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This article helps to get you started on composting at home by setting out what it is, what’s needed, how to do it and gives answers to a number of commonly asked questions.
What is it and why should we consider doing it? Home composting is an easy way to turn your garden and kitchen waste into a useful product for your garden, while at the same time reducing the amount of waste in your bin. Composting at home helps to keep organic material out of landfill sites.
Home composting benefits your garden and your environment and it's easy. Compost is a complete and natural food for your soil, it improves its structure, its water retaining ability and its overall health. Simply place bio-degradable material in your compost bin and let nature do the rest.
Composting – The basics
1. Ideally site your compost bin in a reasonably sunny site on bare soil. If you have to put your compost bin on concrete, tarmac or patio slabs ensure there’s a layer of paper and twigs or existing compost on the bottom. Choose a place where you can easily add ingredients to the bin and get the compost out.
2. Have a container available such as a kitchen caddy or old ice cream tub. Fill your kitchen caddy or container with everything from vegetable and fruit peelings to teabags, toilet roll tubes, cereal boxes and eggshells. Take care not to compost cooked food, meat or fish.
3. Empty your kitchen caddy along with your garden waste into your compost bin. A 50/50 mix of greens and browns is the perfect recipe for good compost.
4. It takes between nine and twelve months for your compost to become ready for use, so now all you need to do is wait and let nature do the work. Keep on adding greens and browns to top up your compost.
5. Once your compost has turned into a crumbly, dark material, resembling thick, moist soil and gives off an earthy, fresh aroma, you know it’s ready to use.
6. Lift the bin slightly or open the hatch at the bottom and scoop out the fresh compost with a garden fork, spade or trowel.
7. Don’t worry if your compost looks a little lumpy with twigs and bits of eggshell – this is perfectly normal. Use it to enrich borders and vegetable patches, plant up patio containers or feed the lawn.
THINGS THAT SHOULD NOT GO ONTO YOUR COMPOST HEAP
Vegetable and fruit peelings, tea leaves, coffee grounds and crushed egg shells, weeds, grass cuttings, hair, paper, hedge clippings, leaves, prunings, straw and hay and even vacuum dust.
The sort of things not to go onto the compost heap include: Body fluids, disposable nappies, used paper handkerchiefs (in case the pathogens which carry disease are not all destroyed by the composting process), excrement - human/cat dog (for the same reason), brightly coloured or shiny card or paper, Hard objects, stones, bits of glass, metal, plastic, cleaning fluids and other household/garden chemicals and meat (cooked - raw) the smell can attract animals.
As a general rule you should avoid the following materials:
Human wastes: Human faeces can contain disease organisms that will make people very sick. Composting human faeces safely requires that the compost pile reach high temperatures over a period of time. It isn't necessarily that difficult to reach these temperatures in a home compost pile, but the potential health costs of improper composting are high. Composting of human faeces should not be attempted.
Pet wastes: Dog and cat faeces may carry diseases that can infect humans. It is best never to use them in compost piles.
Meat, bones, and fatty food wastes: These materials are very attractive to pests (in an urban setting, this could mean rats...). In addition, fatty food wastes can be very slow to break down, because the fat can exclude the air that composting microbes need to do their work.
Pernicious weeds: Morning glory/bindweed, sheep sorrel, ivy, several kinds of grasses, and some other plants can resprout from their roots and/or stems in the compost pile. Just when you thought you had them all chopped up, you'd actually helped them to multiply! Don't compost these weeds unless they are completely dead and dry (you may want to leave them in a sunny place for a couple of weeks before composting). Remember also that composting weeds that have gone to seed will create weeds in next year's garden, unless a very hot pile temperature can be maintained to kill the seeds.
Diseased plants: Many plant disease organisms are killed by consistent hot composting, but it's difficult to make sure that every speck of the diseased material gets fully composted. It's best not to compost diseased plant material at all, to avoid reinfecting next year's garden.
Chemically treated wood products: Sawdust is often available from constructions sites, friends, or your own building projects. If you are considering composting sawdust, be sure of the origin of the sawdust. Sawdust from chemically-treated wood products can be bad stuff to compost. For example, take pressure-treated wood (sometimes called CCA), which usually has a greenish tint to it (I have also seen it in other colours). It contains arsenic, a highly toxic element, as well as chromium and copper. There is evidence to suggest that arsenic is leached into the soil from these products when they are used to make compost bins or raised beds, so composting the sawdust would certainly be a mistake. Avoid other chemically-treated wood products and sawdust as well, such as wood treated with creosote or 'penta' preservative.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT COMPOSTING
No. Sowing, potting and multipurpose composts that you buy in garden centres are mixtures of various materials such as shredded bark, sand, coir and fertilisers. These are used for raising seedlings and growing plants in pots.
Compost is made by a host of small and microscopic creatures. These are not pests and will not overrun your garden. Slugs are often found in compost heaps – some species feed on decaying organic matter and are a valuable part of the composting process.
A garden fork is the only essential item for turning and spreading compost. A compost bin keeps everything neater but it is not essential.
Rats may visit a compost heap if they are already present in the area but composting does not generally attract the rats in the first place. If rats or mice are nesting in your compost heap, this is a sign that the heap is too dry. Add water until it has the consistency of a wrung-out sponge.
Yes, if the usual garden hygiene rules are followed. Keep cuts covered, wash hands before eating and keep your anti-tetanus protection up to date.
No. A medium-sized compost heap can heat up to 60°C in a few days. The heat helps to make quicker compost, and to kill weeds and diseases. But your compost may never heat up, especially if it is made over a long period. The compost can be just as good, but it will take longer to be ready for use.
Some weed seeds and plant diseases will survive in a slow, cool compost heap - if you add them in the first place.
No. A shredder can be very useful where there is a lot of woody material to be composted, but it is not essential.
Yes. The toxins from rhubarb, yew, laurel and other poisonous plants are all broken down during the composting process and will not cause any damage to you or your garden.
These are part of the decomposition process but their numbers can be reduced by burying any fruit waste among other ingredients. Flies are also a sign that the compost is a little too wet or has too many 'green' ingredients. Make sure that the bin has a lid and add 'brown' ingredients such as straw, cardboard or paper to re-balance the heap. Mix it in well.