Composting is an excellent way to take unwanted garden and household material and turning it into a nutrient rich soil amendment for your garden. You can compost nearly any plant material provided you follow a few simple instructions. Compost is produced by the microbial breakdown of plant matter. It is important to have plenty of material handy when you start your compost pile. You should have equal parts of green and brown debris and be certain your pile has plenty of nitrogen. Lawn clippings are great for this, but if you have doubts you can add a small amount (perhaps a half cup maximum) of a nitrogen rich fertilizer to the pile. Keep the pile moist and depending on conditions, you can have compost in 1 – 3 months. You will need to periodically mix the pile to help keep the reaction going, but the extra work is worth the effort.

A compost bin is another alternative to the traditional pile. The compost bin keeps moisture and temperature under control so there is less guesswork. Most composting bins are 3x3 and dark in color. They have a top lid to load the plant material and a small shoot at the bottom to remove the finished compost. This type of composter is effective, but it requires manual turning and you need to keep the plant material moist (but not wet). Overly wet compost will rot and will not have been raised to the temperature required to stop seed germination and kill other unwanted organisms.

The easiest way to produce compost today is through the use of mechanical composters. A composter is a small hand driven machine that allows you to easily rotate the compost using a small crank. Composters come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, but the most common is a cylinder that has an easy to load door for adding plant material and can be turned whenever mixing is required. These composters take much of the guesswork out of the process and help to produce excellent compost. Look for a composter that has made of hard plastic of fiberglass to keep the weight down. Keep in mind a fully loaded composter can get very heavy and the center of gravity can be a factor. You want for find a composter that is low to the ground for easy loading and is not likely to fall over. You also want a composter with solid construction so it will provide many years of service.