One of the best ways to ensure a bountiful harvest from your garden is to use plenty of organic compost. You can be sure that you’re using a safe way of growing your garden. The recycling of organic waste is one of the best things a gardener can do.

The starting point is plenty of carbon, which is the foundation of a good compost. Get it going by using brown material such as shredded newspaper, dead flowers, dried leaves and straw. A lot of people forget to add these important ingredients, but you won’t.

The next layer should be green waste that’s full of nitrogen. All your lawn clippings, kitchen waste and green garden prunings should be thrown onto your heap. When we talk of kitchen waste we mean any vegetable peelings, fruit peel or green leftovers, but never any meat!

To get your compost to start decomposing, it’s very important to add ordinary soil from your garden to the heap as your next step, this will top off your pile.

So far you’ve started with a layer of brown waste to which you’ve added some green waste and then some garden soil. Now you start the process again with another layer of brown material. At this time you should also add some water to dampen your compost, but make sure it’s exactly that… damp! It should be just moist, not soaking wet!

You continue adding layers in that order until you’ve got a pile about 3 feet square. As a rough guide you want to have about three parts brown waste to one part green waste. Keep adding more material to your pile as it becomes available until it’s about 3 feet tall.

Every one to two weeks you will get your garden fork (or pitchfork) and turn your compost heap. The object of this execise is to take the material from the middle and move it to the outside and the outer stuff to the center.

The moisture level is critical. It should be damp but never soggy and make sure you don’t let it dry out. Allowing it to dry out stops the decomposition process in it’s tracks. You should see steam rising from your pile as you turn it, this indicates that it’s all decomposing properly.

The worms in your garden will find your compost in a short time and aid in the process, but if you feel impatient and want to speed up the decomposition, you can always buy some common earthworms to put in your pile. The best place to find them is at your nearest fishing bait store.

To keep your pile tidy you can build or buy a bin. This keeps your garden looking neat and stops your pile spreading out too much. To make the job of turning your compost heap over easier, you can buy a rotating bin that you simply turn to mix your compost.

Your compost is fully decomposed when it has a sweet earthy smell and looks almost black, its now ready to be used. Start by mixing it into your garden soil to add nutrients and keep doing this until you’ve covered your entire garden, then keep building up your soil over the years. It also makes excellent potting mix for your indoor plants, you don’t need to add anything extra.

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