What a great way to kickstart your journey into home gardening!
While there are many ways to compost, such as open-air composting and worm farming, we are going to focus on static and tumbling composting as they are an easy, manageable, family-friendly way to begin.
There are many benefits to composting which include reducing household waste that ends up in landfill, creating by-products to use on your garden to improve the health of plants and soil, and educating future generations of little gardeners!
While there is a lot of wonderful resources out there that will help start your compost and we are not claiming this to be the only way, we have found, with much trial-and-error, over a long period of time these methods work the best for us, providing they are monitored and cared for.
Understanding your waste:
The types of waste used in a compost can be put into two separate categories;- Green waste, is your source of nitrogen and includes food scraps, fruit and veggie scraps, coffee grounds, teabags and leaves, wilted flowers and fresh grass clippings,
- Brown waste, is your source of carbon and are dry or woody materials that originated from plants, such as shredded paper and cardboard, sawdust, tissues, dried leaves, hay and straw.
In order to maintain a healthy compost bin that is thriving with all the wonderful bacteria, micronutrients, and worms required to break down our waste, we need to find the right balance of brown to green waste (nitrogen vs carbon). Too much nitrogen and the compost could become mouldy, unable to break down the waste due to the presence of too much moisture which inhibits the flow of oxygen throughout the system (this is also why it’s important to regularly aerate your compost bin). Not enough nitrogen, and too much carbon means the bin will dry out quickly and won’t create a neutral environment that can sustain the microorganisms. As a general guide, we aim for 1 part carbon, to 1 part nitrogen, by weight not volume, but you’ll need to keep an eye on this ratio to find your perfect mix.
What you’ll need to begin:
- A container system (tumbling system, old garbage bin, open bottom plastic compost bin with lid, in ground)
- Chicken wire or mesh, if using open bottom system only
- A shaded area to store your bin or system, suitably placed away from the house or entertaining areas
Starting to fill your open-bottom compost or garbage bin:
- Begin with a 50-100mm layer of sticks, twigs and/or branches (with each branch no more than 20mm in diameter as this will be difficult to break down)
- Follow the base layer with a brown layer of shredded paper, cardboard, or dried leaves
- Introduce a green layer, grass clippings work well, or shredded leafy greens
- Repeat the alternating of layers, with a brown layer which could also include fine hay or bedding material, and then a green layer where you introduce fruit and veggie scraps
- Slightly wet each layer to ensure there is moisture throughout the layers
Things to avoid:
- Any meat, dairy, fats and oils in these types of systems, as they invite vermin and unwanted critters into your system and don’t break down well initially
- Thick layering of waste as this slows down to composting process and may even completely inhibit it
- Leaving your pile unattended for too long. This type of system requires regular inspections and monitoring, especially through the early stages of development. Once it has been established, regular inspections can be spaced out
- Large veggie scraps or vegetables - chop up your waste into small pieces
- A large amount of citrus - while some resources will tell you not to place ANY citrus in your compost bin, we have found a healthy system can handle small amounts providing they are cut finely.
Starting to fill your tumbling system
- You will need to try to maintain a 1:1 ratio of green to brown waste by weight, not volume.
- Ensure your scraps, sticks, leaves and branches are small or finely shredded.
- Begin with slightly wet shredded paper or cardboard
- Maintain the 1:1 ratio of green to brown waste until the tumbler is approx. 50% full. You can then top up in the coming weeks with whatever green and/or brown waste you have, as long as you monitor the condition of your compost environment.
Things to avoid:
- Any meat, dairy, fats and oils in these types of systems, as they invite vermin and unwanted critters into your system and don’t break down well initially
- Leaving your pile unattended for too long without turning. This system requires regular inspections and monitoring, especially through the early stages of development. Once it has been established, regular inspections can be spaced out
- Large veggie scraps or vegetables - chop up your waste into small pieces
- A large amount of citrus - while some resources will tell you not to place ANY citrus in your compost bin, we have found a healthy system can handle small amounts providing they are cut finely
- Placing your system over decking or paving as it may leak occasionally. If there are regular water marks beneath the tumbler, it is a sign of too much moisture, so add more brown waste to improve the balance.
Maintaining your compost bin:
- Check in regularly to monitor moisture levels: if there is too much moisture you may notice some unpleasant smells when you open the lid. If there is not enough moisture it will look like a bunch of kindling! If you notice there is too much moisture, you can add additional brown waste; shredded paper, cardboard, egg cartons are a great way to quickly regulate moisture. And if its too dry? Add water slowly and turn the existing materials. You can also use fresh grass clippings and high water-content veggie scraps.
- Keep it fluffy, aerate your bin: easy to do in a tumbling system, just turn the lever and watch it spin, whereas static bins will need a bit more manual labour. A compost turner (think of a big paint mixer) is ideal, and easy to use, while a garden pitchfork or shovel will do the job just fine!
- Harvest a little, a lot: instead of using all your wonderful compost in one hit, once it’s of a quality you’re happy with, use little amounts around the garden, and keep topping up the compost bin. That way you won’t have to start from scratch, and can continue to utilise the wonderful microbes and bacteria you have created!
- Share it around: the wonderful thing about home gardening is that you can share your seedlings, cuttings, fruit, flowers and compost with others. If you can’t keep up with the quantity in your bins, share it around with family, friends and neighbours so they can benefit from all your hard work too.
- Feel like you don’t have all the answers to your questions? Get in touch with us, send some photos through and we’ll do our best to get to the bottom of the situation. Community groups online and at your local community gardens are also a wonderful resource and sounding board for all things green… and in this case, brown!