There are two ways to compost. Cold composting and hot. Both are way easier than a lot of people make them out to be. Don't be scared or intimidated. I believe you have all the skills needed to allow a bunch of stuff to rot and turn to soil.
So you're looking to make some of your own compost are you? It's totally understandable that you think rotting a bunch of leaves and kitchen scraps is too hard for you. I mean letting stuff sit in a pile until it rots??!! That's must take some Olympic level of training to acquire that level of skill.
No it doesn't.
You are letting a bunch of stuff fall apart. That's it.
But it IS understandable that you think it's out of your realm of skills because according to most blogs and books composting is HARD. It's not hard. Please refer to the earlier sentence about how you just have to let stuff rot.
I've been seriously composting since I got chickens because they poop and they poop a lot. Plus they go through a lot of straw which is basically their cat litter but for chickens.
With all this straw and poop I quickly learned to compost and also quickly learned you do not need to have a huge brain to achieve this skill.
You need, like, part of a frontal lobe and basically no back lobe. That's it. If you have just a corner of a brain you can compost.
For this little step-by-step on how to make compost I'm going to talk about hot composting because it's the fastest way to get compost.
Table of Contents
The Difference Between Hot and Cold Composting
- Hot composting (The Berkley method) is a method where a large pile of organic matter is created and brought to high temperature over and over again. Compost can be achieved in a month or so.
- Cold composting has you adding bits and pieces over time. This type of compost is good and it requires nothing more than dumping your scraps into the bin. But it can take a year or two to completely break down and it doesn't have the level of beneficial microorganisms in it that hot compost does.
I have a full step by step guide later on in this post, but these are always the most popular questions I get about composting so let's address them now shall we?
Best Compost Bins
Which one should you get? Well, you have quite a few options including not having one at all.
City provided
A lot of people think they're going to try composting, fail, and then stick their composting bin on the road for someone else to take. That's how I got the square bin that's in my chicken coop.
Most cities provide this same model for their community members either for free or at a much cheaper price than you would pay to buy the same one from Amazon or a home improvement store.
Tumbling compost bins.
Tumbling compost bins are the easiest way to guarantee success. Turning compost is a lot of work so most people just don't do it. This means their compost takes a longggggg time to decompose and turn into soil. Using a tumbling bin means your'e much more likely to turn your compost since all you have to do is tumble the bin.
Tumblers with handles for turning them are the easiest to use and require less strength but larger tumblers that you spin by hand (like the one you see above) hold more compost and will generally produce compost more quickly. I don't have this tumbler, I've never used this tumbler, but I would very much like this tumbler. (or figure out a way to make one myself)
DIY out of pallets
Yet another thing that wood pallets can be used for. Prop them against each other and tie or screw them together to create a big compost bin. Just leave the front of it open for easy turning of the compost or prop the final pallet against it so you can easily pull it away for turning.
My community garden used these compost bins made out of screwed together wood pallets for years to produce perfect, crumbly compost out of all our garden waste and vegetation. Rotted tomatoes, twigs, bolted lettuce and whatever else we had to pull out of our gardens went into them.
We've now moved to a system where each garden has their own compost bins within their plots.
A pile with a tarp draped over it
The truth is you don't need to buy or build anything to have a productive compost pile. It's ugly, but you can just cover your compost with a dark tarp. (dark attracts the sun and makes your compost heat up more easily)
All of the nice clean straw you see here, will become the dark looking compost you see under the tarp within a couple of weeks. IF you hot compost properly.
What you've learned so far.
- Composting is easy, hot composting is using a BIG pile of stuff and you can use a bin or just a big pile.
That doesn't seem like enough information for you to compost. You also need to know how to do it.
How to Compost
You need to follow a few rules in terms of what you put into your compost pile and how big it is. Your compost pile needs to be big. The bigger it is the easier time you'll have getting it to heat up and become actual compost.
Composting is all based on the reactions between Nitrogen (greens), Carbon (browns), heat and moisture.
To make compost you just need 2 parts GREEN material and 1 part BROWN.
Add all your ingredients together in your pile or bin and stick a thermometer in it. Once it reaches 130F turn the pile to cool it down and start the process over again. You'll need to do this 2-4 times before it stops heating up.
Once your pile stops heating up it should be genuine compost and you can let it rest for a few weeks to gather up more nutrients before using it.
There's such a thing as a compost thermometer, but I just use a regular meat thermometer for testing the temperature of my soil. A genuine compost thermometer has a really long probe (20") that can fit down into the middle of your compost pile and has reminders of the temperatures you want to be at written on it.
Nitrogen Materials for Composting (Greens)
vegetable scraps
chicken poop
weeds
food waste
fruit peels
grass clippings
garden trimmings
seaweed
coffee grounds
soil
old plant material
Carbon Materials for Composting (Browns)
dry leaves
straw
sawdust
shredded paper
wood chips
wood ashes
dryer lint
pine needles
If you have the right ratio of greens to browns within a couple of days of making your large compost pile (at least 1 cubic meter) you'll notice it will get hot. You're looking for a temperature of around 130°F.
WARNING: The first time your pile heats up it will smell like a decrepit old rock star who has incontinence issues.
If you have the right amount of heat your pile will be steaming hot, but keep an old thermometer around to check the temperature so you know exactly how hot it is. 130 F - 140 F is ideal for creating a perfect environment for microorganisms which will do all the work of breaking down your organic material.
How to Know If Your Compost is Done.
- The pile will be around 50% of the size it was when you started.
- You won't be able to distinguish any exact materials.
- It will be a uniformly dark brown colour.
- The pile smells earthy, like soil.
- It feels like soil in your hand.
- A radish will germinate in it and the leaves will be nice and green (not yellow.)
General Composting Tips
- Smaller items will compost faster than larger so pruning and clipping larger items will speed everything up.
- Compost needs moisture! Don't forget to add it when the pile looks dry. It should be damp. This helps soften the materials and provides a good environment for the microorganisms.
- Do NOT let your compost pile heat up beyond 130-140. Any hotter and you risk killing the beneficial microbes that are created in hot composting.
- Your pile should be 1 cu meter or 35 cu ft. To calculate cubic ft.:
- width x height x length
- The more diverse the ingredients in your pile, the more diverse the nutrients and microbes it will produce.
Problems
Pile stinks - If the smell lasts longer than a couple of days and smells putrid there is too much nitrogen or too much water, add some brown material.
Pile won't heat up - Needs more nitrogen. Add green material, make sure it has enough moisture and turn it to aerate it.
Pile gets too hot - Turn it before it gets over 130 F (55 C)
This pile is made up entirely of straw and chicken poop and a tiny bit of shredded newspaper. There's actually far more "brown material" (the straw) than "green material" (the chicken poop) But, even without the ratios you're supposed to have for composting, this material heats up within a day or two.
After achieving its initial heating up, your pile will quit. It will stop getting as hot as it did the first time. You will get angry and consider throwing it at people.
Do NOT succumb to this temptation. Your pile NOW needs to have more oxygen and possibly water added to it. These two things are needed to get the compost moving and shaking again.
Like a decrepit old rock star after a stadium show, if you give him oxygen and water ... he'll bounce back and be ready for action in no time.
In my research on the Internet I've found that not nearly enough emphasis is given to keeping your pile damp.
Not sopping wet, but definitely damp. So once your pile has cooled down, turn it and mix it. This will move the compost from the outside of the pile to the inside (where it gets hotter). It will also add much needed oxygen to the mixture. Then, if the pile seems dry, water it.
If you happen to have chickens and a loose pile of compost you can let them do the work of turning the pile. Just let them loose on it for a day and it'll be all mixed up and turned ready to start heating up again.
Otherwise, that tumbling compost bin I mentioned earlier makes turning your pile WAY easier. You just turn the handle and the bin tumbles away.
If you maintain this schedule of monitoring the temperature, aerating and keeping the pile damp you can have compost in as little as a month.
How to Hot Compost.
How to turn food scraps and garden waste into compost in 1 month using hot composting, also known as "The Berkley Method".
Materials
- Green materials
- Brown materials
- Water
Tools
- Pitchfork
- or
- Compost turner
Instructions
- Fill your compost bin or pile all of the green and brown material you have. (some people layer but you don't have to)
- 2 parts green material to 1 part brown (But if you don't have that exact ratio don't worry about it! It'll still turn to compost, just not as quickly)
- Water the compost material if it's dry. You want the pile to be damp and it might need quite a lot of water.
- Put the compost bin lid on to help retain heat or cover your pile with a tarp.
- In 2 days check the temperature of your pile by pulling away some material from the centre and inserting a thermometer. Note the temperature.
- Continue to do this until the pile reaches 130 - 140 F (55-60 C) Once that heat level is achieved turn the pile. This will cool it down and get it ready to heat up once again.
- Continue doing this until the pile no longer heats up after turning it. Your pile will get less hot with each time you turn it. If it isn't achieving the 130 degree mark and only gets to 110 F for example, then turn the pile once starts to cool down on its own. Then let it rest for 2-6 weeks before using it.
Notes
How to Know If Your Compost is Done.
- The pile will be around 50% of the size it was when you started.
- You won't be able to distinguish any exact materials.
- It will be a uniformly dark brown colour.
- The pile smells earthy, like soil.
- It feels like soil in your hand.
- A radish will germinate in it and the leaves will be nice and green (not yellow.)
General Composting Tips
- Smaller items will compost faster than larger so pruning and clipping larger items will speed everything up.
- Compost needs moisture! Don't forget to add it when the pile looks dry. It should be damp. This helps soften the materials and provides a good environment for the microorganisms.
- Do NOT let your compost pile heat up beyond 130-140. Any hotter and you risk killing the beneficial microbes that are created in hot composting.
- Your pile should be 1 cu meter or 35 cu ft. To calculate cubic ft.:
- width x height x length
- The more diverse the ingredients in your pile, the more diverse the nutrients and microbes it will produce.
Problems
Pile stinks - If the smell lasts longer than a couple of days and smells putrid there is too much nitrogen or too much water, add some brown material.
Pile won't heat up - Needs more nitrogen. Add green material, make sure it has enough moisture and turn it to aerate it.
Pile gets too hot - Turn it before it gets over 130 F (55 C)
** Don't forget to add your weeds to your hot compost pile. It gets hot enough to destroy weed seeds, plus weeds have LOTS of diverse nutrients in them that will add a lot to your compost - dandelion leaves, comfrey and chickweed are great examples of this**
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Hi Karen, I desperately want to start composting, but none of the articles I read about it indicates when to STOP adding browns/greens to the pile. If I add my kitchen vegetable waste every day, along with some browns, how will I know when to stop? (And what should I do with the following day's kitchen veg scraps after stopping?)
Hi Martha. If you're doing a hot compost pile like I'm describing here everything needs to be added at once to form a big pile. If you're having a hard time doing that with the amount of material you have you can just keep adding and adding and turning every so often until you have enough that it will start heating up in the centre. Once you notice it getting hot in the centre stop adding new things to it. Does that make sense? ~ karen!
My granddaughter asked me how to do this yesterday. I was trying to explain green and brown and she roller her eyes when I said brown included white paper and green included brown coffee grounds. So, you have written the exact words I needed - brown represents carbon and green represents nitrogen. Finally (74 years later) I understand my browns and greens. THANK YOU! We want to begin a fast pile but once it begins the rain (Florida) it becomes the slow pile.
I do not compost pine needles. They contain a chemical that is a natural herbicide to everything, including baby pine trees. Check out the forest floor under a mature pine tree... nothing grows there. I learned this the hard way by using pine needles to mulch my raspberry patch. Nearly lost the whole thing. Took years to repair the damage.
Heat comes from the activity of the bacteria, not the sun. Many people think they need a sunny spot to build a compost pile. Not so. I've had compost accidentally hit 170ºF in my tree shaded pallet bins.
If you build two pallet structures side by side, it makes turning easier.
HI Garth! Yes, the heat comes from the activity in the pile, but in the late fall or spring, it's good to have the compost bin in a sunny location to help speed things up and just get the pile warm and more receptive to activity. This is only important when you have a smaller compost pile. Large compost piles can heat up and stay hot even in the middle of a blizzard. :) ~ karen!
Great info, Karen! Thanks!
The closest I have come to hot composting was straw bale gardening, where you sprinkle plain fertilizer (no herbicides) on straw bales, water it in, and maintain a regimen of that for about 5 weeks starting in mid- March (in Minnesota) to have it ready for planting in by mid-May. It composts from the inside out, and by the time you plant, the inside is ideal compost. By the end of the season the whole bale structure is composted. (There's a good book on straw bale gardening by a fellow-Minnesotan.)
So my question is do you add fertilizer to your pile to help the process along? (Maybe that is only if you just have "browns." )
Thanks!
Hi Peggy. There's no need to add any fertilizer to a regular compost pile. It has all the nutrients it needs with the diverse ingredients in it. :) ~ karen!
I don't have any chickens, but have LOADS of dog poop I clean up every week. Can I use that?
I even feel strange asking...like I should know not to...but, heck, I didn't know you could use chicken poop.
“No” on the dog poop.
Yeah, dog poop has a lot more pathogens than chicken poop, and to eliminate them, you’d have to have extremely hot compost - not hot enough for what we can get at home. That’s the same reason not to include meat scraps in home compost. Some industrial compost facilities do get hot enough to handle meat, so if you live in a place that operates that, they may allow you to add meat scraps. (I’ve never heard of a place that composts dog poop in the general compost - although I have seen separate dog poop bio-recyclers [I can’t remember what they are called]).
Thank you so much! Won’t be using dog poop!
👍
Thank you, Ramona!
Hi Susan. You can use dog poop but there are a few things to consider. If the dog has had any sort of medication that will come out in its poop (like flea or tick control). And you HAVE to hot compost it. It must be kept at 130F for a few days to kill any pathogens in it. This is good article that explains everything. https://pethelpful.com/dogs/Composting-Dog-Waste ~ karen!
That dog poop would absolutely contain flea/tick meds.
You are SO dang smart, Karen.
Thank you!
I'm not smart. I just Googled and researched a little bit, lol. ~ karen!
No intention of ever composting, but I couldn't resist the lure of pictures of chickens!!!! I'll probably never raise chickens because . . . chicken poop, etc. But I love your chickens so much. I love your chickens as much as I love Bernese mountain dogs, which I will probably never get either because . . . possibly slobber factor. But I digress. It's great to come to the end of the day and have a laugh. Thanks.
I have the same reservations about slobbery dogs. :/ I love them but ... ~ karen!
My compost got animals actually in it, so I guess I was doing something wrong. Just a guess. I found one entrance to a tunnel going deep inside the compost pile and was tempted to dig in to find out who was living there, but discretion got the better part of valour. I guess I'll be buying an enclosed tumbler type this year.
Hi! It was probably mice or voles. They'll burrow into compost piles during the winter and make a home of them. It doesn't really matter if they do that. Once it starts to warm up outside and you start turning the compost they'll move out. ~ karen!
NIGHT CREATURES?!?! RATS?!?!?! oh my lord! I didnt know i was suppose to guard it?!? all these instructions!I thought you just dug a hole in the ground and mixed greens and browns..your suppose to layer it?? What if i didn't layer it..and just threw a bunch of green and brown and mixed together then watered it... Im from the city..been in the country about a week this is all very unfamiliar to me.. have never gardened or any of that stuff let alone made a worm orgy lounge..
If you dig a hole in the ground, you will create anaerobic compost - lack of oxygen - and it WILL STINK, and be a slimy mess and will be hard to turn and hard to get out because it's in a hole. And the roots of everything will grow in it.
If you don't have enough green/brown to make layers, it doesn't really matter. Just get it as big as you can as quick as you can.
I've been using pallets for at least thirty years - they work wonders - and are free.
Hi Karen, What is your take on using your compost for growing food that has the chicken poop in it? I have heard various concerns that it should sit for six months, if it has chicken poop in it and you are using it for growing vegetables.
Hi Katina! I hot compost my chicken poop and it's always been perfectly fine. I can make a hot compost in as little as 2 weeks using the Berkley Method. As long as the mixture smells like soil once it's done I use it. If you're talking about using just STRAIGHT chicken poop that hasn't been composted, yes you should let it sit because it is SO high in nitrogen. ~ karen!
I was trying to explain compost to someone over the phone 1 day ago. I will now email him your link - thanks so much. Your blog really covers everything from poop to pucker.
Hi Karen, I love your blog!! So funny and creative. I too love century homes, you might want to protect your house bricks from the compost by sticking something in between the house and the compost material.
Love!
Brilliant. How do you get it to stay together in a heap?
Well, it just does TommyK. It's damp when I pile it up and I keep it moist with the garden hose to help it break down faster. (compost needs to have moisture to break down). So it just stays in a big heap and gradually deteriorates into a slightly smaller heap. :) ~ karen
Why are there only chicks weighing in here? First, I laughed my arse off on this post, secondly, my 3 chickens crap more than Keith Richards and Mick Jagger on stool softner.
I'm building me a compost square outta 16" concrete blocks i have on hand and tarping the top. I will let the girls, and the meaner than Satan Red Rock rooster in there once a week.
Hi Bob. I believe I may frighten lesser men. Thanks for speaking up. ~ karen!
So. About the chickens. And it's probably written somewhere in the blog, but I haven't found it yet. Do you raise them to eat, or are they true pets?
Hi jenny - I raise them for the eggs. Then they somehow turned into pets, LOL. ~ karen
Whoa, Karen, if hubby sees this he'll want to get chickens just to EXPAND our compost bins. Sick...
Slightly off-topic (well, not completely, they have to eat to poop), what do you think of this inventor dude's gadget?
http://www.instructables.com/id/PVC-Chicken-Feeder/?ALLSTEPS
I'm seeing your comment to Karen a year later. Re the chick feeder from PVC: My husband makes these out of 4" PVC, and longer, and uses as deer feeders strapped to trees in the woods. Deer found them right away and brought all their friends. He makes them pretty tall so has to use a ladder to feed from the top, but they're very successful. My only complaint is, they're in the woods and I don't get to see the deer feeding until they come to eat my flower beds into the ground in the fall and winter.
Bad enough that I see pictures of Keith Richards occasionally on my travels through the internets. Now I have to contemplate what he smells like?
Thanks Karen. Oh, and I love your blog.
I think I want to paint one of your chickens you posted a few days ago...ok with you?
Go nuts. ~ karen!
OK, I have NO reason to NOT do this now....totally a waste for me NOT to compost with all the room I have here on my property! Instead of buying expensive organic fertilizer like we did this year! OH ME!
PS: I look for Marti's comments every time I read your posts! LOL she totally cracks me up!
For the record, turning compost (properly) is an awesome core strengthener :)
Man, turning the tumbling conposter is good for the biceps too. Those things can get heavy.
Uh, this is excellent information, but probably not a good idea to read it while eating lunch at your desk :-)