compost making

There are hundreds of books and masses of websites out there about compost. Some of them make composting seem halfway between magic and rocket science. It doesn’t need to be so complicated. For example walk into a forest. Go under a few trees. Put your hands into the top couple of inches of soil. Most of what you have in your hands is compost. Trees can make compost. I’m not that smart but I’d back me in the IQ stakes with a tree any day.

You can spend a fortune on special bins, starters, how-to books, additives etc. I have three compost piles which have cost me nothing. I keep my garden well mulched and fertilised with stuff that most people throw away. Here’s how.

First of all you need a bit of space. About a metre square (or a square yard if you are working in old money!). No space? Try an old rubbish bin or barrel. The important thing is that you need to be able to build up a certain volume to generate the heat. Ideally this is about 1 cubic meter (or yard) but I have had success with smaller piles- they just take a bit longer.

If you want to keep things neat and tidy you could put a frame around the space. Chicken wire works well. A few untreated boards will make up a decent box. But make sure to leave plenty of gaps as you need to have the air going through the pile as much as possible. People with larger gardens may want to build three open fronted boxes, like a capital E laid down with an extra bay. This gives one box to take from, one to compost and one to turn into. If you have a small space it isn’t really necessary. One space will do.

Compost works best in layers. The essential ingredients are green – that is leaves, grass cuttings, weeds, vegetable food scraps, manure and coffee grounds; and brown- woodchips, sawdust, twigs, wood ash, cardboard and newspaper. The smaller you can get your pieces in the layers the faster they will compost. Ideally, things should be about 1 inch or less in length. You can chop things with the side of your spade or run your lawnmower over them. Larger things will compost eventually but they take time.

I like to make the first layer one of coffee grounds to attract worms. Worms will do a lot of the work for you all through the garden but they are especially welcome in the compost pile. Coffee grounds look brown but you should count them as green for composting because they contain so much nitrogen. Then a layer of brown stuff like ripped up newspaper. Avoid paper with lots of coloured ink as it may be toxic. Continue alternating green and brown layers until your pile is about 1 metre or yard high. If you don’t have enough stuff to build the pile all at once that is ok just keep adding the layers as and when you can.

Some people like to add blood and bone fertiliser to their compost. I tried this once and my dog had a whale of a time tearing my compost heap apart looking for the stuff that smelt so yummy to him. If you get your blood and bone from a reputable organic supplier and you don’t have a dog, go for it. Generally speaking though you should avoid meat and poultry wastes in your compost as they stink and attract rats.

Your compost pile will also need some water. Don’t soak the pile completely but just give it enough to make things moist. When you put your hands into the pile it should feel damp but not sodden. During the winter I cover my pile with an old tarpaulin to make sure that it doesn’t get too wet. During the summer I might have to add a little water to the pile.

As mentioned above, the composting process needs air. To help this you should turn your pile about once every two weeks or so. Just slide a fork or a spade under the heap and lift and turn. Try not to disrupt the layers too much but obviously some mixing is inevitable.

Once you have your first lot of compost you should add some of it to your next pile. The microbes it contains will help speed up the process next time around. And as for time? Well anywhere between two and six months depending on weather, the size of your pieces and what you have put in the pile.

Your compost pile will generate heat. On cold mornings you may even see it steaming away. This is an important part of the process. The heat speeds up the composting and it destroys the weed seeds. Because you shouldn’t be throwing out anything from your garden. Those weeds have stolen your nutrients. Take them straight back and use them again.

You can tell when your compost is ready because it is crumbly (friable is the usual term) it is dark, you can’t see what the original organic matter was and it smells like good soil. In fact it smells quite like that forest I mentioned at the beginning.