For a municipal program, you can often collect all biodegradable kitchen scraps, including meat and dairy.
Locate your compost bin somewhere that is easy to access, so that you and family members will be encouraged to use it.
Meat and meat scraps Bones Fish and fish bones Oil or fat Pet or human feces (except for manure of herbivorous creatures such as rabbits and horses)
It is best to have a compost pile on an area of soil a few feet away from plants, not on a deck or patio, so that turning and moving the compost will be easy.
The solid-sided black plastic compost bins also provide a bit of protection from rodents or other animals getting into your compost pile, while open topped or sided bins do not.
A 1 cubic yard compost bin will be about 3 feet (0. 91 m) tall and the sides will be 4 feet (1. 2 m) wide.
While having a bin will keep the process neater and will help to discourage animals if you are composting food scraps, having a simple pile will make turning and maintaining the compost quicker and easier.
In addition to not letting your scraps go to waste, putting kitchen waste into a compost container instead of the garbage helps you save a lot of room in your garbage can. Contact your local municipality to see if they will collect garden waste for composting. If they will not, consider joining a peer-to-peer composting system like ShareWaste. How kitchen waste is collected by cities varies. Some municipalities have you add it to your yard debris container, while others have separate containers for kitchen scraps.
If you don’t have any brown material to use, you can still start your pile. You can also use a light sprinkling of garden soil or recently finished compost to start the pile, which will introduce the correct bacteria.
Especially avoid compacting large quantities of green materials together, since they can rapidly become anaerobic. This means that there will not be enough oxygen for the most beneficial microbes to thrive and decompose your compost materials.
If you don’t have new yard clippings or debris to add, just tuck your kitchen scraps under the existing top layer in the compost bin.
In dry weather, fill your compost bucket with water each time you dump it in the compost pile. This will help add needed moisture. Your pile should be about as damp as a sponge that has been wrung out.
The temperature of the compost pile is very important and is an indication of the microbial activity of the decomposition process. The simplest way to track the temperature inside the heap is by feeling it with your hand. If it is warm or hot, everything is decomposing as it should. If it is the same temperature as the surrounding air, the microbial activity has slowed down and you need to add more materials that are high in nitrogen (green materials) to the bin. Covering the top of the container will also make the compost pile look neater.
You can turn the pile by using a pitchfork and moving the entire pile to the clear spot. Mix it up and then move it back into the bin. Mixing the pile in this way helps to keep air flowing inside the pile, which encourages decomposition. You can also get a tool that is specifically made for mixing compost. This compost mixer is a pole with a handle on 1 end and mixing tines on the other. You simply shove the tines down into the compost pile and then twist the handle to mix.
It usually takes about 2 to 3 months for compost to be made, depending on the weather conditions and the contents of your pile. Very fresh compost can grow plants, but it can also rob the soil of nitrogen as it continues to break down. If you think your compost is not all the way done, either leave the compost in the bin for a while longer or spread it in your garden and let it sit there for a few weeks before planting anything in it.
You may wish to sift it through a coarse mesh screen or use your hands or pitchfork to remove any larger chunks that haven’t yet broken down. Composting works almost magically and fast. If you begin with a cubic yard of proper materials, keep it moist, and turn it weekly, it’s possible to get several large batches of compost each year.
Shred heavy materials, if you can, for faster decomposition.
Manure of any animal that eats meat should never be added. While herbivorous animals’ manure can be great for composting, the manure of a pig, dog, cat, or other carnivore/omnivore can contaminate your compost and plants with food-borne illnesses.
