Composting

Composting - Materials

A fine source of carbon-rich material arrives free every autumn: the leaves that fall from the trees. Dead leaves alone are a good Start on a compost pile, though you'll get more action if you mix them with grass clippings and other green stuff.

A lot of kitchen waste is fine food for a compost pile: fruit and vegetable peels, cores and trimmings; coffee grounds (including paper filters) and tea bags; too-old produce from the refrigerator drawers; eggshells (which eventually release useful calcium).

Add a couple shovels of dirt.  The organisms that will make your compost -- or their eggs -- are already present in healthy soil.

Composting - Add Water and Air

Add Water.  Start your pile off with a good soak and try to keep it about as moist as a damp sponge.

Add Air.  Aerate the pile by turning it over with a garden fork, mixing it and fluffing it, every few weeks or more often. This also will assure that all the material gets broken down.