How to Make a Backyard Compost Pit

Digging a compost pit will help feed your garden plants.

Composting kitchen scraps has become quite popular with home gardeners who want to turn waste into a valuable soil amendment. There are various methods for turning food waste into rich black compost, but some require frequent turning, watering or other maintenance. Pit composting is one of the easiest ways to compost scraps. This method allows you to bury your scraps directly into the garden adjacent to growing vegetables. The vegetables are planted in a different section of the garden each year in a three-year rotation, allowing the scraps to thoroughly break down in the soil.

Things You'll Need

• Measuring tape
• Machete
• Shovel

Instructions

1. Divide your garden space into three three-foot-wide linear rows using a measuring tape. Plant your vegetables in the far right row (row three) the first year.

2. Use a shovel to dig a trench about one foot deep and three feet wide in the far left row (row one), about three feet away from your vegetable plants. The middle row (row two) will be used as a walkway.

3. Spread any coarse food wastes, such as corn husks or melon rinds, on the ground at the edge of the first row trench. Chop them into pieces about three inches square or smaller with a sharp machete. Place food scraps into the trench, starting at one end.

4. Cover food scraps with at least 8 inches of soil in the trench. Continue filling the trench with scraps over the growing season, working your way down the length of the trench, until it is completely full.

5. Plant your vegetables in the center row (row two) the second year. Dig a one-foot deep trench in row three, where your vegetables grew the season before. Fill this trench with finely chopped food scraps and cover it with dirt as you did the previous year. Use row one as a walkway while the previous year's food scraps decompose in the soil.

6. Grow your vegetables in row one, which will be filled with one-year-old compost, in the third year. Make a trench in row two and use row three as a walkway. Repeat this pattern each year so that the vegetables will be grown on one-year-old compost.

Tips & Warnings

• Avoid using meat scraps or bones in your compost pit, because these scraps break down much more slowly than plant material and attract pests.

References

• University of Illinois Cooperative Extension: Composting Methods