If you want to start home-composting, congratulations! You have helped the environment and gave yourself a lot of benefits. From home composting, you can harvest your own organic fertilizer for your plants, and reduce landfill waste at the same time.
Now there is a basic rule in composting, and that is the ratio of Carbon and Nitrogen. You need to keep the ratio to one-third nitrogen and two-third carbon. How to get them? They can be collected from your kitchen and garden waste.
Carbon comes from: branches, dried leaves, shredded brown paper bags, coffee grounds, and egg shells. Carbon material for composting is often called the brown material.
Nitrogen comes from: kitchen waste, green leaves, and manures. Nitrogen material for composting is called the green material. Now that you know, it will be very easy to know which is which by its color.
Another important aspect is to have a starter microbe. Simply mix farming microbes or bio-organic fertilizer with a sugar solution in water. Pour this into the compost and mix well. After getting all the materials, all you have to do is close it and mix it every few days.
Good home composting will have a soil-like smell, and will produce fertilizers with a light texture with dark brown color. If you are using a composting bin, you can also harvest the liquid fertilizer in a shorter time. If the compost created an awful smell, it means that it has too much green materials. Simply add brown materials to make it balanced again.
To make your compost clean from harmful bacteria, pests, and weeds, you also need to avoid some materials from the kitchen waste.
Should not be in the compost: Meat, bones, fish scraps, weeds, diseased plants.
Home-composting is easy and very rewarding in the long term, as you get your own free fertilizer and get to be closer to a zero-waste lifestyle!
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