by Frank Lobsterman

Created on: December 18, 2010

A key component to a healthy garden is good soil, and the best way to get good soil  is to mix in some compost. While fertilizers and other soil additives have to be added in careful amounts, you can use as much compost as you want. It is, essentially, just very good soil, so you can't really overdo it. Not all compost is created equal, though. The quality of compost depends on the means by which composting is done and, to a lesser extent, the matter that goes into the process. Here, I will outline a few methods of making good compost to help your garden and potted plants thrive.

The most popular way to make compost is to simply make a heap. That is, whenever you have organic waste (such as when you mow the lawn), just pile it up in a designated area and wait for it to rot. Optimal composting takes a little more precision than that. If you just pile up grass clippings, the bottom layers won't get any oxygen, and you'll have a much slower, anaerobic decomposition process. In addition to being slower, this process produces lower-quality compost than aerobic decomposition, and it smells a lot worse. You want air to be able to get to your yard waste so aerobic bacteria can break it down instead. The free, low-effort solution is to pile sticks up first. The nature of the lawn mowing process makes this easy for us, as we normally remove sticks from the lawn before mowing anyway. As you mow, empty the bag of clippings on top of the stick pile, being sure to leave holes open for air circulation. You may find it helpful after mowing to just poke a few holes through the pile, rather than paying attention to which side you're dumping on. Build this heap as you do your lawn care one year, and you'll have several pounds of good compost for gardening at the bottom that you can use the next year.

If you want faster compost and have a little money to invest in the process, there are products designed to actively (either electrically or with a hand crank) churn your compost periodically to ensure that oxygen can get to it. These typically cost anywhere from $100 to $500 and don't have enough volume to contain all the waste from a typical suburban lawn.

The best compost, however, is worm compost. This process takes the most care, but its results are by far the best. Worms consume vegetable matter and excrete waste which is rich in nutrients for plants. They are also fast workers, so they're a natural fit for producing a fair amount of compost in a short time. This process

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