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Compost is a great tool for any gardener. It helps your garden hold just the right amount of water, makes it the right texture for optimal plant growth, and provides it with beneficial natural organisms. While you can buy several different types of compost products at a retail store or gardening center, it’s much cheaper to make your own compost. Not only will you save money, you also get the added benefit of knowing that you’re not just throwing your yard waste away; it’s actually doing something beneficial for your garden and for your health.

Before getting started on building your compost pile, you should know what to put in it. To get good compost you need four elements: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and water. Grass clippings from your yard provide the carbon. Nitrogen comes from leaves in the fall. To make sure your pile gets water, build it somewhere where it will be rained on; just be sure it’s not completely soaked with water. Lastly, you can add oxygen simply by mixing the pile regularly. Just turn the soil over once a month with a rake or garden shovel. Don’t worry if you can’t provide enough nitrogen or carbon to your compost pile through your yard waste, you can always add a little fertilizer. The type of fertilizer you select will depend on what nutrient you’re lacking.

There are two different types of compost piles you can make; the first is a cool pile. To make a cool pile, simply throw your clippings and leaves in the bin as they come and stir the ingredients occasionally. This is a good option if you don’t have a lot of time to devote to composting, but it takes about a year to get useable compost. You shouldn’t add diseased plants or weeds to this mixture because they can be harmful to the soil quality and weeds will continue to grow once they’re back in your garden.

If you’re anxious and just can’t wait of if you need your compost in a shorter time span, you should try making a hot compost pile. Unlike cool piles, you need to have a significant amount of yard waste available to start a hot pile; at least 3 feet by 3 feet. This mixture will require mixing much more often. You can mix it anywhere from once every two weeks to once every couple of days. The more you mix, the more you break down your yard waste, the faster you get compost. This type of pile will kill weed seeds and diseases because it reaches much higher temperatures (about 160°), but be aware that it may also kill beneficial bacteria. A cool compost is a much better solution.

Another alternative is to check with your local city councilor to see if your region hosts Community Days. Community Days are growing in popularity in the United States and Canada. Hosted twice each year (usually Spring & Fall), Community Days often ask citizens to bring their recycling items, unwanted clothing and used electronics to a central location for collection & re-distribution. The last five years, Community Days have also included “bag your own compost” services. Free compost is available. Anyone with a shovel and bucket can tote away as much compost as they can carry.

It’s easy to know when your compost pile is ready for use. When your compost pile no longer resembles what you put into it, it’s ready to be used. Just mix into your soil for strong, healthy plants.

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Article Source: http://www.organicgardenarticles.com

Compost, made from decomposed grass clippings, leaves, twigs, and branches, becomes a dark, crumbly mixture of organic matter.

Learn how composting works. Even a newbie to composting can make good quality compost. It can be compared to cooking as art or part science. The following 7 factors will help you master the art of composting.

1. Materials
After a time anything that was once alive will naturally decompose. But, not all organic items should be composted for the home. To prepare compost, organic material, microorganisms, air, water, and a small amount of nitrogen are needed.

These items are safe to compost at home:
* grass clippings
* trimmings from hedges
* vegetable scraps
* leaves
* potting soil that has grown old
* twigs
* coffee filters with coffee grounds
* tea bags
* weeds that have not went to seed
* plant stalks

These items are Not safe to compost at home:
* weeds that have went to seed
* dead animals
* pet feces
* bread and grains
* meat
* grease
* cooking oil
* oily foods
*diseased plants

2. What To Do To Make It Work
There are small forms of plant and animal life which break down the organic material. This life is called microorganisms. From a minute amount of garden soil or manure comes plenty of microorganisms.

Nitrogen, air, and water will provide a favorable environment for the microorganisms to make the compost. Air circulation and water will keep the microorganisms healthy and working. The nitrogen feeds the tiny organisms. You may have to add a small amount of nitrogen to the pile.

Putting on too much nitrogen can kill microbes and too much water causes insufficient air in the pile. You just cannot add too much air.

3. Beneficial Microorganisms
Bacteria are the most effective compost makers in your compost pile. They are the first to break down plant tissue. Then comes the fungi and protozoans to help with the process. The arthropodes, like centipedes, beetles, millipedes and worms, bring in the finishing touches to complete the composting.

4. Smaller is Better
The materials will break down faster if the microorganisms have more surface area to eat. Chopping your garden materials with a chipper, shredder, or lawnmower will help them decompose faster.

5. Size of The Pile
The activity of millions of microorganisms generates heat in the compost pile but a minimum size 3-foot by 3-foot by 3-foot is needed for a hot, fast composting pile. Piles that are any larger may hamper the air supply needed in the pile for the microorganisms.

6. Moisture and Aeration
If you can imagine a wet squeezed out sponge with its many air pockets, then this would be the ideal enviroment for the microorganisms in the pile to function at their best. Pay attention while your pile is composting, to the amount of rain or a drought you may have. Water in a drought and maybe turn the pile in a lot of rainy days. The extremes of these two may upset the balance of the pile. The use of a pitchfork would come in handy at this time.

7. Temperature and Time
Keep your pile between 110F and 160F and the beneficial bacteria will love it. Not too cool nor too hot.
The temperature will rise over several days if you keep a good ratio of carbon and nitrogen, maintain lots of surface area within a large volume of material, and maintain adequate moisture and aeration.

-Importance of Compost-

+Compost has nutrients, but it is not a complete fertilizer.

+Compost provides nutrients in the soil until plants need to use them.

+ It loosens and aerates clay soils

+ Retains water in sandy soils.

-Using the Compost-

+ A soil amendment, mix 2 to 5 inches of compost into gardens each year before planting.

+ A potting mixture, add one part compost to two parts potting soil.

+ Make your own potting mixture by using equal parts of compost and sand or perlite.

+ A mulch, prodcast 2 to 4 inches of compost around annual flowers and vegetables, and up to 5 inches around your trees and shrubs.

+ A top dressing, mix finely sifted compost with sand and sprinkle evenly over lawns.

The final thing I would suggest once you have mastered the art of composting is to look very seriously at making your very own aerated compost tea. This elixir will give you results that are hard to believe.

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Article Source: http://www.organicgardenarticles.com