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The very best thing you can do for your garden is to use organic compost. It’s one of the safest ways to grow your plants. Not only that, but your entire garden will flourish from the liberal use of this fantastic organic material.

The starting point is plenty of carbon, which is the foundation of a good compost. Get it going by using brown material such as shredded newspaper, dead flowers, dried leaves and straw. A lot of people forget to add these important ingredients, but you won’t.

Green waste that’s high in nitrogen is next. You should throw all of your kitchen waste, grass clippings and green garden clippings into your heap. Your kitchen waste can consist of all your green leftovers, fruit and vegetable peelings, but no meat!

Then you need to top it off with some soil from your garden. It’s very important to remember to add some natural soil to your compost heap to get it started.

Let’s see, you’ve now got a layer of brown material, on top of that you’ve thrown some green waste and covered it with some garden soil. What you need now is another layer of nitrogen rich brown waste. Before you go any further you need to moisten your organic compost with a splash of water. It’s critical that you keep your pile damp, but just as important to not allow it to get soggy!

You continue adding layers in that order until you’ve got a pile about 3 feet square. As a rough guide you want to have about three parts brown waste to one part green waste. Keep adding more material to your pile as it becomes available until it’s about 3 feet tall.

You will need to turn your compost with a garden fork to aid the decomposition. As you turn, you want to move the stuff from the center to the outside and the outer material to the middle. You should do this every couple of weeks at least.

The moisture level is critical. It should be damp but never soggy and make sure you don’t let it dry out. Allowing it to dry out stops the decomposition process in it’s tracks. You should see steam rising from your pile as you turn it, this indicates that it’s all decomposing properly.

You can accelerate the process by adding earthworms to your compost pile if you want to, they are readily available at any fishing bait store. The truth is that the resident worms in your garden will quickly find your pile anyway.

To keep your pile tidy you can build or buy a bin. This keeps your garden looking neat and stops your pile spreading out too much. To make the job of turning your compost heap over easier, you can buy a rotating bin that you simply turn to mix your compost.

Your compost is fully decomposed when it has a sweet earthy smell and looks almost black, its now ready to be used. Start by mixing it into your garden soil to add nutrients and keep doing this until you’ve covered your entire garden, then keep building up your soil over the years. It also makes excellent potting mix for your indoor plants, you don’t need to add anything extra.

Last 5 posts by Tom Johnson

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