So, you are all excited about home composting! You've decided to do your part in saving up to 45% of your compostable kitchen and yard waste from going to the landfill. Congratulations, and thank you for helping.
I was compost in long before I knew the word composting meant.
My grandma always had a pile of leaves twigs and kitchen scraps out behind the shed.
Granddad had built a compost bin made out of three wooden pallets and some wire to hold everything together. Our family used to refer to this bin as the "PILE". One of my chores as a child was to take the kitchen scraps every evening and throw them on the pile.
Country tips:
Your compost pile is not a trash pile, and one way to help people clearly understand the difference between the two is with an enclosure -- a compost bin. The ideal bin retains heat and moisture, is easy to fill and empty, and fends off them pesky raccoons, stray dogs, and other animals.
Here on this website I'm going to give you loads of information about how to easily compost at home. Whether you skipped the basics or not, there is nothing like that feeling of wanting to get a compost pile going.
Making your own compost is probably the simplest way to ensure high quality compost and save some money. It's really not as complicated as you may think: The many commercial composting bins and containers on the market make it a mess-free and hassle-free process.
A well-constructed compost pile -- built with the proper dimensions and maintained correctly -- heats up fast; decomposes uniformly and quickly; kills many diseases, insects, and weed seeds; doesn't smell; and is easy to turn and maintain. In my opinion, a pile just thrown together rarely heats up and, isn't really all that worthwhile. This type of cold composting doesn't kill any diseases, insects, or weed seeds; may smell bad; and definitely looks messy.
Composting at home will require a few tools. Some you may already have in your wood shed or garage; other tools are more specialized to composting and you might want to consider acquiring them later.
Here's some basic items necessary to easily compost at home:
A compost bin (manufactured or homemade) to hold the organic material you are composting.
- A garden hose with spray nozzle to moisten your pile.
- A shovel or pitchfork to place waste material into the bin.
- A compost aerator to turn your compost (a shovel or pitchfork will do, but they are labor-intensive; good luck using them in the popular manufactured bins with smaller top openings)
- A kitchen scraps pail (and possibly a couple of 4-5 gallon buckets in which to stockpile your food scraps before throwing them into the compost bin)
Optional: compost activator, compost thermometer and a PH meter.
Here in the following pages I'm going to be giving you the quick version of two styles of composting in your compost bin: The Add-as-You-Go Compost pile and the Batch Compost pile. Please click on their links to learn more about each method. Of course, there are other ways to compost and you can learn about these our Composting Systems page.
