8 Ways to Compost

By Sami Grover, TreeHugger

Want to compost, but not sure where to start? Confused about the difference between hot compost and cold compost? Considering worm composting, or perhaps even grub composting?

Whether you have a gigantic garden and oodles of time and energy, or a balcony and an overbooked schedule, there is a composting technique that is right for you. Here’s a tour of the most common—and some more unusual—forms of composting.

Feel free to share your own tips with readers in the comments.

Hot Composting

By creating conditions where microorganisms thrive, hot composting generates significant amounts of heat—enough, in fact, to warm a shower with compost or even cook on your compost heap.

Hot composting is not rocket science, and it doesn’t require expensive equipment or capital outlay. But it does need some careful attention, and the ability to gather significant amounts of the right kinds of biomass.

You need to mix significantly more carbon-rich, woody “brown” materials with smaller amounts of nitrogen rich “greens” (kitchen scraps, lawn clippings etc). How exact you want to be is up to you, but the correct ratio is about 25 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen. (For the truly geeky, a friend of mine has even created an iPhone app to help you maintain compost ratios!)

You will also need to spend some time turning the heap every few weeks.

While managing these hot compost bins in his community garden, fellow TreeHugger Chris Tackett found that communication is as important as building the heap itself:

“The challenge with composting in a community garden smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood is getting everyone informed about the process and where things like food scraps and grass clippings should go.

“With the “hot” bins, I wanted to layer them with the right mix of browns and greens and then let them process and break down before adding loads of new material, so we’re trying some signage to explain which bins are ‘active’ and where extra browns and vegetable peelings should go.”

With a really hot heap, in the right conditions, you may achieve usable results in just a few months.

Image credit: nancybeetoo / Flickr

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Joe R.

12:08PM PST on Jan 23, 2012

Thanks.

send a green star

Danielle I.

12:16AM PST on Dec 29, 2011

Some great ideas, something for everyone. I really liked the grub 'bin' - great way to get liquid fertilizer and food for the chooks! Brilliant idea :)

Madeline L.

1:45PM PDT on Oct 29, 2011

Regarding municipal composting: How can we be sure, as organic gardeners that the compost is free of chemicals?

PR M.

2:26PM PDT on Oct 3, 2011

Had a garden now for 30yrs and have always composted, some real good Green Slime first couple of tries...not too bad now though

Deborah L.

1:46AM PDT on Sep 28, 2011

Has anyone had problems with rodents being attracted to the compost bin?

Adrianne P.

6:29AM PDT on Aug 24, 2011

I can't wait to have a yard and be able to do this!