by 3 people |
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
- Great Composting Guides
- Great Backyard Composting Videos
- Great Worm Composting Videos
- More Great Videos for Backyard Composting
- Great FAQs
- Great Book for Serious Composters
- Don't Call Me A *%!@$(#+¡ Head
- Great Tools
- Great Projects
- Great Soil Exhibit
- Great Resources & Organizations to Check Out
- Great Reasons to Compost (and Recycle)
- 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.
How to Compost : Learn Organic Garden Composting Online : What Should You Put in Compost?
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How to Compost : Learn Organic Garden Composting Online : How is Compost Broken Down?
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How to Compost : Learn Organic Garden Composting Online : How to Quickly Start a Compost Pile
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How to Compost : Learn Organic Garden Composting Online : How Water Affects Compost
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How to Compost : Learn Organic Garden Composting Online : How to Turn & Mix Compost
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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.
"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
How to Compost : Learn Organic Garden Composting Online : How to Add Carbon Matter to Compost
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How to Compost : Learn Organic Garden Composting Online : Correct Temperature for a Compost Pile
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How to Compost : Learn Organic Garden Composting Online : Correct Carbon to Nitrogen Ratio when Making Organic Garden Compost at Home
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How to Compost : Learn Organic Garden Composting Online : How Nitrogen Affects Compost
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How to Compost : Learn Organic Garden Composting Online : Importance of Carbon in Compost
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How to Compost : Learn Organic Garden Composting Online : How to Tell when Compost is Ready
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Great FAQs
After working as a master composter volunteer, I've heard a few questions come up over and over.
What about roadkill?
If you're out in the country and don't mind the sm more...1 point
Ants in the pile!
One lady said she quit composting when ants got in more...0 points
What about a compost tumbler?
Compost bins come in several styles. A tumbler is more...0 points
What about using food scraps?
No meat or dairy. But fruit and vegetable wastes a more...0 points
I filled my bin about half-way with dirt, but nothing happened.
This is a real comment I received this weekend. F more...0 points
Should I purchase and use an activator?
Nope! Reasons: 1.) I suspect a liquid activator is 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
Amazon Price: $11.53 (as of 07/10/2009)
Whether you're just started in the backyard or grew up composting on a farm, this reference book covers the basics to get set up and goes in-depth to improve the nutrient quality of your compost pile.
Caution: This book causes hands to get dirty!
Don't Call Me A *%!@$(#+¡ 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 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
-
Food, People, Power: New Healthy Food Co-op Opens in Oakland
- Healthcare and Wellness for All
- Personal Happiness and the Environment: A Sustainability Connection
- Rethinking Food Production for a World of Eight Billion
- Green Talk Radio: Saying No to Paraben and Yes to Carrots in Natural Beauty Care Products
- Healthcare and Wellness for All
