If you make your own compost you will be cutting down on the amount of rubbish that goes to landfill from your household and you will be rewarded with a rich compost that will keep the soil in your garden and plants you grow healthier.

Making compost is simple... to make good compost is not difficult.

The process of making compost is a natural one; if you leave a piece of fruit and forget about it what happens? It decays and rots down. Most natural things do this, some take longer to 'decompose/rot ' down than others. (The difference between a over ripe tomato rotting down and a egg shell is the time it takes to achieve it.)

Like a lot of things to do with growing and gardening some people will tell you there is only one way to achieve the goal... in this case converting waste products into usable compost. I think it suits some folk to make a great mystery out of simple processes. Making compost is simpler than following an easy cooking recipe... you can vary the ingredients when you make compost without risk of a disaster and most of the time you just let it get on with the process by itself. You can always make adjustments to your compost heap to get it back on track if you have a few minor problems with it to begin with.

Kitchen waste...

These can go in to your kitchen caddy and then be put onto your compost heap...

Tea bags, coffee grounds, all vegetable peelings and waste e.g trimmings of vegetables, vegetables and fruit that are no longer edible, apple cores,banana peel, tops of carrots etc.But nothing that is diseased because you do not want to spread problems to your vegetable patch. Kitchen paper towel (that is has not been used for meat or has had 'chemicals' on it).

Pet animal bedding( used hay) from rabbits and guinea pigs... their poop will be very good for your compost heap and the urine on the hay is useful in the process of composting.

Note: Do not add their dried waste food to the heap for the reason stated below.

These should not go onto the compost heap... no foods foods that will attract scavenging vermin ...

such as cooked foods, meat.

I would not compost contents from the vacuum cleaner but some people do.

Some people add hair cuttings and pet hair but I do not.

Greens and Browns explained..

Here is a list of greens and browns that can go into making compost...

The Browns

• Fallen leaves
• Hay & straw
• Ripped up cardboard, brown paper.
• Paper bags, kitchen towels

The Greens

• Vegetable & fruit waste
• Eggshell
• Coffee grounds, filters, & teabags
• Horse, cow, rabbit, chicken, gerbil, goat, sheep, rabbit, pig manure
• Weeds without weed seeds
• Grass cuttings but not if you use chemicals on grass ( and not too many at once they can slow down the heap)

Do not try to compost :

• Meat fish, bones
• Fats, Dairy products
• cat and dog waste
• Plants with diseases
• Weeds with seeds
• Perrenial or pernicious weeds such as bindweed.

 No. You do not need to spend money on expensive bins to produce usable compost from the simple things that at present you probably throw away in your household waste.

You might want to buy a nice looking bin, especially if it is going to be in a place that you see it ; but you can make compost by cheaper ways if you want to.

Do special bins make compost quicker?  Some do.. some do not. Air is an important part of the composting process so a bin that turns the compost by an easy method or one that helps with air flow in the bin might speed up the process but so does turning it over regularly with a garden fork if it is just in an ordinary home made compost heap.

Your compost heap needsfour basic things  browns, greens, air and water.

You turn the heap to get air to it.

You add water when it is too dry.

Too wet you add materials like card to it and give it a turn over.

Your greens and browns are what you add.

If you can construct the heap all in one go i.e have enough materials it will heat up faster.

There are various techniques that have been developed to speed up the composting process I will add a page later about these methods.

Do not get too hung up on this side of making compost eventually you will get to know what to do/add to the heap it is a skill you will acquire.

A good ratio is 3 parts browns to 1 part greens. This is ideal but if you cannot manage it you will still get eventually get compost from your heap. One of the most common mistakes is too pile too many grass clippings in at one time in the summer this is not a good idea.

3 to 1 will speed up the workings of the heap and it will decompose faster.

I do not use a Bokashi bin .... we do not waste enough 'prepared food etc' to warrant the purchase of one (actually you need to buy two) and the bran you have to buy to add to it. However if you waste a lot of cooked food in your kitchen you might want to consider purchasing them.

What can I do to speed up the process.... if you want to know more on this; see the links at the bottom of the page for advice on this.