bin. If the materials are kept moist and air is added by turning, after twelve weeks of warm weather, presto, you have compost. How does this magic happen? Do the “little people” come in the middle of the night? The scientific answer is: sort of. The “beings” that make compost are very small but they are not people and they are active twenty-four hours a day. Most of them are so small that you need a microscope to see them. Such tiny organisms are given the general name microbes. Making compost is a microbial process. Most of us are familiar with the fact that we use yeast to make bread or beer. Composting involves a much more complex mixture of microbes than we use in food preparation. Fortunately, nature looks after adding the microbes. Most compost materials come with microbes attached and ready to go to work. We can add s
