How to make compost

[DiverDown]

I should have read this first..good information!

Making compost from garden and household waste is one of the best things any gardener can do. It's easy and costs very little in time or effort.

Making compost will help you reduce pollution - cut down that landfill! Your plants will grow healthier and look happier for it. It will save you money on fertilisers too.

What can I compost?

If it can rot it will compost, but some items are best avoided. Some things, like grass mowings and soft young weeds, rot quickly. They work as 'activators' or 'hotter rotters', getting the composting started, but on their own will decay to a smelly mess.

Older and tougher plant material is slower to rot but gives body to the finished compost - and usually makes up the bulk of a compost heap. Woody items decay very slowly; they are best chopped or shredded first, where appropriate.

For best results, use a mixture of types of ingredient.
The right balance is something you learn by experience.

Compost ingredients

Hotter rotters (activators)

1. Comfrey leaves

2. Young weeds

3. Grass cuttings

4. Chicken manure

5. Pigeon manure

Other compostable items

1. Wood ash

2. Cardboard

3. Paper towels & bags

4. Cardboard tubes

5. Egg boxes

A balanced diet

Fruit and vegetable scraps
Tea bags
Coffee grounds
Old flowers
Bedding plants
Old straw & hay
Vegetable plant remains
Strawy manures
Young hedge clippings
Soft prunings
Perennial weeds
Gerbil, hamster & rabbit bedding

Slow cookers-very slow to rot

Autumn leaves
Tough hedge clippings
Woody prunings
Sawdust
Wood shavings

Best avoided

Meat
Fish
Newspaper
Cooked food

Do NOT compost

Coal & coke ash
Cat litter
Dog faeces
Disposable nappies
Glossy magazines

[Blue61]

My first try at composting. I dug a hole in my yard 3 x 4 feet 18" deep and piling stuff in it. Plus I took to 2 layers tall of landscape timbers to box it in and increase the height. Ive been using fruit discards, old coffee grounds, tea bags, banana peels, pineapple shells, lawn mowing clippings eggs shells. Do you need to stir or turn regularly? Can you addplants that die at the end of the summer season? I have a dozen 15 foot banana trees that I cut down to a foot every fall and cover for winter and about 60-70 canna flowers with 5 foot stalks. I have been throwing them away. And that is a lot of material.

You want to water it to keep it moist and turn it over every week or two.

[Ursula694Edwards]

This thread is very useful and informative. Thanks to everyone.