How to Make Compost for Your Green Garden Appleby-in-Westmorland

How to Make Compost at Home for a Greener Garden

Here's how to make compost properly!

Scroll down for a guide to compost making methods. First, here's a brief introduction which explores why making compost at home is such a good idea.

Making your own compost is a great way to become more environmentally friendly in your lifestyle. If you care about green living, give it a try, even if you only do the easy version!

There are loads of benefits for your garden and for wildlife.

You can slim your bin, too, which helps prevent landfill sites from gobbling up the countryside!

Wildlife benefits because your soil is richer and supports a good population of worms and mini-beasts. This helps feed the birds.

Bees, butterflies and other beneficial insects also are helped indirectly.

And of course, you get to enjoy some pretty amazing flowers and veg.

Another important reason for learning how to make compost is that uncomposted waste adds to global warming. Waste food gives off greenhouse gases which rise through the atmosphere and then trap sunlight, making the earth as a whole warm up. When you compost waste, the material components are broken down in such a way that the potential greenhouse gases are contained.

This is perhaps the most important reason of all for learning how to make compost!

The two main ways to make compost

How to make compost: there are two main ways - the right way and

If you are short of time or energy, the easy method will still contribute a lot to the health and fertility of your garden.

If you are a bit of a perfectionist and/or you have plenty of time and energy, then learn how to make compost properly. Here's how it's done.

How to make compost properly:

Here's how to make compost properly!

First of all, I should say that you really do not have to have a compost bin or composting tumbler. In fact, you do not have to spend any money at all. You can just use what is available from your own kitchen and garden.

1 Collecting materials

Gradually collect suitable materials for making your compost until you have enough for a heap.

A compost pile needs to be big enough to heat up enough to kill weed seeds and soil-borne diseases. In practice about a cubic metre of material is the minimum.

You can collect materials in bags until you have enough, or you can pile materials loosely in an out-of-the-way corner. It's better to put your compost materials into a container so that the nutrients don't leach away.

How to make compost properly:

2 The best materials to use

Almost anything organic can be included but you don't want to encourage rats or other vermin, so don’t include any cooked food or meat.

Here is a list of possible things to include

• vegetable peelings
• discarded salad materials
• old vegetables that are beyond use (but not if diseased)
• egg-shells
• tea-leaves and coffee grounds
• weeds and garden cuttings
• discarded plants
• lawn mowings
• animal manure ...

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