How to Make Compost: The Perfect Organic Fertilizer
Learning how to make compost is easy and is a great way to do your part to go green. Instead of using chemical fertilizers in your garden, compost is a great organic alternative.
Forty years ago my father was the first in our neighborhood to make compost. It was something he tended to daily and we had the best garden around.
Why not try your hand at making this organic fertilizer and make compost?
Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- A compost bin (See the resources section)
- dead plants, dry leaves, straw, grass clippings
- kitchen scraps such as vegetable peels, tea bags, eggshells and other items listed in the article
Instructions
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Purchase a compost bin or build one. Your local garden store or home store may have these for sale. You can also find easy instructions on line to build your own. See the resources section at the end of this article for more information.
Put the compost bin in a convenient place near your garden. Make it easily accessible as you will be bringing kitchen scraps out to it frequently.
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Compost is made up of waste from your kitchen (good waste, don't worry!) as well as from the outdoors. Certain materials are considered "Greens" and others are classified as "Browns".
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Many of the green materials come right from you kitchen. As you are cooking, set aside vegetable peels and fruit waste. Green items that you can find outside are grass clippings, plant cuttings and fresh manure. Yes. Fresh manure. It's compost, not dessert.
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Brown materials used to make compost are dead plants, straw, saw dust, hay and leaves. You can also find brown items in your kitchen to use in compost. These brown items include paper, cardboard, eggshells, used tea bags, coffee grounds and corn cobs.
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When you start your compost bin, you will want to start with a good layer of leaves. You can also add straw, twigs or hay at the bottom layer.
Next, put a layer about 4-5" thick of the brown materials followed by a 4-5" thick layer of green materials. To get your compost to break down faster, add a layer of soil or previously made compost between the brown and green layers.
Keep alternating layers until you have a full compost bin.
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Some compost bins have holes for rainwater so the compost will stay moist. If not, you can add water but do not add too much because you do not want the compost to get too wet.
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It is very important to turn the compost once a week with a large shovel. This helps it create compost you can use much faster.
Dig the middle layer up and bring it to the top with the shovel. Do this once every two weeks.
You can purchase a compost thermometer if you would like. The internal temperature will be about 140 degrees fahrenheit and it is best to let it get to about 160 degrees to get rid of any weeds and bacteria.
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When you are ready to remove some of your compost for use, remove it from the bottom of the compost pile.
Use your compost for new plantings and combine it with the soil used for new lawns. Learning how to make compost is not difficult and the time spent starting it will help make your garden greener in more ways than one!
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Tips & Warnings
Do NOT use fireplace ashes, beans, human or pet feces, pressure treated wood, meat, fats, whole eggs or plastic in your compost pile.
Resources
- Photo Credit gardencompostbins.net, boltd.com, vegetable gardener.com, midwestearthsolutions.com
