Why Compost?
Compost is important to anyone that wants to make their own organic soil that they can used to help their garden flourish. The idea of a compost heap is essentially to recycle many edible and inedible raw materials to create a plethora of nutrient rich soil. Now, there are many people who claim that there are many ways to create your compost heap but the best way to start is to just start making a pile of food and grass clippings, pine needles or any kind of fallen leaves. You want to make a big, diverse, living compost heap. By living I really mean the fact that the decomposition process should be going on constantly. Another great way to add to a compost heap is to throw away your discarded food into the compost heap to allow more nutrients to soak into the already-decomposing compost heap.
Compost Basics
Ideally you will want to make sure that your compost heap is easily accessible and preferably inside some sort of bin, although this is not mandatory you do want to make sure that animals aren’t stealing your compost or messing with it in general. You also want to make sure that the compost heap is in a spot that will get a lot of sun during the day but might have a little shade. The compost heap should be placed directly on soil or turf for best decomposition. The best thing to compost is to compost things that were once living. Living material or cooked food will just attract animals and will set you back. Well, now that we got the basics down shall we go a little further?
Things TO Compost:
Greens (Rich Nutrients)
- Urine (Water Diluted 20:1)
- Grass Cuttings
- Weeds
- Vegetable Peelings
- Tea Bag/Coffee Grounds
- Animal Manure
Browns (Carbon Rich Nutrients/Slow To Rot)
- Cardboard
- Waste Paper
- Magazines
- Sawdust
- Fallen Leaves
- Hedge Clippings
- Wood
- Ash
- Crushed Egg Shells
Be Creative With Your Compost Pile
Of course you can get creative and add what you’d like. Try some stuff out, see what works the best for you, because some things might compost well and you didn’t even know it! Although I will tell you there are a couple items that are better off not composting and I will tell you those right now so that you may avoid attracting animals or ruining the nutrient rich soil that you are trying to create for your garden.
- Meat
- Fish
- Dog Feces
- Cat Litter
- Cooked Food
And That’s All Folks
So as you can see there are some things that can go wrong when you are trying to create the perfect compost heap but, generally, if you just keep it in a bin so animals cannot get at it, make sure that it has sun and a little shade accessible to it and finally add a diverse array of food and clipping and fallings into the compost pile to create a plethora of nutrient rich soil for you garden.
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