Sometimes it seems it is a complex scientific venture to run a compost site.
You surely heard about compost recipes, compost starters, compost nutrients,
temperatures, enzymes and so on. Although all of this is part of the composting
process, you don't need to know about it at all.
Compost simply happens. Like in a forest, where all the leaves on the ground
decay and turn into compost, nature's helpers are already there when you start
your compost site: microorganisms that eat the organic material and turn it
into compost.
The first thing to do here is to choose the type of compost
site you want to use. Please refer to the composter types
section for a selection of composters.
After you put up the composter of your choice, you start filling it with organic
materials. The following section deals with the 'stacking' types of composters
like the heap, bin or box. The tumbler is simply operated by filling it with
the right mixture of materials and turning it.
If you don't care about the speed at which your yard clippings and kitchen scraps
compost, all you have to do is to dump some grass clippings, leaves and kitchen
scraps into your composter, mix and cover with an extra layer of leaves or grass
clippings. This keeps the odors inside the composter and keeps insects from eating
and breeding on the kitchen scraps (what they would do if they were left uncovered).
If you care for fast composting of your material, because you need it as a
fertilizer for your garden, please have a look at the compost
recipe section.
Adding material to a composter is easy. Make sure it is a suitable
ingredient for your compost, and just add it to
the material that is already there. To avoid insects and odors, dig food scraps
down a few inches in some covering material like leaves or grass clippings.
Like humans, composters prefer a healthy variety of food to grow and develop
well. Your composter's diet should include about 50 percent 'brown' material
like dead leaves, straw, wood chips and cardboard, 30 percent of 'green' materials like
fresh grass clippings. Humidity should be like a squezzed sponge to make sure the
microorganisms have enough water to survive. But again, if you don't have time
to care for this, just add your material as you have it available, and composting
happens - only slower than the other way.
Composters need oxygen to work. Even though your composter might have ventilation
holes in its walls, the material in it can become very dense during the composting
process and therefore may have bad or no ventilation. To improve on this, simply
turn your compost from time to time, digging it upside-down with a pitchfork or
just digging a hole into it to add new material. This brings new air into the
center of the compost.
If you are concerned about hot composting or if you want to make your compost
in the most effective way, please see the compost recipe
section below.
If your compost site isn't close to your kitchen, or you live somewhere on
the 4th floor, you don't want to walk down to the yard for every little piece
of kitchen scrap. To get around this problem, just get a small trashcan with a
lid. The lid should be airproof (e.g. to screw onto the can), so odors stay
inside. You're placing the organic kitchen waste in the bin for some time and
casually take it down to the compost site.
After mowing your lawn, you might discover that you have more grass clipping
left than fit into your composter. You don't need a new composter in this case -
you have several options here:
There are various recipes to make composting most efficient. Here are only few of them. If you want to get more detailed information about this topic, please have a look at the books in the further information section.
A hot recipe is a recipe that provides optimal nutrition for the microorganisms in your composter. As they generate heat when they are at work, your compost will have a temperature that can by far exceed 30C. Numbers below indicate volume.
This is just an example of what you might add to your composter. Composting happens within any mixture that is not dry or too wet.