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Weekly Wellness Tips – Composting

08/16/2023

By Alison Wilder

Help your planet and your garden! Backyard composting can reduce household waste by as much as 30% and provide free healthy soil!

Why Compost?

By reducing household waste sent to the landfill, you are helping the planet. It’s also good for your garden.

Finished compost is a free soil amendment and fertilizer for the garden.

It is mild and won’t burn plants like chemical fertilizers. By adding compost you’ll improve the overall texture of your soil enabling it to retain and drain water better.

How to Keep Your Compost Bin Healthy

Think of your compost bin as a pet. This will do two things: it will help you see it as a living thing that shouldn’t be neglected, and teach you to ‘feed’ it a balanced diet.

There are two main types of organic materials you can feed your compost bin: greens and browns.

Greens are high in nitrogen and described as ‘wet.’

Browns are described as ‘dry’ materials and are high in carbon.

When feeding your compost bin try to maintain a balance of 50% greens and 50% browns by weight.

Since greens are typically heavier, you should add 2 to 3 buckets of browns for every bucket of greens you add.

Compostable “Green” Materials

Vegetable, fruit scraps, coffee grounds, filters, tea bags, leaves, fresh grass clippings, plant trimmings from your garden, houseplants.

Compostable “Brown” Materials

Dry leaves, straw and dry hay, wood chips and sawdust from untreated wood, dried grass clippings, shredded paper, egg and nut shells, hair and animal fur, paper towels, and paper tubes.

Do Not Compost

Meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, oily foods or grease, bones, cat and dog waste, diseased plants and seeds of weedy plants, anything treated with pesticides.