Composting Made Easy

Whether you have a large garden, a small yard, or only a few window boxes, good, fertile soil is essential for growing beautiful flowers and vegetables. But depending on where you live, good soil may be sparse and also be quite expensive. So it makes sense to take advantage of an ancient technique to create your very own garden soil: composting.

Composting turns kitchen and garden waste into fertile new soil. It’s so easy that anyone can do it, it’s safe, and it does not require much space or equipment. In addition, it can keep such a large quantity of organic waste out of our landfill sites, that many local authorities now run composting schemes. Along with instructions and advice, you may even be able to pick up a free compost bin, so it’s worth checking it out.

Compost bins make a sensible addition to any garden and come in many shapes, sizes and finishes. If you have some spare wood and are handy with a hammer, you can quickly create your own wooden frame and line it with overlapping planks to create an open wooden box. All you need then is a wooden lid or heavy-duty plastic cover for the top. If DIY is not your strength, both wooden and plastic compost bins are relatively inexpensive and can be purchased in any good hardware or garden store.

Bin sizes vary. A 4 feet (1.2m) tall bin will be fine for a family of 4. If you have a large garden, mow your own lawn, and prune your own trees and hedges, then choose a larger bin, as all the garden waste quickly adds up. Place the bin in a sheltered corner that you can access easily from the kitchen. If you have to trudge across a muddy lawn in the dark, you may not use it as much for disposing of your kitchen waste.

Fill the bin with ‘green’ and ‘brown’ waste in a ratio of 2:1. Green waste includes raw fruit and vegetable peelings, grass clippings, leaves, plant cuttings, tea bags, coffee grounds including the filter paper and eggshells, while sawdust, straw, shredded paper, animal bedding and wood (i.e. tree pruning waste) make up the ‘brown’ components of your bin.

Cooked food, meat and fish, used nappies /diapers, pet litter, perennial weeds, ashes and treated or varnished woods should not be added to your compost bin.

Fill the bin as you go along. It makes for better soil if you can balance the contents of your compost bin. As bacteria, beetles, and worms go to work to break down its contents, the bin will warm up. The contents of the bin will collapse and appear to shrink. This process can be very rapid in the summer, but will slow down in the winter months, especially during a cold snap. If you add too much green waste at once, for example all your lawn clippings, the bin can overheat and ‘weep’. To prevent this, always mix in some tree bark, hedge clippings, or even shredded paper with your green waste. That way, your bin will stay healthy and produce good quality, light soil.

Once you have been feeding your compost bin for 6-9 months, it will have become quite full and the contents will no longer collapse a long way down. When you touch the outside of the bin, it feels warm towards the middle, but cooler at the bottom. This indicates that there is a layer of soil at the bottom ready to be removed. Open the door at the bottom of your compost bin, if you have a wooden one remove one of the lower planks, and check the state of the new soil. It’s ready when it’s dark and crumbly and does not contain too many large bits of wood or identifiable components. Remove the soil carefully from the bottom upwards until you see the quality deteriorate visibly, i.e. there will suddenly be egg shells, tea bags and bits of tree or hedge in the mix. Stop there.

Close the bin up again and give it a shake or stir the contents up with a gardening fork to add some air. Then carry on composting.

The ‘harvested’ soil makes good mulch for all flower and vegetable beds. Just dig it in lightly and let your garden get to work.

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