Home composting

Composting is a natural process where bacteria, fungi and invertebrates break down organic waste, converting in into a rich and useful soil-like material. Making compost at home will keep you supplied with free compost - of great benefit to your garden and plants - and can divert about one-third of your household waste from landfill sites where it would otherwise create polluting gases and run-off.

Compost can be made in a simple heap on the ground covered with old carpet to keep it moist. Most people use some form of container as it looks neater, is easier to manage and speeds up the composting process.

How to make compost

The four basic ingredients of a good compost are:

• Green materials for nitrogen
• Brown materials for carbon
• Air
• Water

If your compost is smelly or slimy, your pile will be lacking in one of these four ingredients so check out our 'Troubleshooting' section.

What can you compost?

Greens (aim for 50% greens)

• Grass cuttings
• Weeds
• Fruit and vegetable scraps
• Old flowers and bedding plants
• Young hedge clippings

Browns (aim for 50% browns)

• Tea bags, coffee grounds and coffee filters
• Egg shells
• Dried grass and weeds
• Old straw and hay
• Wood ash
• Cardboard (scrunched up) - avoid waxed cartons and sticky tape
• Herbivore pet bedding

Remember: DO NOT compost meat, fish, fats and oils, dairy products, coal and coke ash, cat litter, dog faeces, glossy paper and newspapers (recycle them instead), plants infected with persistent diseases, pine needles.

Setting up your compost heap

Site your compost bin or heap on grass or bare earth in the shade then collect together a batch of brown and green materials, spread them out to the edges of your compost bin and firm down. You should chop up tough items using shears, a sharp spade or a shredder. You can then continue to fill the container as you produce organic waste, aiming for a good mixture of items (equal quantities of browns and greens as listed above).

Your compost heap should be kept moist (like a wrung-out sponge) so sprinkling it with water can help. Try to get air into the heap at least once every couple of months by turning it with a gardening fork. If you have the room it is a good idea to have two compost heaps or bins so you can leave one pile to decompose when the bin is full and start filling another.

Making compost can take two months to two years. Your compost is ready to use when it is dark brown and most of the original materials cannot be identified. Don’t worry if it is lumpy, sticky or stringy – it will be quite usable. Remember, it's best to apply compost in the spring or summer as it will help provide nutrients to plants during their growing season.

Please see 'Additional composting advice' for further information.

What type of compost bins are available?

Compost can be made in a simple heap on the ground covered with plastic or old carpet to keep it moist but most people use some form of container as it looks neater, is easier to manage and speeds up the composting process.

In addition, most wormeries as well as the Bokashi bran composting system will take all types of kitchen waste, including meat, fish and dairy products, so you may like to invest in one of these as an alternative to traditional composting.

You can get a wide variety of purpose built compost bins and wormeries from DIY Shops and Garden Centres. You can also obtain a cut price compost bin from www.lancashire.getcomposting.com or by calling the bin orderline on 0844 571 4444.

Making a compost bin

Compost bins need only keep the rain out and moisture and heat in so you can make one if you are feeling resourceful. You can make compost bins out of the following:

• Wire mesh with wooden stakes at each corner. Line with cardboard and top with a piece of old carpet
• An old dustbin. Cut the bottom out, turn it upside down and replace the lid
• Brieze blocks with a slatted wooden front
• An old coal bunker
• Old tyres in a stack
• Old pallets tied at the corners (use another as a base)
• Wooden planks fixed onto wooden posts
• An eleven-foot length of 2" x 4" x 36" welded, medium-gague fence wire joined to form a cylinder

Additional composting advice

Please remember the following when composting:

• Pernicious weeds such as couch grass, ground elder, bindweed and oxalis may not be killed during composting and can resprout after the compost is harvested. To avoid this, put them in a black plastic bag and leave in the sun for several weeks. Then chop them up and place them into the compost pile
• Poisonous plants such as oleander, hemlock and castor bean can harm soil life and should be added only in small quantities
• Ivy and succulents should be chopped up before composting, or they may sprout in the compost
• Leaves from plants containing acids and resins toxic to other plants should only be used as a mulch around the plants they came from. Examples are eucalyptus, bay laurel, walnut, juniper, acacia, cypress and rhododendron

Troubleshooting

If you are having problems making good compost – don’t give up! The cause is usually simple and this advice table will help you get back on track:

SYMPTOMS	PROBLEMS	SOLUTIONS
Compost has a bad smell	Not enough air / too compacted / too much green material	Turn the pile and add browns
	Too much water	Decrease watering; protect from heavy rain if no lid; turn pile and add browns
	Meat, dairy, fish etc. in pile	Leave them out, turn pile and add browns
Centre of pile is dry	Not enough water	Moisten and turn pile
Pile has slumped and seems slimy	Too much green material	Turn pile adding lots of browns
Lots of fruit flies	Exposed kitchen scraps	Cover kitchen scraps with leaves, grass or a sheet of newspaper
Attracts rats	Food available	Do not put meat, fish or dairy scraps onto the pile. Put bricks around base of compost bin if necessary
	Seeking warmth in winter	Turn pile and add browns to release built-up heat. Put bricks around base of compost bin if necessary
	General	Sprinkle cayenne pepper liberally around the pile.
Not heating up	Insufficient moisture	Add water while turning pile or cover top
	Poor aeration	Turn pile
	Lack of greens	Mix in greens