If maintaining a compost pile sounds like one garden chore too many, you may have wondered why you can’t simply bury your vegetable peels and coffee grounds directly in the soil. It turns out you can—gardeners sometimes call the technique trench composting, in-place composting, or compost pockets. Instead of decomposing organic material in a separate pile and later spreading finished compost, you let microorganisms and soil organisms break down appropriate kitchen scraps underground. Oregon State University describes in-place composting as burying organic material directly in garden soil, making the basic concept surprisingly legitimate. The catch is that where, how deeply, and what you bury determine whether you’re improving next year’s garden or creating problems for this year’s plants.
