Compost: A Simple Recipe

Composting is a great way to reduce the amount of food waste we add to landfills. Americans throw over 50 million tons of food waste each year, recycling less than 3%. (Garden Center magazine (Jan 2008). Anyone who has a bit of outdoor space can keep 1.3 pounds of food scraps per person per day out of their local landfill .

Ingredients

• Carbon-rich brown materials from yard waste like fall leaves, straw, dead garden flowers, or shredded newspaper
• Nitrogen- rich green materials from kitchen waste like vegetable peelings, fruit rinds, banana peels (no meat scraps) And/ or nitrogen rich grass clippings or aged cow manure
• A shovelful or two of garden soil
• A site that is at least 3 ft by 3 ft

Recipe

• start by spreading a layer that is several inches thick of course, dry brown stuff- straw, leaves, cornstalks
• top with several inches of green stuff
• add a thin layer of soil
• add a thin layer of brown stuff
• moisten the three layers
• continue layering green stuff and brown stuff with a little soil mixed in until the pile is 3 ft high
  (try to add stuff in a ratio of 3 parts brown to 1 part green)

Every couple of weeks, use a garden fork or shovel to turn the pile, moving the stuff at the center of the pile to the outside and working the stuff on the outside of pile to the center. Keep the pile moist but not soggy.  You will see steam when you first turn the pile, indicating decomposition. If you turn the pile every couple weeks and keep it moist, soon you'll notice earthworms. The center of your pile will soon become black, crumbly, sweet smelling soil.