If you love gardening, it’s great that you can grow your own fruits and vegetables that you can be sure are grown in a healthy way, especially if you’re into organic backyard gardening. In addition to making your vegetables pesticide-free, you can also learn how to make organic compost as an alternative to commercial fertilizers.

Learning how to compost in your own backyard can save you money on fertilizer purchases and allows you to help restore the natural fertility of the soil in your backyard, which also allows you to easily choose vegetables to plant in your backyard. It is also good practice to dispose of waste and put it to good use.

Composting is really easy as most of the work is done by nature itself. You just have to learn about the correct ingredients and their ratio and give it some time to mix it periodically, and then you can have your own organic fertilizer.

compost ingredients

If you’re interested in learning how to make organic compost, there are three main ingredients that are important: the ‘greens’ or nitrogen-rich materials, the ‘browns’ the carbon-rich, water and air. Greens are yard waste that mostly includes grass clippings, yard waste, and leaves. Vegetables also include kitchen scraps like fruit and vegetable peelings and other kitchen scraps that are not meat products and are not greasy. It may also include animal manure from farm animals, including poultry. Keep in mind that cat and dog waste should not be included in your compost. Kitchen waste, such as fish or cooked food, should not be included in your compost as well.

You can include in your ‘browns’ some twigs from the garden, sawdust, cardboard and waste paper, small branches that you get from pruning, wood shavings.

Water is also essential for making your own compost, as it will allow the materials to rot. However, it is important to put the correct amount of water in your compost heap because too dry it will not break down the materials in your compost and too wet it will not make good compost either. It will only make it smell bad, which means you are breeding not-so-desirable bacteria in your compost. Allowing air to pass through the compost will also speed up the process.

How to Make Organic Compost – The Simple Steps

You can start your compost by putting all the materials you have gathered in your compost bin. Make sure you put in about equal amounts of ‘greens’ and ‘browns’ and have a mix of soft and hard materials to allow for easy rotting. Add manure to waste paper piles to speed up the decomposition process. You can also add garden soil to your compost heap.

You can then return to your compost heap once a week to bring it outside. You will determine that you are getting the correct compost because it will heat up in the middle of your compost. Also add water every week if it doesn’t rain enough to moisten the pile. Remember not to get it too wet, but just enough to moisten it.

When you feel that the compost is no longer giving off heat, you can let the compost rot and decompose on its own. In about a month or two, you should have a dark brown compost ready for your organic garden.