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Composting for Beginners – the Science in Perfecting the Art of Composting

Contrary to popular belief, it takes patience and science in perfecting the art of composting. Read on to find out how finding the perfect balance between carbon and nitrogen will give you many successful batches of compost.

Behind every scientific equation in composting lies an art form that’s different for everyone. Composting isn’t necessarily a hard thing to do; other than the materials, equipment, waste and space, all it truly needs on your end is patience and commitment. We’re not exactly painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but we’re going to make a healthy, sustainable garden fit for one with just composting alone! Remember, it’s a trial and error method until you find the perfect scientific solution to make your ideal batch of compost.

Let’s begin with an explanation of the carbon/nitrogen ratio, or the C/N ratio. In order for you to have a successful, usable batch of compost you have to have the right balance between the brown stuff and the green stuff. Get your mind out of the gutter! It’s not what you really think it is! The brown stuff, like dried leaves, tree bark, straw and hay have a lot of carbon, and the green stuff like fresh grass clippings, fresh leaves, chicken manure, fruit wastes and food scraps have a lot of nitrogen. This is where the simple scientific equations come in; actually it might be better if you think of it more as a cooking recipe because it really is!

According to Home Composting Made Easy, it’s best if you try to achieve the ideal 30:1 C/N ratio for your compost. This average ratio basically describes the chemical composition of your materials, NOT 30 times the amount of brown stuff to one of the green. With this ratio you’re bound to reach a hot temperature of about 140 degrees Fahrenheit, which is ideal for the microbes in your compost to eat up all the carbon and nitrogen rich goodies.

Another recipe that you can follow is the "2 parts green, 1 part brown" recipe also found in Home Composting Made Easy. This basically means that you can achieve the 30:1 to 50:1 ratio, the latter being ideal for low temperature compost batches, by including two parts of green stuff to one part brown stuff. For example, if you mix grass clippings (17:1), non-diseased and seedy weeds (20:1) with dried leaves (60:1) and divide that up by three, you have a product of 32:1, which is close to the 30:1 average. Of course, you should play around with your recipe to find the perfect fit for your batches. As long as you don’t have too much green or too much brown, you should have a successful batch of ready to use compost!

Remember, composting is a science and an art form. Keep working at it and use these basics to find the perfect C/N ratio.

*Referenced from Home Composting Made Easy by C. Forrest McDowell, PhD and Tricia Clark-McDowell, 2002.

Composting for Beginners, Bins and Tumblers
Composting for Beginners, Bins and Tumblers. Composting for Beginners – Do’s and Don’ts, Bins and Tumblers.

Beginners Guide to Home Composting
Composting your kitchen and garden waste is a great way to reduce the amount of waste you dispose of in your rubbish bin. By composting your waste you can generate a free source of rich compost to help improve your garden.

Beginners permaculture garden
The garden can include compost generated from appropriate food scraps and yard waste. What’s the easiest and cheapest way to get started with this? Some options include an indoor worm composter and various backyard units.

Chipping Away at the Big Numbers
Composting for Beginners. According to the U.S. EPA and as of 2006, Americans generated a whole bunch of trash. One of the reasonably easy ways to reuse certain types of home-generated ‘trash’ — as well as help your flowers and grass, is to compost.

When starting to compost, one must ask, which exactly is better the compost barrel/bin or the compost tumbler? Before you purchase one or the other, ask yourself, do you have the time to commit to composting?

When starting to compost, one must ask, which exactly is better the compost bin or the compost tumbler? Really, it all depends on who you ask and what their current lifestyle is like. For instance, does this person have the time to commit to their compost and garden? More importantly, do you? Whatever your answer will be may well dictate whether you’ll go with purchasing a compost bin or tumbler. Let’s take a few factors into considerations to help you decide:

Compost bins are easy to use and are just as easy to put together with little parts or none

at all. Popular compost bins like the Garden Gourmet and the Expandable Worm Tower, both which can be found on Composters.com, require little parts and take no more than 20 minutes to put together. Those who use bins find it both therapeutic and satisfying to be personally turning their compost with a pitchfork; no one ever said that a little bit of the outdoors could hurt you! For composting bins like the Expandable Worm Tower, it’s the worms that do most of the work. All you would have to do is take the finished compost that the worms have produced (known as worm castings, black gold, or even just rich soil), distribute it around the soil of your garden, fill up the trays with more organic matter and dirt and repeat!

As easy and efficient that compost bins are, they can get a bit messy at times. What if you happen to have a compost bin unlike the Expandable Worm Tower or Garden Gourmet where it’s easy to evacuate the finished compost? You may have to manually dump the finished compost into a wheel barrel, where it can get a bit chaotic and messy. Unless you have no other commitments and plenty of time on your hand, compost bins may not be the way to go.

A bit more expensive but perhaps worth the extra cash, compost tumblers are ideal for those who don’t have as much time but would still love to have the resulting rich soil for their garden. What’s great about having a compost tumbler is that there’s no need to manually turn the compost. The whole point of a tumbler is that you can easily rotate it via a crank or just by spinning it, therefore aerating the compost inside. The con about tumblers, however, is that they too can get messy especially if you have to roll it around the yard when the compost it not yet ready. Additionally, you may have to purchase the compost tea collector separately, depending on the model.

When it comes down to it, it’s really about personal preference. I’ve mentioned repeatedly that things could get messy, but that’s the beauty of composting; you’re allowed to get down and dirty! Whatever the decision you make, be sure to take your lifestyle and commitments in consideration to ensure a successful composting experience.

Compost Tumblers vs Compost Bins
There are a variety of way to go about making compost, the simplest just being a pile somewhere near the garden.

Urban Compost Tumbler
It’s called an Urban Compost Tumbler. It looks like it would work in a small city yard or even a good size balcony.

Make a compost tumbler
Here’s how to tumble your way to rich compost for your garden and plants.

Compost Tumbler
I was lucky enough to buy a Compost Tumbler yesterday from a couple the gave up gardening. It uas the large green tumbler that you turn the handle and that turns the tumbler.

tumblers that can help …   Read more…