Home Composting Tips and Techniques

Contents What is Composting? Why Compost? Composting Tips Compost Recipe Uses of Compost Worm Composting

What is Composting?
Composting is a simple technique that turns organic materials, like yard debris and food scraps, into a rich soil conditioner that we can use in our yards, gardens and potted plants. This process occurs in nature continually as vegetation falls to the ground and slowly decays. Composting is simply a technique we can use to accelerate this natural process.

Okay, maybe you've never actually laid eyes on this rich, dark brown or black earthy substance that some gardeners would die for, well…almost. Perhaps you've never inhaled its freshness, like moist earth in spring. And what about its texture? Course and crumbly where all the original ingredients now look and feel about the same. Are you starting to get the picture? This is good stuff!

Why Compost?
Approximately 40% of Washington’s waste stream could be composted, producing a valuable product for use in agricultural and landscape applications. It doesn’t have to be wasted and put in a landfill just to take up space and produce methane gas. Here are several good reasons for composting your yard and food wastes.

	Saves landfill space. Home composters are helping to solve our garbage disposal problems by reducing the volume of solid waste needing to be landfilled.
	Benefits soil and plants. Using compost as a soil conditioner helps your plants grow healthier and faster by keeping the soil loose and well drained. It also helps to reduce erosion.
	Prevents pollution: It helps control disease and pest infestation, which discourages the use of chemical treatments that pollute groundwater.
	Reduces Green House Gas Emissions: Methane is a nasty gas that comes from organic material (such as food scraps and yard waste) in landfills, it has to be piped and burnt off in torches. Greenhouse gasses (like methane) cause global warming. In 2001, Washington residents recycled 448,222 tons of yard trimmings, this is about 150 lbs. per person. Recycling these yard trimmings reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 9,876 tons.
	Saves you money. Not only on garbage collection and dump fees, but you won’t need to buy leaf bags or compost for your garden.
	Convenient and makes sense. It’s easier to compost yard waste then to bag and drag it to the trash can, or to take it to the transfer station. You are also enhancing a natural cycle of our environment.

Composting Tips
For easy and efficient composting, yard wastes can simply be stacked up into piles. Leaves, grass clippings, twigs and weeds (except those that have gone to seed or which spread runners, such as morning glory or buttercup) can be easily added to a pile as they are collected from the yard. It is not necessary to add soil, fertilizer or compost “starter” to a pile, as all the ingredients required for composting are already present in yard wastes.

A tidier composting method makes use of holding bins, simple structures that surround and confine compost piles. Bins can be made of wire mesh shaped into a ring, or from wooden pallets lashed together to form a square. There are also commercially available bins made of plastic, that have lids and small air vents on the sides. If you are going to include food scraps in your compost pile it is a very good idea to use a bin that is closed to avoid problems with pests. It isn’t a very good idea to compost meat, fish or dairy products because they tend to get very smelly and attract pests.

Compost Recipe
Composting yard, garden, and kitchen trimmings in your own backyard is a satisfying and efficient way to recycle organic materials. And it’s easy! The compost recipe below presents the basics.

Think in layers: 2 browns, 1 green, 2 browns, 1 green.





For browns (carbon source), use any of the following:
wood chips / sawdust, straw, dried leaves and grass, chopped-cornstalks, shredded paper, paper towels

For greens (nitrogen source), use any of the following:
grass clippings, vines and weeds (but not the seeds!), vegetable garden trimmings, fresh hay, manure (horse, cow, sheep, chicken, rabbit)

Raw kitchen scraps (recommended for enclosed bins only):
egg shells, tea, tea bags, coffee grounds and filters, vegetable trimmings, fruit (composting meat or dairy products is not advised). These should be layered with the other materials.

At home we can speed up the compost process by creating ideal conditions. These include:

Uses of Compost
Compost serves as an excellent soil conditioner and adds essential nutrients to any soil. Compost holds these nutrients in the soil until plants can use them, serves to loosen and aerate clay soils, and helps to retain water in poor sandy soil.