Preparing organic gardening compost is extremely simple and anyone can do it with no special equipment of specialized training. Many books on organic gardening advise that a compost bin is required to produce compost – this is useful if available, but not essential. What is essential is that the compost you are preparing is in contact with the soil or, if that is not possible, that earth is mixed into the compost so that the organisms in the soil can mix with the compost and improve the quality of the final product. If there is enough space available, it is best to have 2 or 3 compost piles in different stages of development as this will ensure that adequate amounts of compost are always available as needed.
Organic gardening compost is made up of two main components – materials that have a high carbon content and materials that are rich in nitrogen. The best results are produced when carbon and nitrogen rich materials are mixed in equal proportions – this is a rule of the thumb and an exact balance is not needed. Grass, soya bean and cotton meal, manure, kitchen scraps and food leftovers usually have a high nitrogen content. High carbon materials to be added to organic gardening compost are those that are dry and bulky like pine needles, straw, hay, leaves, etc.
Keep in mind that in the case of top soil, about half of the total volume is made up of water and air – organic gardening compost should duplicate this. The best way to ensure this is by grinding up bulky material in to small particles – this will speed up the composting process and produce the best results. However if you are not able to grind up the bulky materials, don’t let it worry you, the end result will still be good usable organic garden compost. Ensure that the compost remains moist but not so wet that you can squeeze water out of it.
While the compost is developing it needs no attention except to ensure that the moisture levels are adequate. Do not let the heat that emanates from the compost pile worry you – temperatures in the pile can easily reach 150 plus degrees F and this is normal. Many books on organic gardening recommend turning over the compost pile at regular intervals to ensure uniform mixing of the components but by and large this is not required and it can even slow down the composting process. Organic gardening compost is a natural process and there is really nothing that can go wrong – at the worst at the worst the nutritional value may be slightly affected due to the nature of the materials used and the water content.
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