How to Make Compost - 4 Secrets to Successful Composting

We'll show you how to make compost, what goes into a compost heap, how to treat your compost pile, and general composting know how.

There are 4 secrets to make compost successfully:
1) Heat
2) Moisture
3) Carbon to Nitrogen Ratio
4) Getting Oxygen to the Compost Heap

Without these elements, you won't have good compost, but there is also a lot more to composting than just these 4 factors.

Compost is a complete DIY plant food and soil conditioner that has been practiced for around 4000 years. It's great for soil structures, root grow, soil water-holding capacities and worms. It turns everything from vacuum cleaner dust to eggshells into great fertilizer.

More importantly, composting diverts your green waste back into the garden instead of ending up in a landfill, which also helps to reduce the production of damaging greenhouses gases and allows as to reduce our ecological footprint in a small way. With half of what we throw away as domestic waste coming from kitchen waste and our gardens, it really does pay to try and recycle this waste, make compost and put it back into your soil. Therefore it is good to know how to make compost properly.

People sometimes have problems putting a compost heap together, they really don't have a clue on how to make compost and muddle along and become disappointed with the end result. They choose too much of one material, and the compost heap either doesn't break down as quick as it should, or they end up with a smelly mess.

Follow our simple instructions on how to make compost, what and what not to put in your compost heap to take the stress out of compost making and get some composting know how. We will look at what should go into a compost heap so that it doesn't end up smelly and it does break down into friable compost.

Making a Compost Heap

How to Make Compost - What to Add to your Compost Heap

First of all, to learn how to make compost, you need to be patient. Good compost can take months to break down until it is usable. However, if you have the right nitrogen/carbon ratio, your compost heap will break down very fast and will heat up enough to kill off any diseases that have entered your compost heap from diseased plants, or will also kill off any weed seeds that have entered your heap.

To aid your compost heap start off making sure that whatever you put into your heap is as small as possible. One reader send us an article about how she makes compost using her juicer.

Hair in the Compost Pile

My little tip on how to make compost is to get valuable nitrogen into the heap by using hair. It is something I throw into my compost bin all the time. When I cut my husband's hair, it goes into the compost heap, along with the dog's hair after a brushing and all the contents of my vacuum cleaner. All of these are high in nitrogen and will add value to your compost heap.

Vegetable Matter and Kitchen Scraps in the Compost Pile

I also put in all the grass clippings, leaves and vegetable peelings, skins and scraps from my kitchen. Tea and coffee grounds are also put in, including my used nettle tea bags.

Paper is torn up and added to the bin, along with any animal farmyard manure, weeds, straw, nut shells, stale bread and olive pips. Most nut shells can be added, but stay away from walnut shells.

Add egg shells from eggs that haven't been cooked and any seaweed that has been washed up on the beach.

Chop up a couple leaves of comfrey, yarrow including the flowers, valerian, chamomile with the flowers and nettle leaves are all very good additions.
Comfrey for Composting

Dry Matter in the Compost Pile

Other additions you could put in your heap would be sawdust, spent hops, coconut fibre is great for retaining moisture in your heap, and a little bit of sweet lime to keep your heap sweet.

Finally, if you have a fireplace or woodstove, this is the place to add your wood fire ash.

Farmyard Manure in the Compost Pile

Farmyard manure is an essential component to add to your compost pile. If you are raising rabbits their droppings are very valuable as they can be added to your compost and directly to your flower and vegetable beds without a waiting period. However, when you are using other animal manures you do have to be more cautious.

One should wait a minimum of six weeks to prevent problems such as burning of leaves and roots from the presence of high levels of ammonium ions in the fresh manure. This is particularly important when composting with chicken manure, as it is very strong.

Free or Cheap Resources for Composting Material

If you don't have a farm and you are looking for cheap sources of composting material get woodshavings from timber production, spoilt hay/unwanted feed at the end of an exceptionally good season; or compostable factory wastes (e.g. rice hulls, poppy straw, sugar cane waste etc.). Just make sure that the wood hasn't been treated with any toxic applications, including your straw and hay.

How to Make Compost and what Not to add to your Compost Heap

In learning how to make compost you need to know that although you can throw in most kitchen scraps, some things you just can't throw in, and that is any meat or fats. However, you can throw in fish, fish bones and fish skin.

Avoid Fat and Meat Scraps

Another reason not to add meat scraps and fat is vermin. If you don't want the rats to invade your compost heap and form a colony then don't add any meat and fat. Fat, along with oil, salt, disinfectants, antibiotics, herbicides, and waste sprayed with pesticides will destroy any of the good bacteria that should be present to help with the breaking down of the material to form friable compost.

Avoid Weeds & Diseased Plants

Also don't add weeds that have formed seed heads and weed with bulbs as these are not always destroyed in the heating process, and you could end up weeding your next flower beds far more than usual, which is not what you want!

Avoid adding any diseased plants to your compost heap. Rather put these in the rubbish bin or better still, burn them.

Diseased plant material should not be used in compost as it may contaminate new areas when the compost is spread around at a later date.

Avoid Dead Animal Products

If you have access to dead animal products such as bone, skins, offal or similar, it is important to consider health regulations. Such products also tend to attract vermin and insects to the compost site, and so are best avoided. I have to say that I prefer to buy commercial packets of blood and bone; something I consider mandatory when growing vegetables .

Avoid Pet Poo

You raising chickens, goats, cows, horses, alpacas or sheep all their manure is good for composting, but stay away from your pet droppings, especially cat and dog droppings as these can spread disease.

Avoid Large Branches

Unless you have a mulcher, leave out large branches, hardwood cuttings, or anything with thorns for composting.

Avoid anything that is Non-Biodegradable

Finally, don't add anything that won't decompose such as glass, metal and plastic.

How to Make Compost and Looking after the Compost Heap

There are 4 things needed to make compost successfully:

Heat
Moisture
Carbon to Nitrogen Ratio
Getting Oxygen to the Compost Heap

How to Make Compost - Getting the Right Temperature

When suitable material is collected in a loose heap, naturally occurring micro-organisms such as bacteria, fungi and algae start to feed on the softer, more succulent ingredients in the composting process. At this stage, the heap should heat up to between 40 - 60ºC. This heat speeds the rate of breakdown and can kill diseases and weed seeds. It should also be too hot for cockroaches and flies to breed.

How to Make Compost - Moisture

Your compost heap should be moist, but never soggy. When it is soggy it will become smelly. This is when you need to balance it out a bit by adding either dry lawn clippings, shredded paper, sawdust or leaves to your compost when there is too much moisture.

Moisture – should be between 40 and 60%. Take a handful of the composting material from 15–20 cm deep into the heap/mound of composting material, and squeeze it. It should be about as moist as a moderately squeezed wet sponge. If it is too dry, add water to the heap. If it is too wet you may need to cover the heap with plastic, or turn it over regularly to allow for more evaporation to occur.

Once tender material is consumed, the rate of activity slows as the organisms work on tougher material. As the heap cools, worms, centipedes and beetles move in to help. By the end of the composting process, most of the ingredients have been broken down, mixed together and rebuilt into a balanced soil food.

How to Make Compost - Carbon to Nitrogen Ratio

When mixing materials for your compost bin, the carbon to nitrogen (C:N) ratio is important. Micro-organisms in compost consume carbon for energy, and absorb nitrogen to help them use protein efficiently. The proportion of carbon and nitrogen should be approximately 25 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen by weight.

Most materials for composting do not meet the ideal 25:1 ratio, so different materials can be mixed to achieve the ratio required.

In general, the coarse, dried out “brown” material contains little nitrogen but is high in carbon. “Green” materials such as lawn clippings, vegetable scraps and manure contain high levels of nitrogen. Brown lawn clippings from a dry lawn will have less nitrogen than lush, green clippings. Clippings from lawns that have been extensively fertilized will have an even higher nitrogen content.

The correct blending of carbon and nitrogen helps ensure composting temperatures remain high long enough for the process to work efficiently.

Given a steady diet of around 25:1, micro-organisms can decompose compost rapidly. When the C:N ratio is too high, insufficient nitrogen slows decomposition. When the ratio is low, too much nitrogen leads to odour problems.

Blending materials to achieve a good C:N ratio is important to home composting. If you are composting high nitrogen materials such as lawn clippings, they should be blended with a high carbon material such as chopped leaves or mulched branches and twigs.

When you add material to your compost bin make sure that you have a balance between wet and dry, nitrogen-rich materials such as your fruit peelings, lawn clippings and then your carbon-rich materials such as your dry leaves, sawdust, paper, straw etc.

Try and add this all in layers, of 5 - 10 cm deep. I am not often able to layer things as I would like, just because of what I throw into the compost bin at the time, however, I do watch it and if it becomes too dry I add some more kitchen scraps, and if too wet, I add more paper etc.

It also helps to add a thin layer of soil to your layers, as well as adding oxygen to it by turning the top layers regularly.

compost layers

The Ideal way of Layering Materials in a Compost Pile

How to Make Compost - Getting Oxygen to the Compost

Keep turning your compost heap over every week to get air to it, and if you think your compost heap could do with a little help, pop into your local garden center and pick up a commercial activator. This will aid in getting your compost heap jump-started again and the composting process back into action.

A compost heap will mature quicker if it is at least one cubic meter.

How to Make Compost and Compost Troubleshooting

Getting the right proportion of moisture and the right combination of ingredients in your compost may take a little practice, but most problems can usually be overcome. Find the solutions here to your problem.

Composting Problem: My Compost Heap is too Wet

Solution: Add sawdust or shredded newspaper to help absorb moisture, and turn regularly

Composting Problem: My Compost Heap is too Dry

Solution: Water lightly.

Composting Problem: My Compost Heap is Not Heating Up

Solution: Add a source of nitrogen, such as animal manure or blood and bone meal or vegetable scraps.

Composting Problem: My Compost Heap is Too Hot

Solution: If the mixture goes grey and smokes, turn and spread it out to cool the compost down.

Composting Problem: My Compost Heap is Smelly

Solution: All compost releases some smell when it is turned. Reduce smell by keeping the compost damp but not wet.

Composting Solution: My Compost Heap has Flies and Cockroaches

Solution: Fully enclose the compost. Make sure the compost is hot in the centre and turn regularly to ‘cook’ fly and cockroach eggs. Add some ducks to your homestead or garden. They are great fly catchers!

How to Make Compost - Now that I have my Compost how do I use it?

Dig the compost into flower and vegetable gardens to a depth of about 5cm. It can be applied to the surface of garden beds as mulch or used as top dressing for lawns. When using compost on the garden, take care to keep it away from roots and stems to avoid burning.

No single chemical fertilizer or animal manure by itself can match the goodness of nutrient-rich, homemade compost. It boosts nutrient levels in the soil, helps control diseases in garden wastes, saves trips to the tip and backyard burning, and reduces garbage output significantly. Healthy, chemical-free flowers, fruit and vegetables are a bonus.

Even if you can't use the compost on your own garden, it will almost certainly find a welcome home with a ‘green-thumbed’ neighbour.

How to Make Compost: Additional Information and Resources

Countryfarm Lifestyles Tip

Urine is an excellent source of nitrogen, including human urine, and therefore worth saving as it a free source and very useful for activating your compost heap.

For those of you who are interested in knowing how to make compost and what materials contain which of the three necessary elements; nitrogen, potash and phosphates, you can see a quick list below:

Nitrogen:

urine
raw bone meal
feathers
hair
tea and coffee grounds

Potash:
hay
wood ash
wool waste
banana waste
rock dust

Phosphate:
fish
hoof and horn meal
sugar waste

When you are making compost, of course you will need a compost bin. We have some information on how to make a compost bin, along with some plans, including one set of plans to make a log compost bin.

One subject we didn't touch on here is worm farming. With worm farming you can make good compost fairly quickly which will give you an added dimension to your composting know how and learning how to make compost.

Video on How to Make Compost

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