Can you give me some tips on composting?

Answer 1

add: vegetable discards and peelings, eggshells, nutshells, orange and banana peels, apple cores, coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, hair, fireplace ashes, sawdust (do not use sawdust from MDF, plywood, pressure tread wood, or chipboard----they all contain chemicals), well mulched leaves, grass clippings, dead flowers and plants, dryer lint, shredded newsprint.
pine needles,acorns,pine cones.

things NOT to add: meat,grease, fat, oil, pet feces,used kitty litter, dairy products, glossy or colored magazines,flyers, weeds.

When you add grass clippings, make sure you have stacked them somewhere where they have dried out completely and are no longer green before you add them to the compost--otherwise they get slimy, smell strongly of ammonia, and take a very long time to decompose.

mulch your leaves as finely as possible before adding them--mulching them when they are dry will make it much more efficient.

Chop up old flowers and plants into small pieces before adding them. The smaller you chop/mulch things up, the faster they will decompose.

do not use large prunings or branches. use prunings of only 1/4 inch diameter or less and make sure they are well chopped.

try to avoid putting anything that is still green and fresh in the pile; let things dry on the ground or in seperate shallow rows or piles until they are dried and brown, then add. this will stop the pile from remaining too damp and odorous and will really speed the process up.


adding a bit of top soil and manure in thin layers between the other materials will make a nicer compost.

your compost pile can be just a simple heap, or you can enclose it in a fence of chicken wire or wood slats that can be removed in order to make it easier to turn the pile.

burying several rough and twisty branches in the pile (with their ends sticking out the top of the pile) makes it easy to aerate the pile : about twice a week gently lift, shake and twist the branches to "fluff up" the pile, but do not pull them all the way out.

once a month turn the pile by shovelling it to a new location, then returning it to origonal location so that what was on the bottom is now on the top.

the pile should be barely damp (about like a well-wrung out sponge) if its wet, it will be slimy and cool and decomposition will be slowed.

the pile should be no more than 5 feet on each side. It will shrink considerably as it decomposes.

If you live in an area where it is excessively rainy, it would be wise to cover the pile with a tarp (remove it during dry spells).

use the mulch from the previous year on this years garden. It is not a good idea to put compost that has not completely decomposed into your gardening soil because the action of decomposition can rob the soil of nutrients until decomposition is complete.

Answer 2

Shred your items before adding to the compost, it takes less time to heat up.

Use a mixture of "brown material" such as dry leaves, dry grass clippings, etc and add the "green material" such as fresh succulent items.......grass clippings, manure, etc.

Keep the compost pile moist. As it is built, moisten it as it is stacked. Get a soil thermometer with the long shank and measure the temperature of the compost pile. If it isn't heating, it is lacking "green stuff" such as grass clippings, food discards, manure or even just nitrogen fertilizer." After it "cooks" for awhile, it has to be turned completely so the outside gets inside to join in the decomposition process.

You can use kitchen scraps, but NEVER any meat or grease. It putrifies. Not what you want. Plus every dog, cat, skunk will be at your pile.

If you don't have room for a compost pile, you can sheet compost or trench compost. Trenching starts by making a trench at least 18 inches deep and filling with material as you gather it. Once a section is filled, cover and move down. Sheet composting is spreading the material on the ground and working it in when you have enough.

Answer 3

I've read all the answers so far and they are right on target. The only thing I can add is, if you add fertilizer 46-0-0 (urea) in layers as you compost you pile will compost faster. Urea is organic and the best bang for your buck when composting.

Answer 4

Things that help speed up the composting process are: shredding the materials (smaller particle size), mixing nitrogen (green stuff) and carbon (brown stuff) material about half and half, keeping the pile moist (decomposing microbes need moisture), but not too wet (anaerobic decomposition produces foul odors), and finally turning the pile periodically to mix outer material into the center of the pile. Additionally, make the pile large enough to heat up well (4 feet in diameter is about right), and don't include dairy products, grease or meat as these tend to attract unwanted visitors to the pile.

Answer 5

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