How to Start a Compost Pile in The Winter

Trying to keep green can be difficult in the winter when everything turns yellow. Composts generally need above freezing temperatures but there are still ways to maintain a steady compost pile during the winter months. It takes a good amount of pre-planning, but if you are looking to really boost the growth potential of your garden or soil in the spring, it is totally worth keeping a compost ready throughout winter.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Compost Bin
• Shovel
• Organic Food Waste
• Worms

1. First, be sure not to start a compost pile to close to the end of fall or summer. Heat is a major component to the success of compost piles and it will have trouble maintaining it's own internal heat if the pile is too small.

2. Get some sort of compost bin to hold the material in. Size is important here and it needs to be at least 2 cubic feet (2x2x2). Ideally you should have about a 4 cubic foot (4x4x4) container but if you're above the minimum compost bin size you should be fine.

3. A compost pile is made up of two parts high-carbon material and one part high-nitrogen material. Let's start by collecting some carbon sources. Fallen tree leaves work great for this and everyone typically has those. Other options include: sawdust, newspaper, small twigs, and straw.

4. Nitrogen sources are also needed. A very good nitrogen source would be fresh grass clippings. Other good nitrogen sources for composts are: vegetable scraps, and weeds.

5. We're now going to layer the compost bin. First, add a layer of our carbon based material about six inches deep. Now add a layer of nitrogen based material about two to three inches deep.

6. When two alternating layers are completed, add some soil from the garden. This will add microorganisms to the compost and they do all the dirty work. Also add a little bit of water to the mix.

7. Repeat steps 5 through 6 until the compost bin is filled.

8. Add worms to increase the rate of composting. You can buy worms at any bait shop.

9. Heat is essential so we must take steps to safeguard the compost pile during the winter or colder months. Giving it some sort of protection is the first step. Covering it with scraps of tin or similar materials will protect against rain and insulating it will help keep heat in.

10. Place the bin in the sunniest part of the yard. Presuming you still get some sun in the winter this will help ensure maximum exposure.

11. Bring the pile indoors if possible. It's not going to get any extra heat from the outside so bringing it indoors will help keep it from freezing. A garage or shed works great for this.

12. If the weather is too severe in your area (i.e. below freezing year round or to much snow), think about collecting your compostable material in Bokashi buckets. These will be smaller containers but it won't smell or blow up. It may cause things to be slower going during the winter but they can then be added to an outdoor compost in spring and part of the work would be done.

Tips & Warnings

• Having a compost pile is a good way to save on overall garbage load as most organic food material can be used.
• Your compost pile will continue to rot during colder, it will only be slower.
• Chopping pieces into smaller parts will help speed up the process of composting.
• Never use meat, oil, eggs, grease, milk products, cat or dog manure when building a compost. Other animals may try to dig it up and it would stink.