Composting is a great opportunity to make a smart use of garden and kitchen waste. You can set it up at virtually any time of the year and its appearance is entirely up to you. The design around it should be airy, giving room for many different possibilities. You can easily make one yourself just from branches you find in the garden or on a walk. But it can look different, for example:
- composting silo made from wooden planks or pallets,
- a plastic composter with a lid,
- rotary composter,
- vermicomposter for indoors.
How to get started?
There should be a layer of soil at the bottom of the composter that nothing will impede. If you are setting it up in your garden on a regular basis, it is a good idea to plough the space you have set aside. You can remove the sod completely, or just turn it over and leave it in place. Branches are great for the base layer and will act as drainage. In the case of a plastic or vermicomposter, torn cardboard is usually the choice, as it has a similar effect.
In both cases, this base layer will eventually break down and become part of the compost itself. The next layer should be sheep, cow or horse manure. However, you can equally well use soil from chickens. However, this ingredient is not necessary, and especially not in a vermicomposter.
What can you add?
Practically speaking, you can put almost anything of plant origin in the compost. This includes grass clippings, leaves, moss, branches, bark, organic waste from the kitchen, coffee grounds, tea bags, clean paper, plant debris (no weeds), even wood ashes. But in no case does anything animal belong there. The only thing you can put in there is eggshells.
Meat scraps, bones, chemically treated materials, plastic, metal and glass, rocks, pits, magazines, and plants infested with any disease do not belong in the compost. Think of it as fertilizer for your house and garden flowers, fruits and vegetables over time. Surely you don’t want to give them something harmful as a nutrient that could harm them.