Providing your crops with optimal soil conditions is key to a successful garden. Regular watering, feeding and maintenance will all help, but having nutrient rich soil will serve your plants even more. Making you own compost has many benefits not only for your soil but for waste management in your home too. Incorporating your left over vegetable scraps form the kitchen, shredded paper from your office, raked up leaves from your footpaths means that making your own compost is good for your hip pocket too.

There are a few different options to choose from when doing home composting.

1. Open air composting (hot composting)
2. Direct composting (in-ground composting)
3. Tumbler composting (a form of hot composting)
4. Worm farm composting (vermicomposting)
5. EMO composting (bacteria composting)

We will go into more details about each of the different methods and their benefits in a moment, but before that lets look at the essential element needed for a successful compost.

Element	What it does
Air	Compost needs to be kept aerated or it will become anaerobic for bacteria, which will create odours and attract vermin
Water	Compost needs to be kept moist but not wet
Vegetable matter	Essential to achieve an organically rich mix
Worms	These digest decomposed matter and expel castings that plants thrive on
Carbon rich ‘browns’	Provides the energy source for microbes and add structure to ensure air flow
Nitrogen rich ‘greens’	They heat up the compost pile by helping the microorganisms grow and multiply quickly
Bacteria	Helps decompose the food before the worms eat it
Beneficial bugs and insects	Soldier flies, cockroaches and maggots (for composters that can handle meat) all help with the decomposition process

 

Open air composting

Generally considered to be a hot composting method when done in large quantities, however will be cold composting if smaller quantities of waste are used. General rule of thumb is to construct bays that are 1m cubed. Multiple bays can be useful so that you can have compost ready to use followed but some that is breaking down and another that is still being added to. Manually aerating the soil with a pitch fork or compost screw is needed, as is keeping the right balance between the essential elements.

 

Direct composting

This is as simple as digging a hole or a trench to bury your scraps. Unless you cut everything up small, it can take a long time for everything to decompose. A downside is that you have to keep digging holes, but it will draw a lot of worms to your garden.

Tumbler composting

A great system if you are relatively strong, as it needs rotating every 1-3 days. It is recommended to have more than one, so that one can be breaking down while you fill another up. Good if you have a large amount of green and brown waste to dispose of.

Worm farm composting

A great option for small spaces. They not only produce compost but nutrient rich worm tea too, both of which your veggies will love. They will need monitoring and regular feeding to keep the optimal conditions. They can die if too hot or cold, so choose you position carefully. There are plenty of tutorials out there to help you construct your own from recycled materials too.

EMO composting

Effective Micro Organism composting is a popular form of composting for people with little to no space. A common brand is Bokashi, and it works by adding a sprinkling of powder or a spray to your waste that breaks it down fairly fast. You can then add it to a section of your garden for a week or so until the acidity neutralises before adding to your veggie beds.

   

Tips for an effective compost mix

The carbon to nitrogen (C/N) ratio is essential. A mix of both materials needs to be added to your compost as it is the food supply for all of the microorganisms that break it down to produce it. High carbon materials (brown) include straw, dead leaves, cardboard, shredded paper, toilet rolls, egg cartons and eggshells, twigs and sawdust. High nitrogen materials (green) include grass cuttings, fruit and veggie scraps, tea leaves and coffee grounds, manure, urine, weeds and plant cuttings.

The C/N ratio is the most important factor for a healthy compost but there are more elements that also aid. Moisture, temperature, oxygen and the size of materials added all contribute. The organisms required to break down matter are also needed, these can be added from a previous heap, by purchasing compost activators or by adding animal manure.

Place your compost heap where it will get plenty of direct sunlight, especially in cold Tasmania, to help speed up the process and over time as it breaks down you will notice that it will produce its own heat. Be careful that it doesn’t dry out though. When building your heap, be sure to wet each layer as you go, or the break down will cease if the microbes dry out and die. The same will happen if they become too wet. Protect open heaps from rain during long periods of wet weather and check your compost heap regularly.

Regularly aerating the soil is essential to supply the microorganisms with oxygen. Turning it over daily or using a compost aerator tool will add this much needed component to you heap. Keeping you heap aerated will prevent it from smelling like sewerage, and adding an even balance of brown to green materials with prevent an ammonia smell- a common occurrence if the is too much green.

Ensuring that all matter you add is small will help speed up the process of breaking it all down. Using a mulcher or simply running over leaves with a mower can help with this. If you can’t break down larger pieces then scatter them evenly throughout the heap or add them at the bottom. If adding materials with high moisture content such as grass clippings and vegetable scraps, you will need to balance it with a material that can absorb the excess moisture for example cardboard, shredded paper straw or sawdust.

Don’t’ add animal materials to a standard compost (Bokashi bins are the exception), these include meat, dairy, oil and cheese. These will attract flies and rodents. Plants that are infected with disease or mould need to be disposed of elsewhere too to prevent the spread when using your compost later. Pet faeces are to avoided too, there are specialised places for these other than your home compost heap. Weeds that haven’t gone to seed are fine to add, but avoid the spread if they have seeds. Onion and garlic are known to repel meal worms. However almost anything else organic can be added.

So remember- composting is all about balance, get it right and you will be feeding your veggies nutrient rich matter in no time.