Garden Composter
10 easy steps to gardening and composting:
1. Choose a flat, partly-sunny area with good drainage.
2. Purchase a bin from your municipality or a store or build your own rodent-proof compost bin. Keeping a lid on your bin will help keep out rain and rodents.
tip: The ideal compost bin size is one cubic metre in order to retain the heat it generates.
3. Create a 6-10cm base layer using straw, leaves, or woody brushy material to promote air circulation.
4. Alternate layers of green (nitrogen-rich) and brown (carbon-rich) materials. See the chart for a list of acceptable and unacceptable materials.
tip: Chop up large materials for faster decomposition.
5. Whenever you add a food scrap layer, top it off with a layer of brown material (5-8cm). If you only use kitchen scraps (green material), your compost will likely be wet and break down more slowly.
tip: In the fall, collect dry leaves into an old garbage container so that you can use them year-round.
6. Mix bin contents every week or two. This aerates the materials and gets the bin heating up again, allowing them to decompose faster. Purchase an aerator tool or use an old ski pole or broom handle.
7. Moisture content of the bin should be like a wrung-out dishrag. Only add water if it is very dry after mixing.
tip: To maintain proper moisture content, balance the amount of green and brown materials.
8. Pile will shrink. Continue to add layers of green and brown materials until bin is almost full.
9. Compost is generally ready to use after about 2-3 months; however, aging the compost for another 1-2 months is recommended.
tip: If you have room, set up two composters so you can add to one bin as the other one matures.
10. Harvest your compost when the compost at the bottom and centre is decomposed, full of healthy worms, and moist. Dig out the compost with a shovel, using the door at the bottom of a commercial bin; or if you have built your own, remove the top new layers and dig the compost from the centre.
tip: You may choose to sift your compost through a mesh screen to remove large chunks or unfinished
What to Compost
| Green Material (Nitrogen-Rich) | |
| Kitchen Scraps | Vegetable peelings and rotting fruit. |
| Plant trimmings from your garden | Leaves, old flowers, end-of-season greenery. |
| Grass clippings (fresh) | Best used as a mulch on your lawn; not from lawns recently treated with pesticides. |
| Coffee grounds and tea leaves | – |
| Pet manure | Use only from grass eaters such as rabbits, gerbils, guinea pigs, sheep, horses or cows. |
| Large leafy weeds | Not once in seed, and only when still green. Avoid invasive weeds like morning glory. |
| Rhubarb leaves | Safe for composting. Note: contain a natural chemical, oxalate, making leaves (NOT stems) poisonous to eat in large amounts. |
| Vegetables and fruit | Cut into thumb-sized pieces for faster composting. Note: no salad dressing. |
| Brown Material (Carbon-Rich) | |
| Leaves | Save leaves from the fall in a dry bin. Note: Oak leaves are good, but they decompose slowly, so use few. |
| Newsprint | Shred. |
| Cardboard | Cut some into small pieces to compost. Recycle large pieces. |
| Corn cobs, corn stalks | – |
| Brown paper bags | Shred. |
| Grass clippings (dry) | – |
| Straw | Excellent carbon source; can use in place of leaves. |
| Paper towels and napkins | – |
| Other Acceptable Materials | |
| Eggshells | Rinse and crush. |
| Wood ash from a fireplace | Can compost but best to add directly to garden.. |
| Unacceptable Materials) | |
| Grease, cooked food including rice or pasta, oilss | Attracts rodents and pests. Composts very slowly. Can cause odor problems. |
| Fish, meat, bones | Attracts animals and can cause odor problems. |
| Dog or cat feces* | Meat-eating animals can carry disease. |
| Kitty litter | May contain chemicals and disease organisms. |
| Barbecue ash, coal | Contains chemicals such as sulfur oxides. |
Compost Problems
|
Symptom
|
Diagnosis
|
Treatment
|
| Bin has a bad odor. |
Not enough air; pile is too wet.
|
Turn pile. Add coarse, dry materials such a straw or cornstalks.
|
| Pile is dry throughout. |
Not enough water. Too much woody material.
|
Turn and moisten materials. Add fresh waste. Cover pile to reduce evaporation.
|
| Compost material is damp and warm only in the middle. |
Not enough material in the bin.
|
Collect more material and mix the new ingredients into the old.
|
| Material is damp and sweet-smelling, but not heating up. |
Lack of nitrogen.
|
Mix in a nitrogen-rich (green) material such as fresh grass clippings, fresh manure, or blood meal.
|
| Pests around bin (dogs, rodents, insects). |
Improper food trimmings added, or materials not covered well enough.
|
Do not add meat, fats, bones or animal waste. Use a rodent-resistant compost bin.
|
| Flies at compost bin. |
Food scraps not covered. Not enough brown material.
|
Put fruit and vegetable scraps in centre of bin; cover with soil or brown material.
|
| Fruit flies in kitchen. |
Scraps are attracting fruit flies.
|
Keep kitchen scrap collection pail in the refrigerator or freezer.
|