How to Make Compost at Home and Use It in Your Garden

Choose an area close enough to your home for convenience, yet far enough away for aesthetics—compost piles are not known for their looks. Ideally, this spot should get a moderate amount of sunlight; too little could slow down the decomposition process while too much could overheat the piles and kill beneficial bacteria.

You can begin your pile on bare earth or in an enclosed bin. If you choose the ground, you’ll provide easy access to worms and microorganisms, which will help break down the organic materials. However, if you go for a container, you’ll keep out wildlife, which could disturb your piles. To contain your pile if it’s not enclosed, surround it with chicken wire or wood pallet boards.

Start your pile with several inches of yard waste, such as branches, twigs, dead leaves, wood chips, hay, and cornstalk. Also throw in other dry organic materials, like sawdust, coffee filters, shredded cardboard and newspaper, and straw. These materials produce carbon, which helps spur on decomposition.

Now layer on wetter organic waste. Choose food scraps, eggshells, grass clippings, plant trimmings, coffee grounds and tea bags, hair, lint, and barnyard animal manure. Add one-part green material for every three parts brown material, ideally ending up with a pile at least three feet deep. The green materials release nitrogen and protein, which help grow the microorganisms that break down the organic matter.

To speed up decomposition, you can chop and shred the brown and green matter. Your goal should be small pieces.

As with sunlight, moderation is key when it comes to water. Aim to moisten rather than saturate the organic materials. Too much water leads to odor, slime, flies, and harmful bacteria, while too little slows down decomposition. If it doesn’t rain regularly in your area, water with a garden hose until damp.

After a week, turn your pile with a shovel or pitchfork. By rotating outside materials to the inside and vice versa, you’re aerating the compost and exposing all the materials to microorganisms. Then cover with a tarp to lock in moisture and keep out wildlife. During the growing season, turn the compost once a week. 

Wait one to three months during the warm season. If the middle of the pile feels warm or the pile releases steam, your material is probably decomposing into compost.

Deposit some compost into a plastic bag, press out the air, seal, and leave closed for three days. Open and smell. The compost is ready if the aroma is earthy, rather than sour or ammoniated. 

You can nourish your garden with your homemade fertilizer several ways:

• At the beginning of each planting season, add the compost to soil in pots and window boxes.

• In the fall, sprinkle compost on vegetable and flower beds.

• Around trees, push back the mulch. Add a 2-inch layer of compost under the canopy, avoiding touching the trunks. Then replace the mulch on top.

• Steep finished compost in water for several days to make compost tea, then strain to prepare a liquid fertilizer. 

Don’t stop with just one compost pile. As you continue to accumulate scraps, begin a second and, later, a third. This way, you’ll have piles at different stages and an ample supply of this soil booster.