How To Make Your Very Own Compost

If you have never made compost, you should know that it is quite a magical process. This will involve putting plants, leaves, fruits, vegetables, and kitchen scraps in a bin or on a heap. Next, you only have to wait for the multitude of microorganisms to break down into the most basic form.

Mind you, it is not at all complicated. This is a common misconception because there are very few things that you need to buy. After all, you only need carbon, air, organisms, water, and nitrogen to make it work. Composting will be very slow or non-existent if you are missing one of these ingredients.

By creating your own compost, you can convert everything that grows in the garden to compost. Ultimately, this is a circular process that is good for the environment. To create compost, you will need a mix of these two materials:

Brown waste

This includes paper, twigs, wood chips, sawdust, dried leaves, tree bark, and non-laminated cardboard.

Green waste

On the other hand, this refers to grass clippings, animal manure, freshly fallen leaves, and kitchen scraps.

If you want to make high-quality compost, you should act as if it were your diet. The more ingredients there are, the more balanced and nutritious the heap is going to be. You can add pretty much everything from your daily consumption. We personally add tea leaves, scraps, leftovers, coffee grounds, fruit peels, and even eggshells.

Tea and coffee both provide nitrogen, while eggshells are full of calcium. The latter will enhance the construction of plant cell walls. Meanwhile, veggie and fruit peels are rich in carbon.

We have started to avoid excess waste ever since we committed to a sustainable lifestyle. However, you can also use rice, grain, seeds, or flour that have exceeded their sell-by dates. Expired yeast, moldy bread, and freezer-burned veggies and fruits will also do the trick. You might not feel enthusiastic about consuming them any longer, but you can best believe that the microbes will love them. This is also a good way to ensure that waste products will go to good use.

If you plan to create an outdoor compost heap, it is important to turn the pile over now and then. We recommend a pitchfork since it allows you to lift chunks of ingredients and pierce through the materials. This is ideal since you want to keep the clumps light and aerated.