How to Make Compost

If you want to know how to make compost, you first have to ask yourself why you want to make compost in the first place!

 Because compost means different things to different people.

 What materials you have available to compost, where you'll build the compost and what method you'll use all have to be decided.

 Stay with me here a while as I explain a little more and then we'll get to the "how to"

 To compost anything you need a mixture of materials that have come from "life".

That is they are either the remains of plants and animals or the manure of animals.

While we're on manure, if you are making compost to put on your food garden, then please don't put in the manure of meat eating animals such as cats and dogs (and also humans!) Now in your mixture of materials you need some that are high in nitrogen

(or protein) and other materials that are higher in carbon content.

 I'll talk about what these can be later. The other conditions you need to get a composting action going is the right amount of moisture and AIR. If you don't have enough air through your compost it ferments (if you can call it that!) in a totally different, very smelly and unhealthy way. The slimy green/ black goop you end up with is NOT good for plants. This is what you end up with unfortunately with a lot of those plastic bin type of things.

 Anyway when you get your mixture of carbon materials and nitrogen materials roughly in the right proportions with moisture and air, lots of lovely good bacteria thrive and decompose the materials to feed themselves. (if it's without air then unhealthy pathogens take over because the good guys can't survive).

If you've got it right then the compost pile heats up and moves the whole process faster than would normally happen.

 After all the stuff has been broken down, other organisms come along and turn that ideally something called humus. Humus is nature's highest quality plant food.

 The whole thing takes around 3 to 6 months done right under the right conditions.

 In the worst conditions it can take years and years and result in only a soil like substance.

This is NOT humus, although many people (experts included) think that it is!

 Now as I said to start off, depends why you're composting. If you're composting just to "get rid" of organic waste and don't care about how nutritious it is for plants, then a compost tumbler would be the method of choice.

 All the materials go into a drum that can be turned for a short time daily to mix and aerate the compost. This puts the first part of the true composting process on steroids and the stuff breaks down in a matter of weeks.

Problem with it is that most of the nutrients are "burnt" off into the air during the process. It makes fast mulch and gets rid of your organic matter fast. But that's it. It never goes through a proper "build up" phase.

 
If you've only got kitchen waste to get rid of and no garden waste, then a worm farm is probably the way to go. You put in the kitchen waste and over a few months the worms turn it into humus for you. Then you can use it on your patio garden or whatever.

Worm farms have several "rooms" for fresh waste, waste being eaten and the finished product. The worms transfer when it's ready for them to eat.

 
If you have a few square yards free and a reasonable amount of materials available then the best approach is to do what I do and make what is definitely the "Rolls Royce" of composts….. colloidal humus.

This what plants feed on "in the wild" and they grow extremely healthy, as well as almost pest and disease free. If you grow vegetables with it the taste is divine.

You don't need a bin, or a tumbler. Just some space. 

 Now I better tell you about the carbon and nitrogen thing quickly.

 Nitrogen materials are basically "green". Things like green leaves, green grass clippings, cow, horse, sheep manure. Fresh weeds and poultry manure (but use sparingly), and meat meal type products.

 
Carbon materials are basically "brown". Things like hay, straw, wood shavings (not painted or treated and the finer the better), dried out weeds and grass.

 
Kitchen wastes can be either depending on what it is but tends to be slightly on the carbon side and a little on the wet side. Soak up the extra moisture with some dry carbon type material.

 
To get a good compost, a rough rule of thumb is 50/50 of carbon materials to nitrogen materials as described above.  So you can color code them to 50% greens and 50% browns!

 
If you have very fresh manure (and this gives the best results because of all the enzymes and things still in it) then limit it to around 30%.

Poultry manure keep to around 10%. Its got loads of nitrogen, but it doesn't make the best compost like the manure of grass eaters.

 
OK back to the process! If you know how to make compost correctly you don't have to aerate it either, like most people have to. It doesn't smell at all either once the pile is made.

 
The secret is to make the pile all at once with materials collected over time.

Then mixed thoroughly at the correct moisture content (a wrung out sponge) and assembled into a heap all at one time. A core of straw or other fibrous material goes through the center to get the air in there.

 It's a good idea to have fibrous stuff like straw in the mix as well to keep the air flowing without having to turn the thing. Keep it all at the same moisture content as it went together. (wet down when the weather is dry and put a cover over when it's pouring rain)

The pile works the best when it's over a cubic yard of volume as it heats more evenly and stays warm.

Don't let it get too hot though as you cook the nutrients out like the tumbler does.

Around 130F or 50C is as hot as it should go. Water the top if does get a bit too hot. Cover the heap with straw or such like to create a "skin" that breathes and all the ingredients will turn into this lovely rubbery putty like substance called colloidal humus. The supreme plant and soil food.

 
So how do I know all this?

 
I came across a fantastic book on composting called World's Best Compost that gives all the instructions and why. It's pretty easy reading and there's videos of good stuff too.

That's how come I know how to make compost that's not just fibrous mulch