Composting is one of the most important processes for a healthy garden as it is a process that naturally returns all the essential components back into the soil. Good compost can be created in the home entirely from natural waste from the garden and kitchen. Effective ingredients for inclusion in your compost include bacteria, earthworms, crass cuttings, and fungi and al kinds of organic waste. Home composting is environmentally friendly, reduces waste and produces a superb organic and natural soil improver. When you compost at home you will be over the moon to know that around 40 percent of actual household waste is from the kitchen and garden. Rather than throw this waste away to fill a landfill you can actually generate good compost for use in the garden.

Simply by using compost at home you don’t need to use fertilisers or soil improvers. Home developed compost is just as effective (if not more so) for the soil as manufactured compost products. A healthy garden is dependent on the use of well developed compost. Good quality composts not only nourishes your plants, but also encourages maximal growth and health for your plants.

Composting is a natural process of the breakdown of organic materials such as cut grass, garden and kitchen waste including peelings, egg shells and tea leaves. Making our own compost involves a slow decomposition of these materials into a dark, rich and crumbly soil. The resulting product is a substance that will improve your soil and plant growth as it replenishes nutrients and slows down erosion as well as feeding your plants and discouraging disease to set in. After your compost is ready then you can use it to use in the garden, by placing a layer of compost around the base of all your plants you will release nutrients deep into the roots. As well as using compost in the soil it can also be mixed with regular soil as a mixture that can be used in potting plants.

If you are planning on creating your own compost, there are a few different ways. The main ones are:

• Compost heap
• Compost bin
• Compost tumbler
  
• Worm bin

Let's look at each of these in more detail.

This is very simply exactly what it sounds like. You find a spot in a sunny corner away from your garden (Compost heaps aren't generally very aestetically pleasing) and simply toss all your garden and kitchen waste on a pile.

Essentially, the only things you need to watch out for is that it needs to stay moist (Just moist, no need to flood it every week), and you should try not to put any material on there that will take a long time to degrade. Tea leaves are fine, but teabags take a long time. Similarly, citrus peels or fruit not only takes a long time, they can also harm the earthworms that make the whole process work.

Do not EVER put any meat on the compost heap... The smell is terrible and it will also attract all kinds of pests including flies and rats.

The last thing you want to do is to turn over the heap every 2 weeks or so. You don't have to do this, but it does significantly speed up the process.

The first compost bins weren't much different from your average compost heap. In fact, a lot of 'bins' are just supports that get erected around the compost heap to keep it contained. Another good use is to create a double bin, so that you can have 2 heaps in different stages of decomposition.

You can also make your own more contained and aesthetically pleasing compost bins like in the first image on the right, or you can buy compost bins like the second picture that is fully contained.

Essentially, a compost tumbler is a container that you can put compost into and rotate. However, I've seen some very ingenious designs - This can be done in a huge variety of ways. On the right you can see 2 images of 2 very different compost tumblers that essentially provide the same function.

The way this works is you keep adding material through the door, and every week you just give it a couple of turns to mix everything up and get some more air into it. This is probably the fastest way to get compost without worms

The simplest worm bins is just a normal compost bin without a base so that the sides rest right on the ground. Then you put your waste material in the bin, put a couple of pages of wet newsprint on top to keep it moist, and then top the whole thing off with a piece of thick carpet. This will create a good environment for the worms, which will come up out of the ground to feed on the waste and turn it into compost.

Of course, you can take this concept a lot further. You can buy a worm bin with some worms and instructions. Essentially, you get a bin system that allows you to add the worms, give them some waste to feed on, and put moist newspaper on top of the waste. Every time you add more waste, you just lift the newspaper and add the waste. This gives the best compost, and as the worms multiply, you'll be able to get compost faster. Along with this vermicompost that the worms produce, they also produce a liquid fertilizer that is absolutely wonderful. You'll use this diluted 1 to 50 for the garden and 1 to 10 for pot plants. Theworm bin usually has a tap for you to draw off this liquid.

You can get some more info here as well as links to retailers:
http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/realmoney/articles/worms.cfm