How To Compost: Your Complete Guide
Part Three of Gardening 101!
Welcome to part three of our series: Gardening 101!
There’s nothing more satisfying than going outside after a summer rain and smelling the rich earth beneath your feet. Many don’t know that a teaspoon of rich soil contains between 10 million to 1 billion bacteria!
We often hear the word “bacteria” and get scared. After all, aren’t these tiny creatures constantly invading our bodies, making us sick, and hurting our immune systems? That may be true, but bacteria do much more than cause infection.
Bacteria in the ground are one of the most essential parts of your soil health. Bacteria aid in breaking down organic compounds in the ground, and it also helps bring nutrients to the plant through a process called colonizing. But this bacteria needs to be fed and replenished through decay. Without organic matter, the bacteria slowly die off.
Confused? Don’t worry; that’s why we’re here! We’ll help you understand composting, where to begin, what you should and shouldn’t compost, and how to keep your soil prosperous and teaming with life!
What is Compost?
Compost is a process of recycling organic materials through decomposition. Composting involves adding diverse plant life such as leaves, grass, and other plant cast off to a humid, warm, dark environment to accelerate decay. Most gardeners use composting bins, piles, or composters to create rich soil for their plants.
Composting happens naturally all over the world every single day. Humans don’t need to be involved, but we can use this fantastic process to our advantage!
When leaves fall in the forest around the trunks of trees, they slowly decompose and replenish the soil. These decaying leaves also serve to feed worms, grubs, and mushrooms. Without this decaying matter, the lifecycle would suffer. Bacteria in the decaying compounds feed new life and prevent harmful bacteria from growing and harming development.
Humans can create optimal environments for speeding up decay and making rich soil in weeks instead of months. When I was little, my mother started a fenced-in compost pile in a wet area of our backyard. While this was great, it wasn’t as good as our compost bin, which my mom later won at the local fairgrounds.
Compost piles are an excellent choice if you have the space and time. Usually, my family would collect compostable materials throughout the year, put it in the fenced pile, and wait a year to add them to our gardens. This means you must keep the process going to have soil for each new season.
Composters and compost bins are more expensive but work a lot faster. You can make your own compost bin, which we will discuss in detail below, but first, we’ll discuss how these systems work.
What Are Compost Piles?
Compost piles are the simplest type of composting system. You can add grass, leaves, and kitchen scraps to a pile in your backyard someplace far from your house. However, keeping a fence around your pile is a good idea to prevent it from washing away in the rain.
As briefly described above, this is the simplest type of composting system. Choose a dirt patch in your backyard that gets partial sun and shade, and add organic matter.
You should start with leaves and grass to have a solid base. Believe me; you don’t want coffee grinds and eggshells washing all over your lawn every time it rains.
Compost piles take longer than other composting systems to make soil. You should give your compost a year before adding it to your garden (if you live in areas with seasons).
My family kept two compost piles to rotate them every spring. We’d start our new compost pile in New Jersey in late February once the ground thawed. We’d use our old compost pile when April rolled around to create our gardens. But our new compost pile wouldn’t be ready until the following year.
What Are Compost Bins?
Compost bins are usually made of sturdy black plastic. They have a lid to encourage humidity and heat, which helps accelerate the decomposition process. While there are specially designed bins, gardeners can also use wooden crates or garbage cans.
There are several advantages to having a compost bin over a compost pile, including containing the smell! Decaying organic matter smells bad, let’s be honest. However, a compost bin helps keep the odor under control, making it the ideal system if you live in an urban or suburban area.
Compost bins also create rich soil quicker than compost piles. For example, after we got a compost bin, our compost was ready within 2–3 months. Compost decomposes faster in hot months, but keeping the compost in the bin all year is a great idea.
Compost bins utilize the humidity and moisture of the environment to breed bacteria and enzymes. These bacteria and enzymes create nutrient-rich soil that colonizes the roots of your garden and ensure they have plenty of oxygen and minerals.
You don’t need a fancy compost bin. You can use an old trash can or a feeding trough (as long as you cover the trough with a piece of metal, wood, or plastic). However, store-bought bins are a good choice if you can afford one since they’re optimized to improve your compost and its quality.
What Are Electrical Composters?
Electrical composters are automatic composting bins that use heat and grinders to break down materials. These bins usually sit on kitchen counters or floors and make a convenient method for disposing of kitchen scraps. These systems are the quickest but are also the most expensive and don’t make as much soil as a bin or compost pile.
There are several excellent benefits to using an electric composter. They’re clean, don’t smell, break down compounds in a few hours, and are convenient.
Most electric composters utilize heat, reaching temperatures of 160 degrees Fahrenheit, to rapidly break down compounds. Once the substances decompose, the composter moves them to a grinder, turning the compounds into healthy dirt.
They’re very convenient and can turn food scraps into dirt within 48 hours (depending on the types of compostable matter you add to your composter). Some composters can decompose material in as little as five hours!
The main downside of these systems is the price. High-rated composters can cost upwards of $300.00 on Amazon. Although they make excellent tools and cut down on time, stench, and effort.
What Should You Put in Your Compost?
You should use food scraps, leaves, grass clippings, and mulch in your compost. Eggshells, coffee grinds, vegetable cuttings, and other food scraps add a lot of diverse nutrients to your soil and provide magnesium, potassium, and other micronutrients. However, you also want to add soil and water to ensure material breakdown properly.
The best way to start your compost pile or bin is to add many leaves and grass clippings. These create an excellent starter at the bottom of your bin and attract worms and grubs, which help improve the nutrients and decomposition.
However, you should also add veggies, fruits, and other food scraps. Eggshells are a great option since they’re rich in calcium. Calcium is vital for plant growth and water retention in the roots, so don’t throw those shells away!
Coffee grinds are also one of the best things to add to your compost. They’re rich in potassium and nitrogen, essential building blocks for plant health. Also, save celery leaves, carrot skins, apple cores, and other fruit and veggie scraps. All those nutrients in the waste are transferred to the soil, which is then fed to your beautiful garden.
If you have herbivore animals like rabbits, use their droppings! Rabbit droppings and old hay are super good for soil health and decompose quickly!
Are There Any Substances You Should Not Put in Your Compost?
You should never add human waste, meat scraps, carnivore waste, or omnivore waste to your compost. These substances contain harmful pathogens that can transfer to humans and make you very sick. Only industrial composters can use these compounds safely by high-heating and decomposing them for years before using them in industrial farming.
You shouldn’t use human waste because it contains many bacteria and pathogens that don’t break down in the decomposition process. These pathogens are transferable to humans and thus pose an even more significant threat than pathogens in carnivore pets (dogs, cats, etc).
However, you should also avoid using dog, cat, and other carnivore or omnivore pet waste. Most of the pathogens in these animals’ manure are harmful to humans and don’t die in decomposition.
Use herbivore waste like rabbit, horse, and cow manure in your gardens.
Meat should also be avoided along with bones. Not only are there potentially harmful compounds in these substances, but they also attract rodents like rats. Finally, avoid using corn and corn cobs, especially if you live in an urban or suburban neighborhood.
Corn attracts rats and mice, which leads to snakes! Believe me, we made this mistake once before and never went back.
Closing Thoughts: Make the Earth Rich!
Thank you so much for checking out this latest addition to our gardening 101 series! I hope you’re enjoying this series, and I’m excited to branch out and create our gardening quick guides.
Please check out our other articles on our Medium page and let me know your thoughts in the comments. If you have any questions, please post them, and I’ll get back to you within 24 hours.
Look forward to our next article in this series: Weeding Your Garden: Keeping Your Ground Healthy!
