Making your own compost at home is a particularly useful way to reduce the amount of waste you are putting in your bin which is sent to landfill, and is excellent for nourishing your garden.
There are many types of home compost bins available from major retailers from standard compost bins to larger ones such as the ‘Green Cone’ and the ‘Green Johana’ which are designed to digest raw and/or cooked food waste. These types of home composters can be a little more labour intensive than a standard compost bin as the Green Cone in particular must be dug into your soil instead of sitting on the ground surface. Other ways of building home composters include tying pallets together to contain the material which will break down into compost and the usual compost heap in the back garden. All work to varying degrees.
A Quick Guide To Home Composting
Making your own compost can:
- Help protect your local environment
- Save you money
- Save on natural resources
- Help your garden grow naturally.
Up to 25% of the average bin is kitchen and garden waste that could have been composted. Home composting is a good way to divert your kitchen waste away from being buried at the landfill site and put it to use in your garden instead. Compost is easy to make and easy to use. It will improve light, dry and sandy soils as well as heavy, clay soils and can be used almost anywhere on the garden. Using a fork, simply dig it into the top 15cm of the soil or just spread it to cover the soil. You can also use your compost to feed your lawn or top up tubs, planters and baskets.
You will find that the amount of household waste that you produce should be greatly reduced when you start composting. A third of the average dustbin is taken up with potentially compostable materials - two thirds, if you include paper and cardboard.
For more information on composting, download the Composting at home guide (623KB .pdf document).
How Can I Make Compost?
- Put your composter in the garden on bare soil. This allows solid micro-organisms to penetrate the compost. Composters can be paced on concrete but they should then have a layer of soil or existing compost on the bottom to allow worms to gather
- Placing the composter in the sun will increase the temperature inside the unit, and thus accelerate the composting proces
- To ensure good circulation within the composter, it is advisable to place a layer of twigs, cut flowers or remains of house plants at the bottom of the unit
- Add your garden trimmings, dead flowers etc. to your composter as they become available. A mix of green and brown waste is best. Green waste is soft, wet materials such as grass cuttings. Brown waste is harder, drier material such as branches. Try your best to add equal volumes of both types of materials
- If you want your composting process speeded up, add some soil or some finished compost. Young nettles are an excellent compost accelerator
- Composting works best if you add a lot of materials at once. Try and chop up larger items into small pieces before adding them to the unit. These smaller items will be composted faster than large ones. Try to ensure your compost is moist, but not wet. When squeezed in your hands a few drops of water should be produced. If you find it is too dry, add water, and cover and add more dry material if it is too wet
- If you continue to add a good mixture of materials you should have a good quality finished product to use on your garden
- Finished compost can take between 6 and 18 months to form depending on the type of materials used. If when removing your compost for use, you find some uncomposted material, just put it back into your composter and start the process again.
Important Points:
- When considering what you can compost, bear in mind that anything that was once living can be composted apart from coal.
- If you find you can't use the compost you produce, give it away to gardener friends, neighbours or the nearest allotment society.
- Composting does NOT attract pests such as rats and mice as long as you ensure that no cooked food waste is going in to the compost bin.
- Your compost heap should not smell. If it does it is lacking in air and should be stirred. Stirring is a useful activity for composting as it speeds up the process.
What Can Be Composted?
- Grass cuttings and Soft hedge clippings.
- Old plants.
- Uncooked vegetable waste.
- Tea bags.
- Egg shells.
- Fallen leaves.
- Weeds (avoid persistent weeds and weeds in seed).
- Shredded paper and torn card.
Do NOT Compost
- Coal or Coal ash.
- Cat litter/dog excrement.
- Cooked food such as left over's.
- Cheese, Meat or any material prepared with meat.
- Plate scrapings (raw or cooked).
- Fish.
For more information on composting, download the Composting at home guide (623KB .pdf document) or visit the following websites:
The Association for Organics Recycling
Guide to home composting
Recycle Now - In The Garden
