HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN COMPOST AT HOME

some call it black gold for most gardeners this is an indispensable source of organic material to get great plants in your garden let's see how to make compost first let's see what is compost compost is nothing but decomposed organic matter soil microorganisms like aerobic bacteria and fungi as well as earthworms decompose organic matter into nutrient-rich fertilizer or soil amendment let's see what materials you need to start composting these thirty gallon trash cans which you can buy at loaves or Home Depot are a great starting point they are cheap and rugged and make great combustors the first step in setting up your compost bin is to make sure your drill holes all around the compost container this will allow the air to come in and oxygen is very much needed for the composting process to completely make sure your drill holes all around the container of good air flow so once completed your container should look like this and as you can see it has a lot of holes here which will allow you to start your composting process very easily I usually use two or three composting bins the composting process can take up to six months so while one of my compost bins is preparing the compost I can continue to add organic matter in my other beds and that way it ensures that I have compost whenever I need it now let's look at what I add in my compost bin the easiest things to add our vegetable and fruit scraps they make excellent green additions to the compost bin and this is so easy all you do is collect all the leftover peels and rinds of vegetables and fruits and to your compost Ben I also raking leaves under my trees wah-wah leaves in this example and they are a great carbon source for the bin so you can use leaves from any trees just avoid pine needles they're acidic in nature other than that all dried leaves are good to go into your compost bed other than this leftover roots and other parts of plants that you have harvested make excellent additions to the compost bin so what I usually do is pick out all the plant remains after I have recycled my containers and you can find a lot of organic matter in your container soil and instead of using this soil again I just toss it into my compost bin so that it's well combusted and then it can be used I also add a layer of used potting soil which has the soil microorganisms that kickstart the composting process you can use any kind of soil for this purpose you can even add earthworms to your compost bin these worms will happily eat all the food scraps and convert it into nutrient-rich fertilizer so here are some things that you can add to your compost pile coffee and tea grounds but not made with milk eggshells hair vegetable and fruit peels or scraps plant remains leaves greens or dry grass clippings straw hay any parts of plants shredded newspaper and cardboard and wood chips or sawdust this is what you should not be adding to your compost bin anything that's cooked meat or bones human or pet waste since the spread diseases by needles but use parently because they are acidic in nature in general a compost bin needs to have an equal mix of green matter which provides nitrogen and brown matter which provides carbon this in addition to air and water helps microorganisms to an organic matter into compost maintaining a compost pile is pretty simple since composting needs three key things aeration which you can do by turning your compost with the garden fork or dump the compost on a tarp and then put it back moisture keep the pile moist but not wet and add in a compost activator like blood meal or organic fertilizer this helps speed up the composting process so the composting process takes about two months to 6 months to complete it's faster when the temperatures are high once the process completes you should no longer be able to see the original components the compost looks just like this so I hope you liked this episode on how to make your own compost and this is a technique that I used to make my own compost and I'd love to hear from you what your techniques are I'll see you again soon happy gardening