Fertilize Your Garden
With Organic Compost

Compost is the heart and soul of organic gardening. You don't have to be a farmer or an earth worm to reap the benefits of composting.

You can compost your own garden and kitchen waste at home with very little effort. Adding organic matter to your garden will improve the structure, water holding capacity, and aeration of soils containing too much clay or too much sand. Compost is the most often recommended source of organic material. It is easy to make, easy to use, and contains a storehouse of nutrients.

Let's consider how much work is really involved, equipment required, and when compost is ready.

Composting can be as much or as little work as you want to make it. The more effort you put into it, the faster you will have finished compost.

The only required equipment is a shovel or pitchfork to turn or move the contents of the compost pile. Your pile can be built anywhere except up against a structure such as a shed or a solid fence. There will be bugs and worms helping you compost and you want them in the pile, not in the shed or the house. Two feet is a safe distance from any structure. A bin is unnecessary. You can just build your pile on the ground.

We need a variety of plant material to start off with. Grass clippings and kitchen scraps provide nitrogen while leaves and dried straw provide carbon. You simply throw in organic materials as they become available. To speed things up, we suggest you turn the pile every other week.

The finished compost pile will have shrunk! It only takes up about a quarter of the space of the original pile. When the individual materials can no longer be identified and the pile looks like dark, rich soil, the compost is complete. It will smell sweet, woodsy, and earthy. It will crumble through your fingers. If it smells bad, it is either too wet or not getting any oxygen.

Keep a large coffee can under your kitchen sink for kitchen scraps, it can sit a few days before any odor starts to waft into the kitchen. Coffee grounds have a pleasant smell that hides most other odors - keep them in the paper filter, it will break down too!

Things to avoid:

• diseased vines from tomatoes and squashes as they may contaminate the pile
• animal fats such as meat scraps, grease, or bones as they might attract unwelcome critters!

For more details on all of these ideas please take a look at our fact sheet called Making the Most of Compost. If you cannot open the file, please read our Fact Sheet page.