abbyjay asked:


Hey anyone know of any link for buiginners concerning at home composting? And can dog poop go in there???

By: MIKE SELVON

There are many instances when homeowners choose not to get started with backyard composting because of the perception that it is hard to do correctly. In reality, you just need to collect the basic organic materials, find a place for the compost heap and then allow nature to take over the task. But, there are some basic guidelines to keep in mind that can help make the whole process move forward without a hitch.

There are a number of different types of compost bins on the market that you can use to help manage and contain your compost. But, a special bin is not a requirement that is needed to accomplish successful composting, but more of a convenience. It is easy enough to build your own bin for your pile and simply cover it over with a sheet of polythene or chunk of cardboard.

Some people, however, prefer to have their compost heap more contained and neat in appearance and to have it easier to manage as well. If that is the case, then compost bins can be a good solution.

These special bins are easy enough to find online or at local stores that sell organic gardening tools and supplies. Some local municipalities also have compost bins available at a reduced cost to encourage people to recycle their organic waste.

Making a compost is as simple as adding your organic items that are compostable on a regular basis. Any waste product that was at one time a living thing will compost, or decompose, but some items are not recommended to be thrown into your pile. Meats, dairy foods and cooked foods will end up attracting pests and vermin so these should not be used in your home composting efforts.

Dead and decaying leaves, lawn clippings, manure, and kitchen waste such as rinds, peelings, coffee grounds and even eggshells can be added to it. Older, thicker and tougher plant materials are slower to decompose but they benefit the compost by providing more substance, or body, to the finished product. These heavier materials usually comprise most of a compost pile.

Wood items take a long time to decompose. Whenever possible it is best to shred, chip or chop wood materials to help accelerate the rotting process. However, as long as they are mixed in with other materials that decompose faster they will still provide some benefit to the process overall.

In general it is best to have fairly equal amounts of what is called brown material and green material in it. Brown materials are the manures, dead leaves, small twigs and cardboard and newspapers. Green materials include hedge and grass clippings, coffee grounds, fruit rinds and uncooked vegetables.

You only need to have about one foot of organic material to get your compost heap started. In most instances, just mowing the yard and weeding your flowerbeds and vegetable garden will give you enough to begin. If needed, then you can also add organic kitchen waste and newspaper, and even a little straw if you are coming up short of the one foot level.

Once things get piled up, nature will take over and the decomposition process will start. It is good to turn the heap about every two weeks and within four to six months you will have a nice compost of waste materials that will give a boost to your soil.

By: Douglas Hill

The concept of composting has been around for quite a long time in the forests. Leaves fall to the forest floor, decompose, and their nutrients will be absorbed back into the trees through the roots. Farmers and Gardeners have been taking advantage of the nutrient rich by product from this decomposition for thousands of years and you can too.

Composting is a great way to add nutrients to your garden or potting soil. Not only is it good for your garden and plants, it also is a good way for you to help reduce your overall garbage going to the dump. There are no hard and fast rules in what you should do your composting in. In fact you could do it in a pile in the yard, although it will probably not be well accepted by the rest of your family. While you can go out and buy a commercially sold unit that will do well for all your composting needs, I prefer to save a few bucks and build one myself.

The real hero’s in the world of composting are the fungi, bacteria, worms and other insects that will take your yard and kitchen waste and turn it into the black gold you want for your pots and garden. Now it is in your best interest to keep these guys in good conditions so they can digest the food you give them. Their basic requirements are just like you and I, they are food, water, and air. If you want to help these insects and microbes along, keep your compost in a nice cool corner of your yard.

To better understand these basic needs for your compost let’s start with the food. Essentially there are two types of food. There are the brown foods that include straw, autumn leaves, wood chips/sawdust, and dead plant material. These materials mainly consist of long chains of sugar molecules that the microbes digest and use as a source of energy. There are also the greens such as green grass and weeds, kitchen fruit and vegetables, coffee grounds, and tea bags. These materials have a lot more nitrogen in them than the browns. This nitrogen in your compost pile acts as a source of protein to all those microbes for them to feed off of as well.

The next part is the air. It is very important to get good airflow into your pile. The microbes you want to decompose your pile cannot do this without air. If there is no air supply then other microbes will move in. They will also do the job but they work a lot slower and tend to make the compost smell like rotten garbage. So unless you want your backyard to smell like the city dump you will have it “fluff” your pile. “Fluffing” your pile is easily done with a spade or a garden fork. You will have to completely break it apart and then pile it back together leaving it in a “Fluffy” condition.

Some “food” like grass clippings or wet leaves will sit heavy on the pile and not allow good air flow through that portion of the pile. You should mix this sort of ingredient into the pile to avoid a spot that won’t decompose very easily. Straw is a great ingredient to add to your compost because unlike grass they will not mat down into slimy layers and add to the airflow.

Water is the last important ingredient in your compost. This is where it gets a little tricky. You need to get the water just right to aid and not hinder the work of the microbes. Too wet and the pile gets too heavy and the airflow gets cut off to the middle of the pile. Too dry and the microbes will not be able to break down the waste as easily. Ideally you want to get every particle wet but not saturated. In wet climates you may need a lid or a tarp to avoid saturation.

Having a good mix of the greens and browns is a good thing for a few reasons. Not only does it supply all your little microbes with a good diet, but it also helps in airflow since the browns are dry and “light” and the greens are wet and “heavy”.

By: Chris Dailey

People that live in the cities are more than likely not going to believe that they have the option of growing their very own compost from within the confines of their home. If gardening is a hobby of yours, yet you believe that you could not garden from your apartment or house, let me help you change your mind. By purchasing a few containers at your local convenience store and creating your very own home composting system that can be set up in your closet, you will be well on your way to achieving your gardening dream in your urban area no matter where you live. Here is a simple solution that will show you how to create a composting system in your home.

The first thing that you will need is some kind of a space in your house that you do not regularly access that can be used for storage of one or two containers. These containers will be like large Tupperware containers, about 1 foot tall, by 18 inches high, by two feet in length. In these containers you will place a sizable amount of dirt, some composting material which we will talk about later, newspaper, water, and some red worms.

The other thing you will need is an ample source of organic material that either comes from your neighbors across the hallway or street, or, if you have a large family, right from your kitchen table. If you are a coffee drinker, all the better. You can use coffee grounds, your uneaten food scraps, and your daily newspaper to get yourself started.

The first thing you will need to do is line the bottom of your large containers with some newspaper. Next, you will need to add some soil or bedding makes with some kind of organic food scraps and perhaps a little peat moss. This should come up about halfway to the top of the container. Next, you will want to add to red worms. Make sure they are covered slightly by a layer of wet bedding and then on top of that add your organic waste. You will also want to add supplemental moisture if the bedding is too dry (it should resemble a wet, wrung out sponge) and mix the soil up a bit with your hand in order to get proper aeration throughout the soil for the worms.

Before you take your containers into your storage area, make sure that you have punched holes in various areas of the container near the top and on the lid so that the worms have air. You already ran your fingers or some kind of instrument through the soil to loosen it up so that the aerobic breakdown of organics may begin. Once you have done that, take your container or containers into the room you have created for them, and let the process began.

The type of organic waste you should put on top should be something like egg shells for calcium, beans for protein, and common vegetable scraps that you could not finish. You should never add any kind of dairy products such as cheese or yogurt and never add any meat products, oils, and fats. Allow two to three weeks for the worms to process the food and add some more at that point, always remembering to aerate the dirt.

You will notice after a few weeks that bedding and scraps have begun to change into a soft and moist consistency and that after a few months, depending on your worm population and initial amount of worms, you should be able to process a sizable bag of worm generated compost that you can use in your garden or containers that you have purchased if you have decided to grow more food in your home. This would make sense because you are creating fertilizer within your home and this would simply be a process of waste transformation.

Once done, you may notice that you have a few more worms. Over time, you may want to increase the size of your home composting system and upgrade to four containers to produce twice as much. Using the same set of guidelines, do the process over again. The only thing you will need is an excess source of organic waste in order to perpetuate this process.

Home composting can be done outside but then it would not technically be composting within your home. By using portable bins that are easily stackable, you could utilize an unused room of your home and actually begin your own composting business. As the process continues, it will not have any negative effects because nothing smells bad and everything is processed in an aerobic manner if done properly.

More than likely, the home composting idea has limitations based upon the amount of space you have and your goals as far as growing crops or plants within the home. You will probably only need a few bins to sustain enough compost for yourself on an annual basis and therefore it is more of a hobby than a business.

If you decide to expand your home composting into a monetizeable scenario, you will definitely need to move everything into the garage and make sure that the temperature stays around 70 degrees so that the breeding and processing that the worms must do may continue outside of the confines of the home. Either way, it is a fun activity that helps the environment and will also generate excess compost or cash for you.

By: Ellen Bell

Have you heard of composting, but just aren\’t sure what it means?  Not sure why how compost can benefit you?  If you haven\’t started composting at home yet, now is the time!  Home composting is more than just a growing trend among gardeners, it\’s a great way to recycle your kitchen scraps and yard refuse into something you can use-compost!

So what is compost and why is it so beneficial?  Compost is a fresh black material similar in appearance and texture to potting soil.  It is produced naturally when organic material breaks down and decays (a process also known as composting).  The resulting compost is rich in nutrients that plants love, making it one of the best types of fertilizer you can use.  Compost, also known as black gold, can be tilled into the soil before trees, shrubs, or other plants are planted.  It can also be applied to the soil around existing plants.  Compost will help plants grow bigger, faster, and stronger than you ever thought possible.

Better yet, composting is a way to recycle!  We all know that recycling is the right thing to do.  The more items we can keep out of our landfills, the better.  And after all, why throw away things that you can turn into valuable compost?  Simple things like vegetable peelings, dead leaves from your trees, and plant clippings can all be turned into compost.  It just makes sense to recycle these things into compost rather than throwing them away.

So how do you get started with home composting?  Well, first you need to decide what type of composting you want to do.  There are two basic types of composting, aerobic and anaerobic.  Anaerobic composting refers to methods such as a compost pile.  Compost piles are one of the easiest methods of composting.  They require little effort and virtually no maintenance.  Simply pick a spot in your yard (preferably far away from your house; keep reading and we\’ll explain why) and begin a pile of the organic materials to be composted.  Sounds easy, right?  While anaerobic composting is easy, there are also some downsides.  First is the length of time required.  The microbes that break materials down in anaerobic composting are very inefficient.  When you pile things up in a compost pile, it can take several years for them to fully break down and become finished compost.  The second problem is the odor produced.  Many people think of composting as a smelly process, and when it comes to anaerobic composting, they are correct.  Anaerobic bacteria produce methane and sulfate gasses as a byproduct of the composting process, and these are gasses that we find very offensive and smelly.

Aerobic composting, on the other hand, is an entirely different process.  Just like the name would suggest, aerobic composting requires oxygen, meaning that the organic materials being broken down must be aerated regularly.  A compost pile can be mixed and turned regularly to encourage aerobic bacteria; however, this is often a difficult and labor-intense process.  The easiest way to compost materials aerobically is to buy a compost tumbler.  Compost tumbler bins are designed to be rotated, so that the aerobic microbes get the oxygen they need to create finished compost.  In contrast to anaerobic bacteria, aerobic microbes are very efficient and quick.  A compost tumbler, under the right temperature and moisture conditions, can usually produce finished compost within about 6 weeks.  Even better yet, aerobic bacteria do not produce smelly gasses like anaerobic bacteria, meaning that aerobic composting is a virtually odorless process.  Compost tumbler bins can be easily purchased through many online and mail order stores.

No matter what type of composting you decide on, home composting is still a great idea.  Not only is composting good for the earth, it\’s also great for your plants and garden.  Plus, you\’ll have the satisfaction of turning garbage and yard waste into something really valuable that you can use.  Home composting isn\’t just for master gardeners anymore, so what are you waiting for?  Start composting today!