Thread: How to Make Compost

Got a garden? Want to try something new? Here's some great info and tips on making compost as well as a short video with a nice and simple explanation.

What Can You Compost?

"Greens" or nitrogen rich ingredients:

• Comfrey leaves
• Nettles
• Grass cuttings
• Other green materials
• Raw vegetable peelings from your kitchen
• Tea bags and leaves, coffee grounds
• Young green weed growth - avoid weeds with seeds
• Soft green prunings
• Animal manure from herbivores eg cows and horses
• Poultry manure and bedding

"Browns" or carbon rich ingredients - slow to rot:

• Cardboard eg. cereal packets and egg boxes
• Waste paper and junk mail, including shredded confidential waste
• Cardboard tubes
• Bedding from vegetarian pets eg rabbits, guinea pigs
• Tough hedge clippings
• Woody prunings
• Old bedding plants
• Bracken
• Sawdust
• Wood shavings
• Fallen leaves can be composted but the best use of them is to make leafmould

Other compostable items:

• Wood ash, in moderation
• Hair, nail clippings
• Egg shells (crushed)
• Natural fibres eg. 100% wool or cotton

Do NOT compost

• Meat
• Fish
• Cooked food
• Coal & coke ash
• Cat litter
• Dog faeces
• Disposable nappies

How do you make Compost?

You can make compost simply by adding compostable items to a compost heap when you feel like it. It will all compost eventually but may take a long time and if the mix is unbalanced, may not produce a very pleasant end product.

How long until your Compost is Ready?

Compost can be made in as little as six to eight weeks, or, more usually, it can take a year or more. In general, the more effort you put in, the quicker you will get compost.

Useful Websites and Composting Resources

How to make compost - full instructions

Using Compost

Compost Guide: Tips for Home Composting

Compost success factors | Your Garden In Spain

Worm Composting

Quick Video: Composting Explained

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s5HdYLSFzg]YouTube - How to compost / make compost. Composting explained in 2 minutes[/ame]

Sadly we have a townhouse and no garden so have no need to make compost.......I'd love fruit trees, olive trees, chickens, a goat, a donkey etc, however we do have a wonderful nature reserve and beach within spitting distance

Ok so at Casa1 we do have a garden and right now I'm sat in said garden whilst OH pots our beans, chillis, roocket, strawbs, tomato plants etc.......We've got our composter out and may well try some of your recommendations above ;-))