Home Composting Units

Simple And Free Composting Method

Stop throwing your organic kitchen and garden waste away and save it to make the best compost your plants have ever been treated to. This is a free source of material to make a very nutrient rich compost to improve your garden and you are helping to keep the landfills less full. For those of you concerned with Global Warming, reducing landfills will interest you.

If organic waste is allowed to be sent to the landfills, it is compressed along with and under massive amounts of other types of waste. Under normal conditions, organic waste has plenty of air circulating around it and it naturally turns into compost but in the landfill environment, air isn't allowed to get to it and it decomposes improperly. Instead of breaking down into compost, huge amounts of methane gas is produced and enters our air supply.

The Compost Bin

Proper composting at home starts with the composting bin. Compost bins can be purchased ready made or if you like, you can build one yourself. Most garden centers have compost bins for sale or you can search the internet for a set of free plans.

Where you locate your compost bin will be an important first step because the quality of the compost can be affected by this decision. Access to plenty of sunlight is important and the bin must be able to drain properly for the best results. You want all excess liquid to drain from your compost and provide plenty of sunlight to speed up the decomposition process.

Now, let's look at the different organic materials we should use.

Our kitchen and garden will provide many items we can use. We can class two groups as brown stuff and green stuff. Green stuff will decompose quickly and is a very good source of moisture and nitrogen. Green stuff includes items such as:

leaves, grass cuttings, tea bags, weeds, fruit and vegetable peelings.

Brown stuff provides air pockets and takes a longer time to decompose. Brown stuff includes items such as:

Shredded paper, twigs and hedge clippings, cardboard boxes, newspapers (wadded up), egg shells (crumbled) and toilet roll tubes.

A good mixture of green stuff and brown stuff will produce an excellent compost. So how do we keep the correct mixture for proper decomposition? It's simple. We look at it. For instance, if the mixture is looking a bit too moist, add some brown stuff. It's it's looking a bit to dry, add some green stuff. This isn't an exact science but with practice you'll get the hang of it quickly. From time to time take a hoe or pitch fork or whatever you have and mix up the compost. It introduces air which will speed up the process.

Now, how long will the compost have to process before it's ready for use?

There are many variables that affect the time line such as weather, surrounding conditions, materials used, amount of sunlight, how often you remember to turn the compost... etc. We can use a general time line of six month to a year before it is ready for use.