A Glorious Gallery of Rot: Compost as Art

By Chris Baskind in Garden

The purpose of compost is to rot — to decompose and become part of the soil from which it came. Feel free to start humming the Lion King’s Circle of Life. That’s what it’s all about.

A compost pile undergoes a pretty amazing series of transformations on its way to become next season’s topsoil. What happens to the steaming heap of old coffee grounds, discarded vegetable peels, soggy cardboard, and yard clippings is either beautiful or disgusting, depending on your perspective. As always, art is in the eye of the beholder. Even when it’s compost.

Vancouver’s Granville Island is famous for its public market. Flickr user sporkist stuck his head into a compost dumpster to photograph this amazing symphony of orange. While not all these items are appropriate for home composting, they’re as beautiful as garbage can be.

You can compost pretty much anything — even memories (though watch out for this stuff). The Division of Light and Shadows captures a still life of roses and baby’s breath.

Autumn is the best time to collect carbon-rich “brown” compost. But this bulging compost pile, captured by Flickr user Gavin Anderson, show that brown sometimes comes in crimson.

Compost attracts many admirers. This happy toad has settled in on damp heap, probably waiting for dinner to crawl past. Flickr Creative Commons image by John Leach.

Light, lettuce, and last week’s kitchen trash: Compost photography evoking Vermeer by Flickr contributor net_efekt.

Wet, dark, and slimy: If you’re a worm, this is what a day at the beach looks like. Vermiculture is a subset of backyard composting. Worm compost enthusiasts say red worms do the best job, and can process up to their body weight each day. Chika posted this worm bin picture on Flickr.

When is an orange green? When it’s compost. Image by Soon Van (read him at Random Echo).

Americans waste about 14 percent of the food they purchase. Nationally, food waste and spoilage amounts to losses in excess if $75 billion. In some sectors of agricultural production, waste can be as high as 40 percent. These autumnal fruits and vegetables — photographed being readied for compost by Flickr user swanksalot —   will get another shot at the table next season.

The finished product! Mature compost, the foundation of a healthy garden. With proper care, another successful crop of vegetables will spring from this earth. And then the cycle starts all over again. Photo by Flickr user normanack.

Top compost heap image by Flickr user upturnedface / CC BY-SA 2.0. A special thanks to all the photographers and artists who make their work available on Flickr through the Creative Commons.

Originally posted 07. Aug, 2009 | Tags: Composting, feature, Food Waste, Galleries, Pictures