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No serious garden can ever be complete if you have not created your own natural compost pile or bin. Compost is a natural conditioner of soil, natural mulch and a homemade fertilizer all in a single package, and it feeds the microorganisms in the soil that allows your plants to become healthy. It also adds vital nutrients into the soil, and can even play a part in helping sandy soils retain water, and clay soils drain more efficiently. Composting also helps to reduce your personal contribution to the waste stream because it allows you to recycle waste from your yard and kitchen in order to create a truly awesome amendment to your soil. Here are some quick and dirty instructions on creating a compost pile that will break down quickly without ever having that bad smell.

You only need a couple of materials to begin, including a spading fork, a shovel, and a hose. You also should be prepared with green material like clippings from your yard, and brown material such as dried or dead leaves. The first step in creating your own composting pile or bin is to choose a site that will be handy both to your garden and to your kitchen while still being out of plain sight. You do not necessarily require a bin in order to make compost, but bins do make it a lot easier for you to contain the compost, which looks neater overall.

You can buy or build your own permanent compost bin. Just make sure that there is enough space that you can add new composting materials and that you can easily turn the pile over time. The bin or bins can be covered with plywood, but this is only necessary if you live in a climate where rain is common.

The two basic elements that will create your compost pile or bin are green debris and brown debris. The green debris are live debris, such as grass clippings, or flower clippings. These green ingredients are high in nitrogen. Brown ingredients on the other hand, such as dry leaves, are high in carbon. Too many greens and you will make a smelly pile of compost. You also need to avoid adding animal wastes, oils, dairy, diseased plants, meats, weeds that seed, and plants that were treated with chemical pesticides or herbicides.

The fastest way to break down compost piles have a balance with one part green materials to two parts brown materials. The best way to achieve this perfect balance is with a single garden forkful of green material, topped with two garden forkfuls of brown material, mixing them together. You should add greens and browns this way until you have at least 3 cubic feet, which is the ideal size for heating up and breaking down of the plant matter.

To start the microbial activity in your newly shoveled compost pile, add in a single shovel full of either finished compost, or gardening soil. The correct amount of moisture is also needed, which is enough that the compost feels like a damp but wrung out kitchen sponge. If you add too much moisture to your pile, the temperature will not get high enough. If you do not put enough moisture in, the decomposition rate will be slowed down. The pile should be turned once a week to move the material from the outside in which will keep the pile from compacting. Within about two months you will have finished compost.

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