Composting

Today I have been working on a compost pile. I think it’s great to be able to recycle your food waste within your own garden. This will reduce our landfill waste and produce rich soil for healthy plants to grow. Food waste in your compost pile produces far less methane gas compared to it sitting in a landfill. So will you join me? Yes I hear you say, well lets get started…

So basically you can just dig a hole and pile it all on the ground or use a DIY container, however I have gone for a compost bin made from recycled plastic. I purchased it for £7 second-hand through my local selling pages and it looks good as new.

The previous owner had been putting his grass clippings in and hoping for compost with no luck. However he had neglected a few vital ingredients…

To make compost you need:

Browns and Greens

Brown materials are your carbon
Straw, dry leaves, paper, cardboard, cotton wool, egg shells, hair, nuts, sweetcorn cobs, vacuum cleaner contents, wood ash and wool.

Green materials are your nitrogen
Grass, green leaves, flowers, weeds, hay, Tea bags, Coffee grounds, Manure(not dog or human faeces), Urine, seaweed, seeds and food waste.

However, do not put meat, fish, and try to avoid fats, oils and dairy products from your compost.

It’s important to layer the greens and browns and add water to each layer .

Try to chop, shred or tear your waste materials into smaller pieces as this will help them to decompose much faster.

As a rule you’re meant to have 3 times more brown materials in your compost than greens. Once your compost gets going this becomes less important. I looked like a crazy lady today scavenging around my neighbourhood picking up old fallen leaves to make more browns.

If the compost doesn’t get hot enough then I will add more greens but if it starts to smell funny it's time to add more browns. I will also be adding my bamboo toothbrush and bamboo cotton buds. Lets see how long they take to go.

I will need to turn the compost every week or two. I am going to be adding to this pile, I hope you will join in with me and share you experiences :)