Composting is the process of recycling organic matter, like food scraps, leaves, and grass clippings, into essential fertilizers to enrich the soil. In essence, it simply speeds up the natural decomposing process by providing a perfect environment for fungi, bacteria, and other organisms to do their job, resulting in a nutrient-dense garden soil called compost.
Every gardener should consider composting due to its immediate advantages by feeding their soil with one of nature’s best fertilizers. It may not be the most glamorous thing to do, but compost is your secret ingredient to healthier plants.
Best Composting Tips You Should Try at Home
Compost delivers unparalleled benefits to plants in your garden, restoring vitality to depleted soil and enhancing plant growth. Plus, it’s free, good for the environment, and easy to make. But when in doubt, consider the following composting tips for beginners you can try so you don’t make compost pile mistakes.
Choose the right type of composting for you
You can make compost both outdoors and indoors, and it can be as straightforward or as complicated as you’d like. But remember that the best type of home composting depends on various factors, including your space, the kind and amount of organic waste your produce, and how much time you can spend on the process.
Generally, the main types of backyard composting are passive or cold composting and active or hot composting.
- Cold composting requires minimal effort and maintenance. But since it breaks down organic materials slowly, it may take longer than hot composting before you can use the compost in your garden.
- Hot composting, on the other hand, is faster and requires more intervention on your part. It needs to be managed to keep nitrogen and carbon in the optimal ratio for decomposing organic wastes. It must also have the perfect balance of water and air to attract essential organisms that thrive in an environment rich in oxygen.
Make sure there’s enough diversity
Plan the ingredients you will include in your compost. You don’t want to put the same things in there, or it will be uniform microbes and nutrients. It requires combining the right materials and including key elements to yield the best results, such as:
Browns
The term ‘brown’ is used to refer to carbon-rich organic matters for composting, which include dry or woody plant materials, such as dead leaves, twigs, branches, and even paper. Carbon serves as a food source for microbes and fungi, so they remain alive while breaking down waste.
Greens
These refer to fresh organic materials you can add to your compost piles, such as grass clippings or plant trimmings, coffee grounds, and food scraps. Greens are rich in nitrogen, which is a valuable element for plant reproduction and growth. Having a sufficient amount of greens in your compost pile ensures that decomposing microbes have enough protein sources to speed up the decomposition process.
Note that a healthy compost pile requires a correct ratio of two to four parts brown materials for each part of green organic matter.
Water and oxygen
For a faster and more effective composting process, you’ll need to make sure that decomposers have enough water and oxygen to thrive in your compost system. The bacterial and other microorganisms, which are the real workers in the decomposition process, will need oxygen to support the breakdown of plant materials.
The wetness should be comparable to a wrung-out sponge, so it shouldn’t be too dry or too wet either. If your compost pile to be too dry, the organic matter will decompose longer and very slowly.
If it’s too wet, it may create an anaerobic environment, resulting in foul odor and slowing down the process. To solve this, you will have to add dry browns or mix the materials thoroughly.
Turn your compost pile
Aeration is necessary not only for your lawn but also to ensure that decomposers receive oxygen to convert organic matter into compost. It is also essential to reduce the high moisture content in organic materials and achieve appropriate temperatures for more rapid decomposition.
Turning materials is a common aeration method when composting, especially when it is done in stacks. You can simply perform hand turning in your small home garden, but a mechanical process is often used for large commercial operations.
For home gardeners, you can use a shovel or pitchfork for manual turning or a composting tumbler. It is a sealed container that can be rotated to mix the materials and contain the heat generated during the composting process.
Winter Composting Tips for the Cold Season
There is no need to postpone composting over the winter so that you can fuel your lawn or garden in the spring. The following are some tips on how to care for your compost pile during the cold season:
- Convert your yard waste into nourishing organic matter for the soil by collecting brown materials and kitchen scraps, ensuring the right balance of nitrogen and carbon ingredients.
- Set up a roof or put a lid on your compost pile to protect it from excess water and unwanted precipitation.
- Ensure that your compost pile is three to four feet wide on each side to allow air diffusion and retain the generated heat. Sprinkle water so the material is moist when putting alternating layers on the pile.
- Turn your pile as often as possible and make sure kitchen scraps are finely chopped.
- The microbes in your compost must remain active even in the coldest season, which means they must stay warm. To do this, harvest your completed compost in the fall, so there’s space for new additions over the winter. Place the bin in a warmer part of your garden or yard.
- Reduce pest issues by limiting the amount of food waste you include in your pile over the winter. You can opt for vermicomposting or bokashi composting for a pest-free solution.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt that composting is an excellent way to recycle organic wastes you generate at home. Not only can you protect the environment by discarding less trash, but it also helps improve soil quality for your plants to thrive. By following the tips for composting, you can create nutrient-rich soil for your plants regardless of the season.