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Backyard Composting

12 Step- Quick Start Guide​

  1. Choose a level area at least three feet square (3' by 3'). Area should receive only partial sun.

  2. Open the ground with a pitchfork or shovel approximately an inch or so under your pile area.

  3. Add an alternating mix of four-inch to six-inch layers of finely chopped high carbon and high

  4. nitrogen materials.

  5. Add a handful of garden soil on top of the layers. Mix the carbon and nitrogen layers with a garden fork.

  6. Water the layers until they feel like a wrung-out sponge.

  7. Continue building your layers of carbon and nitrogen materials. **Remember to throw a handful of soil on top of each layer.

  8. Mix each new carbon and nitrogen layer before watering.

  9. To avoid direct sunlight, cover the top of your pile with black plastic or straw. This also keeps the pile from drying out and slows the loss of soluble nutrients.

  10. Once a week, use a spading fork or commercial aerator to turn or stir your pile to provide air channels.

  11. Keep your carbon and nitrogen layers finely chopped, then add a little soil

  12. Build the pile a minimum of three feet high, maintain the moisture so it's like a wrung-out sponge, and turn it for air.

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In just two months, you will have your own brown gold compost!

Compost Uses

Compost is ready to use when it is dark and crumbly. You should not be able to recognize most of the materials. The finished product should smell like a damp forest floor.  Compost

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Vegetables, Flowers and Herbs — Fork it lightly into the soil several times during the growing

season. It will conserve moisture, open up air channels in the soil, and slowly release nutrients for your plants.

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Trees and Shrubs — After cultivating the soil at base of the plant, spread an inch or two of

compost around the drip line. Leave the area surrounding the trunk free of compost to prevent

mice from burrowing there in winter.

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Lawns — Spread aged compost thinly over newly aerated grass. Eventually, it will help loosen

clay in soil and allow a healthier, deeper root structure for grass plants. Deeper roots allow plants

longer 9me periods between watering.

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Houseplants — Enrich potting soils by adding up to 20 percent finely screened compost. Make

a good moisture retaining poxng soil by mixing finely screened compost, sphagnum peat, and

perlit

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