This post is garbage. Literally! Your mom told you not to play with your food, but on this blog you can play all you want. Throw it on the ground, roll it around, scoop it up – it’s all good here.  We’re going to take a look at two very easy ways to make compost for your garden. Composting is more than just recycling garbage, it is making “black gold” for your garden plants and it doesn’t cost you a dime to fertilize your soil!

What is Composting?

Basically, composting is allowing organic waste to decompose. Organic waste can be food scraps, dead plants, leaves, coffee grounds, egg shells, grass clippings – anything natural that was once living. The decayed product yields a rich, nutrient-dense material. When added to your garden, this compost replenishes and enhances the health of your soil.  Your plants and your harvest will love you for adding rich compost.  Compost can be purchased in bags, but making your own recycles your waste and guarantees the quality of the nutrients and freshness.

Getting Started

Although there are some serious composters out there who involve red worms and thermometers, we are going to focus on two easy ways to make compost.

Before we get into how to make a compost pile, there are some things you should not put in a compost pile. If you don’t want to attract animals and pests or smell your pile, you should try to avoid meat, grease, oil, fat and dairy products. You should also never put into your pile diseased plant material, weeds that have produced seeds, or chips and sawdust from wood that has been treated in any way – like pressure-treated wood. Remember, what you put in your pile is going into your valuable garden soil.

You can build your own compost bin with inexpensive materials, like old fencing or scrap wood. Or, you can just make a pile. We just make a pile, but in the future we’ll have fenced bins. You’ll need an area that is about 3′ x 3′. You’ll also need another area that is 3′ x 3′ so that while one pile is “cooking”, you have a place to toss your food scraps and other organic waste.

The Lazy Method of Composting

We are not lazy people, except when it comes to compost. This is the method that we use, mainly because it is low maintenance. This method takes more time to yield usable compost (about a year), but it allows for a little more freedom with our time. The drawback of this method, is that to use the finished compost, you may have to dig down below some waste to get finished product. We get around this somewhat by having more than one pile – one that is left to finish decomposing on its own, while we dump fresh organic waste on a different pile.

This is not the best method of composting. It is, however, the easiest. Pick a spot, dump on it. When it gets to be a decent size, stop dumping on it and dump in a different spot. Toss it around now and then with a pitch fork. In time, your first spot is ready to enrich your garden.

I won’t spend a lot of time on the lazy method – there isn’t really much else to tell.  Instead, let’s look into a more proper way to build a pile, but still pretty simple.

The Simple Layered Method

For this method, you will be making layers of different kinds of materials. A healthy amount of each is needed to start a pile. For this reason, gardeners tend to like starting a new pile during the fall when dried leaves and grass clippings are more abundant.

There are three types of materials needed:

Brown – Examples of brown materials include dried leaves, natural wood chips and sawdust, chopped stems, grains, nut shells, and hay.

Green – Examples of green materials include grass clippings, weeds, fresh leaves, and vegetable and fruit scraps from the kitchen.

Active Organism Material – Examples would be soil, finished compost and manure (from goats, chickens, cows, etc).

Creating the Pile

Step 1: After collecting your compost materials, create layers for your pile. Put down a healthy layer of brown, then a thin layer of your active organism material of choice, and follow it with a layer of green.  While layering, lightly sprinkle some water over the brown ones. You want it just damp, not water-logged. Water-logging will cause the pile to rot rather than allowing the microorganisms to make your fabulous compost.

Step 2: After about a week, stick your hand in the middle of the pile. If the center of the pile feels warm, give the pile a good turn with a garden rake or pitch fork. The process of decomposing gives off heat – a sure sign you are on the right track. Stirring allows the pile to decompose evenly. It should be done about once a week during your garden growing season. Warmer weather can speed up the process during that time.

Step 3: If the pile looks too dry, add some greens and/or dampen it with water. If it looks too wet, add some browns.

How do I know my compost is ready?

When you can reach into the middle of the pile and it is no longer giving off heat, that’s a good sign that decomposing is finished. It will also look brown, crumble in your hand and smell like the earth itself. Your glorious, nutrition-packed compost is now ready to use in the garden.

Using Your Compost in the Garden

Firstly, you should not use only partially decomposed compost in your garden. This is because the microorganisms will use the soil nitrogen for their own growth to finish the decomposing process. Your garden plants won’t get what they need.

What time of the year should I compost my garden?

There are two schools of thought as to when it is best to put compost on your garden.  My father was an avid gardener and fertilized his garden soil with compost in the fall.  He would spread out a layer of compost an inch or so thick and let it sit over the winter. When the snow melted in the spring, the moisture carried the nutrients down into the ground. Others put compost on their garden beds 2-3 weeks before they are planted. A thin layer is sprinkled on the soil and then it is worked into the ground.  I’m not sure either method is a preferred method. I think whatever works best for the gardener is in order.

How often should I compost?

Compost continues to break down and decompose in your garden. Eventually, the soil will again be depleted of some of the necessary nutrients.  If you live in northern climates, this will happen about every two years.  If you live in the south where it is warmer year-round, this can happen in a year.  I would recommend that you compost according to your climate. Here in the upper Midwest, we compost every other year.

In addition to composting, you can keep vital nutrients in your garden soil by using crop rotation. Learn about how to rotate crops in a vegetable garden in this post.

Composting is a great way to recycle garbage that you would otherwise throw away. This free “black gold” is also a jackpot of nutrients for your garden plants and an excellent addition for growing organic crops.  You won’t be relying on the chemical fertilizers that pollute our soil and groundwater, and you will be saving money. Win-win-win-win!

Do you have composting suggestions? Let me know below!