The key benefits of applying compost are:

• • A well-fed, healthy soil

  • A thriving habitat of micro-organisms, worms, and insects

  • Healthy plants with a greater natural resistance to combat pests and fungal diseases

  • No need to spray or add chemicals/artificial fertilisers 

  • Effective organic weed control

  • Effective method of water retention, reducing the need to water plants by hand

  • It’s free to make and means you can recycle waste.

Here’s What You Need

• • 1. Carbon-rich “brown” materials, such as fall leaves, straw, dead flowers from your garden, and shredded newspaper.

  • 2. Nitrogen-rich “green” materials, such as grass clippings, plant-based kitchen waste (vegetable peelings and fruit rinds, but no meat scraps), or barnyard animal manure (even though its color is usually brown, manure is full of nitrogen like the other “green” stuff). Do not use manure from carnivores, such as cats or dogs.

Every couple of weeks, use a garden fork or shovel to turn the pile, moving the stuff at the center of the compost pile to the outside and working the stuff on the outside to the center of the pile. Keep the pile moist, but not soggy. When you first turn the pile, you may see steam rising from it. This is a sign that the compost pile is heating up as a result of the materials in it decomposing. If you turn the pile every couple of weeks and keep it moist, you will begin to see earthworms throughout the pile and the center of the pile will turn into black, crumbly, sweet-smelling “black gold.” When you have enough finished compost in the pile to use in your garden, shovel out the finished compost and start your next pile with any material that hadn’t fully decomposed in the previous one.