Golden rules of composting
1 CREATE A GOOD MIX The composting process needs both carbon-rich ‘brown’ matter (such as wood chippings, dried leaves, straw and cardboard) and nitrogen-rich greens (such as vegetable waste from the kitchen and grass clippings). Too much of one or other and the process goes askew or slows down. The best bet is to follow your eyes and nose: you can see if it’s too dry; you can feel if it’s too cool; and good composting should not give off bad smells. Keep a bag of woody chippings next to the heap and add a few handfuls with each pile of green material in summer.
2 GIVE IT PLENTY OF AIR Good aerobic composting needs oxygen to fuel the process. Make sure fine materials such as grass clippings are mixed with coarser ones. It also helps to turn or ‘fluff up’ the compost once or twice.
3 KEEP IT MOIST BUT NOT WET A dry compost heap will sit dormant, barely decomposing at all; a soggy heap will fester. Cover the heap with a lid of some sort (I use a corrugated roofing sheet), which stops the heap getting waterlogged in winter and keep the heat in. Many of the heap’s inhabitants will love the cover it affords.
4 CHOP IT UP Smaller particles give much more surface area for tiny creatures to get to work on, so put larger stems and twigs through a shredder and rip up paper and cardboard. Take five minutes with hand shears to slice up weeds.
5 BIGGER IS BETTER The more material you have to compost, the easier it is to increase the heat of the pile. Smaller heaps still work, but are likely to take longer to decompose.