composting

start a compost heap

difficulty · beginnereffort · ongoingread · 7 min

turn kitchen scraps and garden waste into the single best soil amendment there is — for free.

compost is decomposition you steer. get the mix, the air, and the moisture roughly right and a heap will heat, break down, and hand you back a dark crumbly material that feeds soil biology like nothing you can buy. it is the most useful thing a gardener can make, and the barrier to entry is a corner of the plot.

the method

  1. 01

    pick a spot and a container

    a bay of pallets, a wire ring, or a simple bin, sitting on bare soil so worms and microbes can move in from below. size matters: about a cubic metre is the sweet spot where a heap can hold its own heat.

  2. 02

    balance greens and browns

    greens are wet and nitrogen-rich (kitchen scraps, fresh grass, coffee grounds); browns are dry and carbon-rich (dead leaves, cardboard, straw, woody prunings). aim by eye for a little more brown than green — think two or three handfuls of brown to each of green.

  3. 03

    layer, moisten, and cover

    build in alternating layers, water each dry brown layer until it is damp as a wrung-out sponge, and keep a lid or a sheet over the top so rain does not drown it and sun does not dry it.

  4. 04

    turn it to add air

    the microbes that make sweet, fast compost need oxygen. turn the heap every week or two, moving the cool outside into the hot middle. no turning still works — it is just slower and cooler.

  5. 05

    know when it is ready

    finished compost is dark, crumbly, and smells of woodland floor, with the original ingredients no longer recognisable. that takes anywhere from two months in a hot, turned heap to a year in a cold, still one.

field notes

  • chop or shred everything you add — smaller pieces have more surface for microbes to work and break down far faster.
  • keep a bucket of browns (torn cardboard, dry leaves) next to the heap so you can balance every wet kitchen load as you add it.
  • a heap that steams on a cold morning is a heap that is working.

common mistakes

  • ×all greens and no browns: a wet, airless, stinking slump. the smell is the diagnosis — add browns and turn.
  • ×adding cooked food, meat, or dairy to an open heap, which draws rats. keep those for a sealed hot bin or bokashi.
  • ×letting it dry out completely — a bone-dry heap simply stops. it should always feel like a wrung sponge.

plants for this practice

comfrey (bocking 14)symphytum × uplandicum→stinging nettleurtica dioica→yarrowachillea millefolium→dandeliontaraxacum officinale→

related patterns

chop & drop fertility loopfertility→