By: james ellison

Compost, made from decomposed grass clippings, leaves, twigs, and branches, becomes a dark, crumbly mixture of organic matter.

Learn how composting works. Even a newbie to composting can make good quality compost. It can be compared to cooking as art or part science. The following 7 factors will help you master the art of composting.

1. Materials

After a time anything that was once alive will naturally decompose. But, not all organic items should be composted for the home. To prepare compost, organic material, microorganisms, air, water, and a small amount of nitrogen are needed.

These items are safe to compost at home:

* grass clippings

* trimmings from hedges

* vegetable scraps

* leaves

* potting soil that has grown old

* twigs

* coffee filters with coffee grounds

* tea bags

* weeds that have not went to seed

* plant stalks

These items are Not safe to compost at home:

* weeds that have went to seed

* dead animals

* pet feces

* bread and grains

* meat

* grease

* cooking oil

* oily foods

*diseased plants

2. What To Do To Make It Work

There are small forms of plant and animal life which break down the organic material. This life is called microorganisms. From a minute amount of garden soil or manure comes plenty of microorganisms.

Nitrogen, air, and water will provide a favorable environment for the microorganisms to make the compost. Air circulation and water will keep the microorganisms healthy and working. The nitrogen feeds the tiny organisms. You may have to add a small amount of nitrogen to the pile.

Putting on too much nitrogen can kill microbes and too much water causes insufficient air in the pile. You just cannot add too much air.

3. Beneficial Microorganisms

Bacteria are the most effective compost makers in your compost pile. They are the first to break down plant tissue. Then comes the fungi and protozoans to help with the process. The arthropodes, like centipedes, beetles, millipedes and worms, bring in the finishing touches to complete the composting.

4. Smaller is Better

The materials will break down faster if the microorganisms have more surface area to eat. Chopping your garden materials with a chipper, shredder, or lawnmower will help them decompose faster.

5. Size of The Pile

The activity of millions of microorganisms generates heat in the compost pile but a minimum size 3-foot by 3-foot by 3-foot is needed for a hot, fast composting pile. Piles that are any larger may hamper the air supply needed in the pile for the microorganisms.

6. Moisture and Aeration

If you can imagine a wet squeezed out sponge with its many air pockets, then this would be the ideal enviroment for the microorganisms in the pile to function at their best. Pay attention while your pile is composting, to the amount of rain or a drought you may have. Water in a drought and maybe turn the pile in a lot of rainy days. The extremes of these two may upset the balance of the pile. The use of a pitchfork would come in handy at this time.

7. Temperature and Time

Keep your pile between 110F and 160F and the beneficial bacteria will love it. Not too cool nor too hot.

The temperature will rise over several days if you keep a good ratio of carbon and nitrogen, maintain lots of surface area within a large volume of material, and maintain adequate moisture and aeration.

-Importance of Compost-

+Compost has nutrients, but it is not a complete fertilizer.

+Compost provides nutrients in the soil until plants need to use them.

+ It loosens and aerates clay soils

+ Retains water in sandy soils.

-Using the Compost-

+ A soil amendment, mix 2 to 5 inches of compost into gardens each year before planting.

+ A potting mixture, add one part compost to two parts potting soil.

+ Make your own potting mixture by using equal parts of compost and sand or perlite.

+ A mulch, prodcast 2 to 4 inches of compost around annual flowers and vegetables, and up to 5 inches around your trees and shrubs.

+ A top dressing, mix finely sifted compost with sand and sprinkle evenly over lawns.

The final thing I would suggest once you have mastered the art of composting is to look very seriously at making your very own aerated compost tea. This elixir will give you results that are hard to believe.

qwerty asked:


i’m thinking about using coffee grounds…what other choices do i have?

By: James Monahan

Compost is a mixture of decaying organic matter used to improve soil structure, and provide nutrients.

Examples of compost are a mixture of leaves, twigs, branches, grass clippings, yard waste and manure. Anything that was once alive will naturally crumble and will become easy to use for composting.

Composting is a great way to trim down wastes, get wet garbage out of the can and make use out of it, have a free product for your garden and nurture the earth.

A compost pile consists of a large number of microorganisms. These microorganisms process the mixtures and produce compost. To make sure your compost is full of nutrients, there should be two vital parts involved. Nitrogen-rich materials and carbon-rich materials help you produce composts instantly.

There are a variety of materials that could be used for your compost mixture. Coffee filters, coffee grounds and teabags will not be wasted and thrown into the garbage. Leaves, plant branches, grass trimmings, vegetable and fruit scraps would be placed to use in the mixture of your compost.

Dead animals, pet manure and diseased plants are materials that cannot be placed into your mixture because it may cause infection. Bread grains, meat and fish parts, dairy and oily products would not decompose by itself in any way you try.

Composts could be used for maintenance of plants, gardens and lawns, but it is not an alternate for fertilizers. Compost maintains nutrients in the ground which plants make use of; it loosens clay soils and preserves water in sandy soils. There are several uses for compost. These are the following:

1. Composts could be used for soil improvement. Because composts contain nutrients, it serves as sustenance for the plants. By mixing compost into your garden once a year, it would enhance the growth of your plants.

2. Composts could be used as a potting mixture. By transferring the plants into a container, these may serve as supplement to the soil.

3. Composts could be used as mulch. Mulch mixed with compost could help with water maintenance in the soil and could lead to prevention of slugs and snails. Mulch also preserve soil heat and keeps it from escaping, which would eventually look after root systems.

4. Composts could be used as decoration. In gardening and anything relating to soil, these mixtures could serve as a top dressing over your lawn.

There are a number of easy ways to produce composts.

First is the open air composting. To keep the mixture of piles organized and out of reach from animals and children, place the compost mixture in bins and water it occasionally to produce moisture.

The mixture would decompose by itself and the only thing you would do is harvest it once or twice a year, depending on the decomposing process.

For an area where decomposing odor is restricted, closed air composting is right for you. Closed bins which are made of wood, metal or old fences could be used.

Simply place the mixture inside the bin and check to see if the water and mixture is equally distributed. Add more water if the mixture dries out. Add dry mixture if the compost becomes damp. Harvesting of compost may be once or twice a year.

The most effortless method in recycling organic mixtures at home is grass cycling. By leaving all the leaves and cut grass on the lawn, it would decompose by itself in time.

Start to make use of garbage. Make your own home-made composts while preserving the earth.

rrpece asked:


Even if it is a bleached filter? Or should I switch to non-bleached filters in order to compost them.

By: Vicki Duong

Not too many people realize it, but composting is one of the best ways to return your resources back into the earth. In a way, composting is our way of saying thank you to Mother Earth for providing us with the resources needed to feed ourselves and our families. Simply put, composting is a lot like recycling, except you don’t take your reusable goods to a recycling center, but rather you put it in a compost bin or tumbler and back into your garden.

Let’s start with a common scenario for households of two or more. In the beginning, there was food, and it was good. Fruits and vegetables were abundant, but so were the leftovers and food scraps. Instead of tossing all the food scraps into the trash where it would take up unneeded space in landfills, why not recycle it all back into the earth? Food scraps are easy enough to compost because there’s always such an abundance of it lying around, so what have you got to lose other than the scraps themselves?

Always consider what you can and cannot compost. For instance, it’s strongly advised to never, ever compost bones, meat and dairy products, fats and oils since they take too long to decompose or won’t decompose properly at all, smell really foul after half a day, and they attract all sorts of critters and wildlife. Unfortunately, not everything can be composted; I would recommend that you toss the aforementioned items in your trash and properly dispose of them. Veggie stalks, fruit rinds, apple cores and even coffee grounds are the goodies you want to compost. You wouldn’t think it, but coffee grounds are great for the composting process since they’re rich in nitrogen and aid in adding heat to your compost pile.

We know that composting is great for the earth, but why and how? Well, if you think about it, composting cuts out a lot of costs. You would be saving a lot of money on water and garbage bills just by making free natural and organic soil fertilizer for your garden and houseplants. And did I mention it would improve the vitality of your soil? By returning nutrients back into the soil that will be released over the course of a couple years, you would be maximizing the growth and health of your plants and veggies. The soil itself would also have improved aeration and drainage. And even if you’re not an avid gardener, composting takes very little of your time and like I’ve mentioned before, what have you got to lose other than your food scraps?

*Special thanks to C. Forrest McDowell, PhD and Tricia Clark-McDowell for their compost guide Home Composting Made Easy, available on Cortesia Press.