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Making Compost

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Making Compost

Composting happens when organic material breaks down to produce a rich natural fertilizer for your soil. Making compost can be as easy as adding food scraps to a worm bin every week. I hope the materials here can help you get started.

New Table of Contents

  1. Great Composting Guides
  2. Great Backyard Composting Videos
  3. Great Worm Composting Videos
  5. More Great Videos for Backyard Composting
  6. Great FAQs
  7. Great Book for Serious Composters
  8. Don't Call Me A *%!@$(#+¡ Head
  9. Great Tools
  10. Great Projects
  11. Great Soil Exhibit
  12. Great Resources & Organizations to Check Out
  13. Great Reasons to Compost (and Recycle)
  14. New Sustainablog Articles

Great Composting Guides

How to Make Compost, a Composting Guide
A complete guide to composting
Compost Made Easy
These 10 facts about composting will help you turn food and yard waste into garden gold.
Vermicomposting, an Introduction
Worm Composting Guide
Learn about how to vermicompost with a worm bin.
Vermicompost - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vermicompost From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Compost Education Factsheets [pdf]
Home composting factsheets available to download
Farm-Scale Composting Resource List
This resource list offers links to web-based educational materials on greenhouse topics, and a few companies that offer greenhouse or hydroponic supplies.

Great Backyard Composting Videos

Learning the basics of converting yard wastes to compost

This lady is not polished, but has good information.
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Great Worm Composting Videos

Using special red wriggler worms to compost food scraps

Worm castings make an excellent natural fertilizer. It's easy to setup a bin. You can even do this indoors and keep the bin under a sink or in a utility room.
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“Out of dry leaves for a carbon source? Try shredded newspaper or cardboard.”

More Great Videos for Backyard Composting

More information to build your skills

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Great FAQs

After working as a master composter volunteer, I've heard a few questions come up over and over.

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What about roadkill?

If you're out in the country and don't mind the sm more...1 point

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Rubberecycle Mulch

Mulch is good for Landscape and Gardening1 point

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Ants in the pile!

One lady said she quit composting when ants got in more...0 points

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What about a compost tumbler?

Compost bins come in several styles. A tumbler is more...0 points

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What about using food scraps?

No meat or dairy. But fruit and vegetable wastes a more...0 points

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I filled my bin about half-way with dirt, but nothing happened.

This is a real comment I received this weekend. Fi more...0 points

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Should I purchase and use an activator?

Nope! Reasons: 1.) I suspect a liquid activator is more...0 points

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Vancouver apartments

Vancouver apartments Rent Spot is the home for Vancouver more...0 points

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Ottawa APARTMENTS FOR RENT

Ottawa APARTMENTS FOR RENT more...0 points

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Pattaya Property

Pattaya Property - Planning to have vacation in Thailand, more...0 points

Great Book for Serious Composters

A must-have reference for building healthy soil

The Rodale Book of Composting: Easy Methods for Every Gardener

The Rodale Book of Composting: Easy Methods for Every Gardener

Amazon Price: $2.60 (as of 06/02/2012)Buy Now

Whether you're just started in the backyard or grew up composting on a farm, this reference book covers the basics to get set up and goes in-depth to improve the nutrient quality of your compost pile.

Caution: This book causes hands to get dirty!

Don't Call Me A *%!@$(#+¡ Head

Hair is more potent than manure when it comes to nitrogen. Visit your local beauty salon, collie, clothes dryer lint screen or hair brush for a free sample.

Great Tools

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Great Projects

Building a simple compost sifter
Sifting gives you a finer grade, finished compost. The larger pieces may be chopped or placed in a new pile to break down further.
Buying a Wood Chipper or Shredder: How to Select the Right One
Processing leaves and branches into smaller pieces makes for quicker compost.
Indoor Worm Composting
The City of Vancouver offers apartment residents a way to compost food scraps, worm composting. City Farmer demonstrates the process. Good photos!
Making Compost in a Backyard Bin
Compost made every day at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. Good photos!
Cool Tools for Hot Compost
Wheelbarrow, water hoses, water sprayer, pitchfork, spades and shovels, hand tools, mixing tools, rakes, screen sifters are the recommendations here.

Great Soil Exhibit

Dig It! The Secrets of Soil Exhibition - Smithsonian
Visitors to the Museum will journey into the skin of the earth and explore the amazing world of soils in Dig It! The Secrets of Soil. Completely familiar yet largely unknown, soils help sustain virtually every form of life on Earth. Dig It! will transport visitors to the world of fungi, bacteria, worms, and countless other organisms. Visitors will discover the amazing connections between soils and everyday life and think about this hidden world in a whole new way.

Without soil, life on land would not exist as we know it. The soils under our feet are a vast reservoir for life and play a part in almost every aspect of human existence - food, housing, clothing, medicine, ecosystems and much more. This vital living system is the focus of this dynamic new 5,000 square-foot Exhibition scheduled to open at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History on July 19, 2008.

Great Resources & Organizations to Check Out

US Composting Council
The USCC is a non-profit trade and professional organization promoting compost.
Compost News
Recycling and composting events
TerraCycle Inc
TerraCycle sells Worm Poop®, a worm compost tea for plants. This natural fertilizer is packaged in recycled plastic bottles.
The Ecocapitalist
TerraCycle's blog
BioCycle, Advancing Composting, Organics Recycling & Renewable Energy
BioCycle: The information source on composting and recycling wastes, In Business: Magazine for sustainable enterprises and communities
Compost Science & Utilization
Compost Science Complete scientific data on compost process control and end product quality
In Business
Magazine for creating sustainable enterprises and communities
Biodegradable Products, Compostable Food Containers & Other Environmentally Renewable Items Offered From The Harvest Collection
The Harvest Collection offers biodegradable products such as strong compostable food containers and durable compostable cups. Browse our selection of products, proudly comprised of annually renewable, environmentally friendly resources.
Biodegradable Products Institute
Products with the biodegradable product logo program are designed to compost quickly, completely and safely, without leaving any plastic residues
Test Methods for the Examination of Composting and Compost
TMECC provides detailed protocols for the composting industry to verify the physical, chemical, and biological condition of composting feedstocks, material in process and compost products at the point of sale.
Solid Waste.com: Digital Marketplace for the waste processing industry
Resource for professionals in the solid waste industry- Information on bioassay equipment, gasification, dewatering, odor control and more
Composting | Wastes | US EPA
Compost is organic material that can be used as a soil amendment or as a medium to grow plants.
How to Compost.org
From beginners to experts this web site is designed to provide composting information and links to other people involved in all forms of composting. From home composting to compost tea, compost toilets, large scale composting, vermi and compost use. No matter what your interest is, you'll find somet

Great Reasons to Compost (and Recycle)

Think of it as raw materials, not trash.

Stinking Naples only tip of EU's rubbish heap - Europe, World - The Independent
With no end in sight to Naples' rubbish crisis, fresh questions are being raised across Europe over the continent's crippling reliance on overflowing and unhealthy land-fills.
The world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan
A plastic soup of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.
Raccoon Leaders Call For Loosening Of Garbage-Can Lids | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
WASHINGTON, DC?In a 4 a.m. speech, the North American Raccoon Federation demanded greater access to discarded food scraps.
Food Waste Management Cost Calculator | Organic Materials | US EPA
calculator for estimating the cost competitiveness of alternatives to food waste disposal, including source reduction, donation, composting, and recycling of fats, oils, and grease
Recycling Food Scraps - TIME
Everyone knows we should recycle plastic, glass, aluminum and paper--or at least, we know we're supposed to. But for leftover Chinese takeout and other kitchen scraps, which make up around 30% of our...
Food scraps make perfect plastic
A biological reactor that converts a rotting slurry of food waste into a cheap, biodegradable plastic is revealed
Turning Food Scraps into Clean, Renewable Biogas - HowStuffWorks Videos
Watch this video about biogas on HowStuffWorks. UC Davis and Onsite Power Systems partnered to build technology that turns food scraps, yard trimmings and other solid waste into clean, renewable energy, called Biogas. After a 5-10 day processing cycle, it can produce enough energy to power more than

New Sustainablog Articles

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