How to Build Your Own Compost Pile
Sustainable Agriculture for Beginners
Whether or not you have your own garden or have limited outdoor space, there are ways to make a compost pile easy to construct and maintain. Composting comes in a few different forms and is the best way to decrease your amount of household and yard waste. In this blog, we’ll go through the different ways you can compost and how to go about constructing your own.
Composting Made Easy
The most simple way to build your pile is to create a heap in an outdoor space, making sure to tend to it by keeping it moist and turned regularly. Try and keep your pile in a dry place but near a water source. Here are 6 simple steps to making your pile produce quickly and efficiently.
Clear a space in your backyard or garden, make sure to go all the way down to bare soil.
Build a base layer, it’s best to build it with straw or twigs a few inches up to provide drainage.
Add layers alternating between brown and green materials.
If you like, add a handful of nitrogen fertilizer to jumpstart the decomposition process.
Add moisture to the pile, you want the contents to feel like a damp sponge. It's not wet enough to wring any water out.
You’ll need to turn the contents of the pile every few weeks so all of it can reach the necessary temperatures. The microorganisms also need oxygen to be able to complete decomposition.
What Are The Different Composting Methods?
There are a ton of options if you have different objectives for your compost pile. Not everyone has the outdoor space or necessary brown materials created by yard waste. So here are 5 of the best composting systems you can use at home or in your garden or yard.
PILING: You just heap the materials into a pile. Consider placing the pile in the sun to speed up the process, or if space is limited the shade will work as well.
COMPOSTING BINS: You can make them through a DIY project or purchase them. The best ones have open sides to allow ventilation so the pile can aerate. One side is easily accessible so you can continue to add materials and turn the pile as necessary. But enclosed bins are also an option, eliminating the sight and smell of the compost.
TUMBLERS: Compost tumblers are a unique type of enclosed compost bin. The tumbler is cylindrical and has easy handles so you can just turn or “tumble” the contents to mix them.
BOKASHI: Bokashi composting starts indoors but ends up outside in the soil to finish the process, so it’s considered an outdoor method. It’s accomplished by mixing kitchen scraps with bran in a bucket to begin fermentation. Then the mixture is placed in the ground to complete decomposition. Through bokashi, you can compost things like meat scraps and dairy products, items that normally have to be left out of the pile. It’s an easy way to repurpose food waste back into your soil.
VERMICOMPOSTING: Also known as worm composting is a variation of composting that relies heavily on “red wigglers”, a type of worm that breaks down the materials. It’s done in a worm bin and focuses on compostable kitchen waste. Vermicomposting is a popular indoor composting method and the finished product can be used in potted plants.
Four Roots is Dedicated to The Growth of Knowledge
There are so many options for you to be able to start your compost pile and start shrinking the amount of waste your household adds to the landfills. If you need more information on composting check out our other blogs. We at Four Roots believe that we can all take steps toward a sustainable future. Four Roots is a Spokane, Washington-based company and we are passionate about food security for our future. We offer information about sustainable practices and social wellness so we can help grow our community. If you’re interested in bringing some fresh produce home to your friends and family check out our locally sourced goods that are prepackaged and ready for your table.
