Composting is a wonderful, green way to dispose of household organic material like grass clippings and food scraps. In return you get a very nutritious food for your plants. Spread it around your vegetables or use it as a potting soil in your flower garden. No matter how you use it, it's a win-win situation.

First let's take a look at what you can and cannot compost.

What you CAN compost:
Fruit and vegetable scraps.
Eggshells.
Coffee grounds (including the filter) and tea bags.
Clean paper and cardboard like newspaper, notebook or copy paper and cardboard boxes. It composts slowly, so shred it and limit the amount to about 10% of the pile.
Yard waste like grass clippings, twigs, leaves and dead plants.

Do NOT compost:

Animal products. This includes meat, bones, fats, dairy products and pet wastes. These all cause odor and attract pests. In addition, pet wastes may contain harmful bacteria or other parasites.
Diseased plants or any plant matter that has been treated with pesticides. Disease organisms can survive the composting process and infect the plants you later treat with the compost. Pesticides may kill the good bacteria and other organisms that help the composting process.

Your compost materials should consist of equal amounts of brown and green materials. Your browns are dead plant material and the greens are pretty much everything else (grass clippings, vegetable scraps, etc.).

Composting can be done in a corner of the yard, in a container outside, or in a container inside. If you have a large enough yard and your community allows it, building a pile in your backyard is the easiest way to go. It should be in a relatively shady, protected spot. Heat and air help speed up decomposition, but too much just dries out the pile. Covering your pile with a tarp will both keep it moist and trap heat.

To start, alternate layers of brown and green material, water until damp (NOT wet) and then mix. Turn the pile weekly to aerate and make sure that all material gets a turn at being in the center (where most of the composting action happens). To add new material, dig a hole in the middle, add and re-cover.

Composting in containers can be done indoors or out. Many companies sell special composting bins, but you can easily make your own out of a garbage can or plastic storage tub with holes drilled in the sides and top for air circulation.

Use the same materials as an outdoor pile. To mix roll the garbage can on its side, then remove the lid temporarily to allow more air in. For a small indoor tub, you can mix it with a hand shovel or shake it. This lid should also be removed briefly to aerate the contents.

It takes anywhere from two weeks to a full year to get finished compost depending on the specific conditions in your pile. You will recognize your finished compost because it will be dark brown with a fresh, earthy smell.

Learn more about this author, Melissa J Luther.
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