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Making compost is easy!
Making compost can turn your kitchen and garden waste into a rich organic soil amendment. Follow my easy steps and have your own compost to enrich your vegetable garden.
Composting Materials: A ratio of carbon and nitrogen materials are important for each to breakdown. Nitrogen materials will decompose in a few weeks, however will attract flies and have a strong odor. Carbon materials will take months or sometimes years to breakdown. - Carbon Materials
- thick vegetable stems like broccoli, corn stalks
- sawdust
- dry leave
- wood shavings
- straw
- hay
- twigs
- Nitrogen Materials
- cut grass
- fresh animal manure (usually in small quantities)
- vegetable kitchen waste
- green vegetation from your garden
- organic
soil fertilizers
like blood meal, alfalfa meal and fish meal (these can be lightly spread on each layer especially if the pile has lots of carbon material)
Steps to building a pile:- Loosen the soil about 12 inches deep in the area where you will make the pile. This will help organisms in the soil enter your pile.
- Lay down about 6 inches of carbon matter - corn stalks, small sticks, straw.
- Then lay done about 2 inches of garden waste -leaves, grass clippings, green vegetation.
- Save your kitchen waste (no meat products) and put this over the garden waste.
- Put on a thin layer of soil. This helps keep away the flies and odor.
- Repeat steps 2 to 5.
- Once the pile reaches 3-6 feet high let is sit for 3-6 months.
- Start building a new pile.
- To quicken the process turn the pile every 3-4 weeks. The easiest way to do this is move it to a new area.
- Water the pile regularly, a moist pile will decompose quicker.
- The pile will reduce to about half the original size.
Do you have more questions? Are you having problems with your existing compost pile? Here are some answers to
frequently asked compost questions.
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