Composting

June 9, 2008 – 5:17 pm

Composting sounds hard, but it’s really not, in fact it’s one of the easiest things you can do at home to get you started on the path to being greener.  There are a few things to decide before you get started, and one or two things to remember as you go along, but after that, it’s really a matter of throw things in and leave them to rot.

First thing you have to decide is if you want a regular compost heap or if you’re going to go for a wormery or a bokashi compost.  A regular compost heap can have all your uncooked fruit and veg added, along with any garden waste you get - weeds, grass cuttings, prunings from plants and trees etc.  A bokashi compost means you can add cooked food waste including meat as well as all the normal things.  However, with a bokashi set up, you have to buy your bokashi powder and remember to add it regularly.  A wormery is generally much smaller and good if you’ve only got a very small space like a yard rather than a garden, as it tends not to smell and so doesn’t matter if it’s right by the back door.

Once you’ve made your decision which you’re going to go for, then you need to decide where you’re going to place it.  Remember with a bokashi set up you get a liquid forming that means you want to set it up on something (a bit like you would with a waterbutt) so you can pop a bucket or watering can under the tap to let you use all that lovely juice for feeding your plants.  With a compost heap you want to put it a little out of the way from the back door ideally as they can get a little smelly although if you buy one of the plastic composting bins then these tend to keep the smells inside much more than an open heap does.

So, you’ve placed your compost heap where you want it, and now all you have to do is add things to it.  For a regular compost heap, you can include:

Grass cuttings (a little at a time mixed with other things is best)
Hedge clippings (avoid putting rose leaves in unless they look totally healthy)
uncooked fruit and veg peelings and offcuts
weeds (except for perennial weeds like dandelions and bindweed - also best to avoid weeds that have gone to seed)
vacuum contents
hair from your hairbrush
hair from your pets
cardboard
newspaper
eggshells

For a bokashi compost you can include all of the above plus any other food waste you produce in the kitchen including raw meat, cooked meat and cooked fruit and veg and dairy etc. (all the things you’d normally have to leave out in other words!).

For a wormery you can add all the same things as are in a regular compost, but in smaller quantity.

If your compost is too moist try adding a bit more brown matter - dried leaves, card and paper etc.  If your compost seems too dry try adding more wet contents - peelings and green prunings etc.   If your compost doesn’t seem to be breaking down very fast you can add something called an activator.  Activators come in all sorts of different forms, but basically they’re things that are rich in nitrogen and help speed the process up.  Urine is a good activator as is nettle liquid which you can make by putting about 100g of nettle leaves into about 1 litre of water and leaving for a couple of weeks in a lidded bucket.  Or you can just add the nettle leaves to the heap, but that’s not as fast as making the liquid with them first.

Over time your garden and kitchen waste will rot down in the compost bin or wormery and become lovely rich compost to use on your garden.  When it does, you can scoop it out and store it in sacks till you want it.

Happy composting!