How to Make Compost

By Barbara Pleasant
Published on October 23, 2020
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Many households compost using multiple methods, and you should experiment to find the composting strategies that work best for you and your garden.
Many households compost using multiple methods, and you should experiment to find the composting strategies that work best for you and your garden.
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Toss your leaves, yard debris and other compostables into large, easy-to-make wire hoop compost bins.
Toss your leaves, yard debris and other compostables into large, easy-to-make wire hoop compost bins.
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Keep critters out of your compost and make mixing simple by using an off-the-ground compost tumbler.
Keep critters out of your compost and make mixing simple by using an off-the-ground compost tumbler.
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Punch holes in the bottom of an old garbage can, and you've got yourself a free compost bin!
Punch holes in the bottom of an old garbage can, and you've got yourself a free compost bin!
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You can fashion a multi-bin composting setup out of repurposed materials, such as wooden shipping pallets.
You can fashion a multi-bin composting setup out of repurposed materials, such as wooden shipping pallets.
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Hardworking worms in a compact bin create compost quickly, and the setup is perfect if you have little space. 
Hardworking worms in a compact bin create compost quickly, and the setup is perfect if you have little space. 

Compost is the ultimate ingredient for building fertile soil. If everyone composted their kitchen and garden waste, the world would be a cleaner place, and we would all enjoy more productive organic gardens. Some folks are intimidated by this unfamiliar and seemingly mysterious process — but have no fear! Composting is nothing more than guiding the natural process by which organic wastes decompose. You simply cannot do it wrong. The only challenge is finding sufficient organic materials to make enough black gold to sustain your garden.

Composting is so worth the effort. Adding compost to your garden feeds the soil food web and provides a slow release of nutrients to your crops.

Compost also vastly improves soil structure, allows the soil to hold in moisture better and improves friability (workability).

Many households compost using multiple methods, and the techniques described here are a distillation of strategies employed by MOTHER EARTH NEWS readers. Whether you have chickens, goats or other veggie-eating, manure-producing animals also has huge implications, because animals can figure so prominently in a composting loop. Making compost with critters will get its turn, but first let’s look at some of the most commonly used compost-making systems.

Composting Techniques

Most gardeners make compost by combining their kitchen and garden waste in an outdoor compost pile and waiting for it to rot. There is no need to buy special activators or inoculants, because each dead plant and bucket of food waste added to compost activates different strains of the naturally occurring microbes that promote decomposition.

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