Backyard Compost is Good for Planet, Great for Garden

One-third of our landfills are full of waste that could have easily been composted. Can you imagine the burden we could spare landfills if we all composted our organic matter at home?

Backyard composting is easy, cheap, and when done correctly, doesn’t attract bugs or stink up your yard. All you have to do is add your fruit and vegetable peels, coffee grounds, egg shells, tea bags, and other organic matter to the pile, give it a stir every now and then and wait.

Not only is it easy, cheap, and great for the environment, it’s great for your backyard garden soil. Compost acts as soil conditioner, adding nutrient-rich humus to the soil. It introduces beneficial microscopic organisms to the soil that aerate the soil and ward off plant disease. Compost also gives you an alternative to expensive and damaging chemical fertilizers.

Fall is the perfect time of year to start a backyard compost pile. Leaves from your yard can be the perfect base for your new composting station. Building a compost pile is easy – there a couple of different ways to go about it…

How to Compost

There are two different methods of composting:

1. You can make a compost pile on bare ground (good if you have a lot to compost and a lot of land like a farm). For this method, lay straw or twigs for drainage, alternate moist and dry compost on top of that, add green manure to speed along the process, keep the pile moist by watering occasionally, keep pile covered to retain heat and keep out excess moisture, and turn occasionally. You can also build a wooden enclosure for your bare ground compost pile to maintain an area if you’d like to use this method. For more information on how to layer your compost pile, visit Earth Easy.

2. You can build (or buy) an enclosed bin or use a semi-enclosed bin for composting (good if you’re composting on a small scale in your backyard or in an urban area). You can make one yourself out of a garbage can or an old wine barrel, or buy a pre-made compost tumbler online or from a hardware store (easiest option). For more information on how to build an enclosed or semi-enclosed compost bin, visit Earth Easy. Enclosed bins and tumblers keep the rodents out, smells in, provide easy access to compost, and create compost faster than traditional compost piles.

Composting Tips:

- For an extensive list of what to include in your compost pile, visit Earth Easy.

- Speed up composting by adding leaves, young weeds, or grass clippings to your compost pile or bin.

- Keeping your compost pile or bin covered will discourage flying insects and crawling critters. Adding a layer of grass clippings or leaves over each fresh layer of food matter also helps with that.

- Don’t add any bones or meat scraps to your compost pile.

- To neutralize odors, add lime or calcium to the pile and be sure to layer grass or leaves over fresh food matter.

- Over the winter, compost right in your garden beds if at all possible. The ground beneath your compost pile will benefit the most from the nutrient-rich pile. You can move the compost pile when you’re ready to plant in the spring, leaving behind well-conditioned soil for your plants and flowers.

- Remember that compost is a soil additive and shouldn’t be used as the sole growing medium.