Looking for a way to bring life into your garden? Create your own compost garden! Composting is natural way to get rid of kitchen waste, and it’s a natural way to enrich your soil! Composting is easy to do, free to make, and lots of fun! Not only that it helps out the environment by reducing landfill waste! So let’s get composting!
What can I start composting?
You can compost things made out of carbon and nitrogen. In general, you want a balanced mixture of nitrogen and carbon composting items, but there should be more carbon based items. As a rule of thumb has 2/3 brown to 1/3 green.
Do Compost:
- Browns = High Carbon: Ashes, wood, Bark, shredded Cardboard (my favorite to be composting!), Corn stalks, Fruit waste, Leaves, shredded Newspaper, Peanut shells, Peat moss, Pine needles, Sawdust, Stems and twigs, shredded, Straw, Vegetable stalks
- Greens = High Nitrogen: Alfalfa, Algae, Clover, Coffee grounds, Food waste, Garden waste, Grass clippings, Hay, Hedge, clippings, Hops, used, Manures, Seaweed, Vegetable scraps, Tea leaves, Weeds*
*Avoid weeds that have gone to seed, as seeds may survive all but the hottest compost piles.
Do Not Compost: meat, bones, fish, or dairy. They attract pests. Also avoid anything that might have been treated with pesticides. If you choose to use sawdust, be sure to spread it out! If it clumps together, it slows the composting process.
How do I get started composting?
A very good question! Here’s a simple step by step process:
- Start your compost on bare earth. This allows earthworms and other nutrients to aerate the soil.
- Lay straw or twigs first. This helps drainage and helps with aerating the soil.
- Add compost in alternating layers. Alternating wet and dry keeps things from clumping which will take longer to compost. Dry ingredients are straw, cardboard, newspaper, etc.. Wet ingredients are things like food waste, tea bags, seaweed, etc.
- Add manure . Make sure it’s green! Cover it up. It helps speed the composting along.
- Keep compost moist. If you live in a place that rains a lot, let rain do the job. If not water it occasionally.
- Cover the composting garden wood or a plastic sheet or whatever you have. Covering it keeps moisture and heat in two key factors that help speed up composting.
- Turn. Every few weeks, turn the composting garden. Oxygen is required for composting to work, and turning the composting garden with a shovel helps aerate the soil and helps composting along.
