The best soil at Freighter View Farms did not come from a bag. It came from the compost pile — a slow, unglamorous heap of kitchen scraps, garden waste, and fallen leaves that turns into the richest growing medium I have ever used.
The Simple System
I run a three-bin system: one bin accepting new material, one bin cooking, and one bin of finished compost ready to use. The bins are nothing fancy — wire cages lined with landscape fabric. The magic is in the mix, not the equipment.
What Goes In
Kitchen scraps: vegetable peels, coffee grounds, eggshells. Garden waste: spent plants, pulled weeds (before they seed), tomato vines after the first frost. Fall leaves — the single best composting ingredient in Michigan, and free in October by the truckload. I shred them with the mower first. Whole leaves mat together and take years to break down. Shredded leaves disappear in months.
What Stays Out
Meat, dairy, oils, and diseased plants. Dog and cat waste. Weeds that have gone to seed. Anything treated with herbicide — and in Michigan, that means being careful about lawn clippings from neighbors who spray.
The Michigan Advantage
Michigan’s freeze-thaw cycles are actually an asset for composting. The repeated freezing and thawing of winter breaks down cell walls in organic material faster than a mild climate would. A pile started in October, turned once in November, and left to freeze all winter will be crumbly and dark by April. I have never had a compost thermometer tell me something the spring thaw did not confirm.
I spread finished compost two inches thick on every raised bed in April, before planting. It is the only fertilizer my garden needs.
— Chris Izworski, Freighter View Farms, Bay City, Michigan
Chris Izworski is a Michigan gardener, writer, and AI technologist based on Saginaw Bay. He writes at Freighter View Farms about Zone 6a gardening, seed saving, and practical AI in public safety.
Freighter View Farms | Chris Izworski 
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