Depends what one wants to do. I compost - mainly as a better way of disposing of leaves, kitchen and garden waste, as well as cardboard. Requires not much effort and eventually compost gets used in garden and the yard. Whatever works for you.

One way or another, i've been composting my whole life, even before I knew what is was. how many times have I turned a compost time and put effort into it? if you're asking with a pitchfork, the answer is zero...my compost Turner has horse power.

I currently find myself living in a location where composting is required by law to be smell free, required by local health Dept to be done in a facility enclosed on not lessential than three sides, on a concrete slab, and covered...by a roof. the local ordinances stop just short of explicitly statING that kind of stuff is not allowed here. upturned noses and affectation optional. so I now have a compost pile that gets trucked out to be composted and trucked back in to be used.

Oh. My. Goodietooshoos. did you just say till? open the flood gates...

I want to support what floral said: hot composting may or may not be better, I don't care, cold composting works fine. Like I said: whatever works. We seem to not infrequently hear about people who feel bad or that they're doing it wrong if they're not hot composting. I say, any 'rule' that keeps people from composting in a way that works for them is a bad rule. Now, if they want to do it faster or whatever, great, try hot composting. If you're happy with slow and very, very easy, cold compost.

In situ composting, which is what you're doing (as in, composting in place), is a valid strategy though there are some disadvantages. The waste you're tilling into your soil remains in sizable chunks, so it will take longer to become part of the soil food web. Maybe years. Composting specifically breaks down the structural parts of the pieces (veins in leaves, etc.) so the stuff you end up with pretty much dissolves in the soil, and immediately contributes to the friability and tilth. That being said, composting burns up a lot of the nitrogen in the "greens" you compost, such that compost is actually a poor source of immediate nitrogen. So in principle, grinding up uncomposted "greens" finely and spreading that on a garden bed can act as a quick nitrogen fertilizer. Just throwing in a chunk of cabbage probably won't.

Of course, then there is the issue of smell, rodents, etc. Might not be smart to spread food around your garden bed.

Composting is just a fast way of decomposing the material to get stuff that improves the soil quality. Digging uncomposted material into your soil is the slow way. The stuff ends up biologically broken down in both cases.

Exactly right that "hot" composting is overrated. It can be faster than cold composting, but the stuff you end up with is pretty much the same.

What you are describing is either "trench composting" if you bury it or "composting in place (in situ)" or "sheet composting" if you spread it out and perhaps cover it.

Making bins, turning and tending and thermometers and all that is only necessary of you have large quantities of inputs to get out of the way or if you need large quantities of compost. Some people like the process so they go all compulsive.

I'm of the "dump it in a bin and forget it" school of thought because I have space for it and only sporadic need for it. It composts just as well as a carefully tended heap, just more slowly.

I do mostly in situ composting. I chop up residues fairly well [dan]. This includes corn, beans, tomatoes, and leaves get chopped up very fine. I do tend to have a pile of horse manure at times waiting on application to the soil. I do raise some cover cropping too. I till in these things in late summer or fall. ...works for me.

Why haul out and haul back?

That makes sense, Wayne. I guess if you have a kitchen and garden waste pulverizer, that would make it easy. The "$1000" thread started not long ago seems to be a pretty costly device that does precisely that. But manually chopping all that stuff seems to be harder than just throwing it in a big pile. For some reason, "compost" implies "pile". In fact, if you stir this stuff into the soil bit by bit, it'll compost eventually, depending on how finely it is chopped. The OP is composting whether or not it happens in a pile.

dan, I find that the material from the year before disappears readily in the spring as I chop it up nicely and have a lot of soil life.

As far as chopping up being a lot of work...I do it as it matures which means I chop it while it is green and tender. ... Then I mow over it to make it finer. ...after a few days to dry

See, that spreads out the work over time and the cutting is tender. If you wait until the season's end...ugh....a rush of harder work then.

Works for me.

That makes sense. In fact, I often in situ compost dried leaves. I grind 'em up, and dig 'em in. That will reduce the nitrogen content of the bed for while but as the leaves degrade, and the lignin and chitin slowly decompose, it will return. I don't do this right before planting, but a few months before planting.

I also compost leaves in piles, but that gets dug in right before planting.

I raise 7 plantings of sweet corn and I put in a cover crop after that. As soon as the corn is finished, it gets chopped up. ...and manured. Well, I wait for the first 4 to be done and then finish getting it ready for a cover crop. This spreads the work and gets the cover crop in early.

I find it funny. If you ask the question "why should I compost?" the answer is ALWAYS because it's great for soil and it keeps stuff out of the landfill! But, er, no. The question might be, "why should I compost my debris instead of just sprinkling it on my garden beds?" You'll never see an answer to that one. People are too busy keeping stuff out of landfills ...

It's a good question.

I compost because I need hundreds of lbs of the stuff to make shoots indoors in winter, and to start plants in spring and summer. But it is not really compost, it is a pile of leaves, kitchen scraps, and garden dirt, mixed by earthworms for a year and then sifted (I have two piles). so it is castings plus fine soil plus compost. The dirt is what I extract from the garden when trench composting, which I use for my potted peppers in season, and then dump into the pile.

Over time I have switched to cover crops that mostly die with frost, and those disappear over the winter by themselves. Everything else, I trench compost. No tilling, just a trench made with a spade or shovel. I add rotten wood whenever possible since I got lots and it is such a long-lasting source of humus when well buried (not so well buried, it becomes a chipmunk abode). Now I have a leaf shredder too, which allows me to make piles of pulverized leaves in the garden, rake them flat, and those disappear over the winter, leaving a decent seed bed. for plants like potatoes, garlic, collards and tomatoes one can always mulch with whole leaves, which turn into earthworm castings in one year or so.

Difficult to spread material out on the soil or work it in when the ground is frozen to a couple of feet down and then covered with 2-3 feet of snow. I compost. I love to compost. I also spread around 500 metric tons of yard trimmings onto 25-25 acres fields and til this in to decompose in the soil. Personally, I don't consider the spreading technique to actually be composting. IMO, composting implies some kind of management or intervention. I'm also not wild about seeing kitchen waste just strewn about a garden. To each their own.

C'mon. Composting isn't about "management or intervention". It's about biological degradation of vegetative material. Well, pulverizing and spreading is certainly management and or intervention. We're not talking about brussels sprouts, banana peels, and cabbages strewn about the garden. We're talking about ground up material that is pretty unrecognizable, I guess to avoid offending anyone.

Now my ground never freezes, and almost never even has snow on top of it. So in principle, I can do this any time. But I like to dig stuff in before planting and, as noted, already degraded material is best for this purpose.

I love compost, and I do a lot of composting in piles. But the OP is right that there are other ways to achieve that biological degradation. If you want to define composting as something that happens only in piles, I guess you're welcome to do so. The point isn't the pile. The point is the biological degradation.

I guess we agree to disagree. I don't consider leaves falling from trees on to the ground to be "composting" and I don't consider throwing material (chopped or otherwise) on to the ground to be composting. You might notice I never mentioned piles so how you got me wishing to define anything along those lines is a mystery.

I'd like to thank everyone for there responses. Reading all the gardening sites, just about every one recommends adding compost right before planting. I was starting to think I was the only one that didn't compost in a pile and transfer it to the garden after it was finished.

I do try to add a lot of organic matter to the soil. I keep a thick layer of mulch over the garden and till it in in the fall, I spread manure and use cover crops/green manures. So, I guess I do compost quite a bit; just not in piles!

Lloyd, you said you "didn't consider the spreading technique to actually be composting". That's why I thought you were referring to piles. That's the only other method we were talking about. It's what the OP was talking about. Is there some composting architecture we need to be considering? Maybe in straight lines, or maybe in spheres?

Actually, I do some of what I call composting in a pit. I spread and stir. It's actually mixed with some soil. I don't grow anything in the pit, but I probably could.

From the perspective of a compost educator, when dealing with newbies who are often from the 'neat as a pin suburban yard' lifestyle, it can be hard enough to convince them to put a compost pile or bin in their yard. If we dove right into layering yard waste right on the beds (and kitchen scraps! horrors), we'd get some funny looks. Having said that, I think our education approach does need to evolve to accommodate the idea. I'm going to start working it in more when I talk to people about keeping their green waste out of the landfill. It won't work for everyone but a few folks might warm up to it right away and be able to skip a step.

Necessity for me. I do a lot in containers, I have a pickup truck, easy access to chips, and few natural N sources. No way am I going to spend all that money on potting soil.

So I compost in 1100 pound heaps helped with 5-7 pounds of urea somewhat top loaded to compensate for the solubility and leaching. Lately, after some research, I've been adding some Sulfur after the pile cools to mildly warm.

I'll be honest: I get a kick out of stoking the temperature way up there. I figure it helps with pathogens too.

But really my motivation is get the heavy lifting out of the way. In my short season climate, The sooner you do that the sooner you get started with the mellowing process which I have decided is very important.

If I had a patio home, I might consider one of those tumbler things. If mice weren't such a pest I might consider outdoor composting of kitchen waste.

You make adjustments to your situation.