Things You'll Need:
- Space for the pile
- Brown matter
- Green matter
- Worms
- Shovel or pitchfork
- A few minutes a week to tend the pile
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Step 1
Make a compost pile or bin. Some people just toss their scraps onto a pile and wait for nature to do it's business. But composting requires much more to create nutrient-rich fertilizer. You can make a compost pile out of anything from a wide bucket or wastebasket to a few two-by-fours and ply wood or chicken wire. Just make sure you can contain the area so scraps don't trickle onto your lawn and so wandering rodents don't use your left-overs as an all-you-can-eat late night buffet. Don't make the space too large. Too much and the matter will be difficult to rotate.
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Step 2
Fill your compost pile with fruit and vegetable scraps, egg shells, newspaper clippings, dryer lint, animal and human hair, grass clippings, twigs, leaves, coffee grounds and other organic wasted material. Compost piles need brown matter (dirt, twigs, bark, newspaper and other brown waste), green matter (grass clippings and fruit and vegetable scraps) and air.
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Step 3
Use a shovel or pitch fork to turn your compost pile once a week.
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Step 4
Find a couple of earth worms and toss those in. Earth worms expedite the decomposition and create nutrient-rich fertilizer.
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Step 5
Compost can take anywhere from a few weeks to two years to be ready to use, depending on the matter and how the pile is tended. Matter should be dark brown or black and smell earthy.
