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Home composting guide

Getting started

All you need is space for a compost heap or bin and some organic waste to put in it.

Compost bins are available from garden centres and online. There are online videos showing you how to make your own.

You can create a compost heap by creating a pile of woody and green material in a corner of your garden. If you have a piece of old carpet, cardboard or plastic sheeting you can cover the heap with that. Weigh it down with bricks or stones to keep things in place and encourage faster composting.

Remember to add lots of 'brown' material, like small sticks, dried leaves and cardboard to your compost to help it produce healthy compost faster. Remember not to put in cooked food, fish or dairy. You need a mix of around half “greens” and half “browns” to keep your bin from being too wet or dry.

Things like fruit and vegetable peelings and scraps, leaves, hair and soft cardboard are perfect for your compost heap. Twigs and hedge trimmings can go in as long as they are small – a whole branch isn’t going to compost. If you’re doing the first grass cut of the year you can put the clippings in your compost, but only in moderate amounts.

You may well have a shared garden, but that doesn’t mean you can’t compost – contact your neighbours and see if you can get them involved.

Do

  • Place your compost bin on open soil
  • Turn the compost with a spade or fork every now and then to add some air
  • Put in a good mix of materials
  • Aim for a mix of roughly 50/50 greens and browns so that the materials in your bin don’t get too wet or too dry

Don’t add

  • Cooked or baked food
  • Dairy products
  • Meat, raw or cooked food
  • Branches, unless chipped first
  • Large amounts of grass clippings
  • Cat litter or dog poo
  • Disposable nappies

These can attract vermin or stop the composting process from working.