1. Composting isn't scary, but it often takes some trial and error because every yard is different. You'll quickly be an expert once you give it a few tries. Remember, you used to throw it all out anyway.
2. Composting is a process in which certain types of food matter - fruit rinds, vegetable stalks, leafy greens, etc. - are mixed with healthy yard waste to create nutrient rich soil (or, in the composting parlance, "black gold").
3. Turning compost mixes the dirt and aerates it, greatly speeding the process. A compost bin requires contents to be manually turned, while a compost tumbler offers a hand-crank to mix contents.
4. A garden compost bin offers a more hands-on approach to composting. Some owners enjoy the therapy and exercise they get from tending their compost.
5. Compost towers provide busy homeowners the opportunity to compost without the commitment required to tend compost tumblers. The hand-crank mixing process takes just a few minutes.
6. Typically, a worm composter has a built-in compost "tea" collector, which catches this runoff from compost materials. Tea collectors may have to be purchased separately for compost tumblers.
7. You are no longer left out because you have no yard. Kitchen composters work indoors, turning up to 100 pounds of food scraps and coffee grounds per month into dense, rich potting soil. No stink - if anything, it smells like sourdough.
8. Organic matter is essential to creating healthy, usable compost in a kitchen compost bin - most of what you need you can find in your own kitchen.
9. Usable food scraps for kitchen composters include fruit rinds, leafy greens (such as lettuce) and vegetable stalks.
10. Coffee grounds are excellent compost additives because they create heat in the compost pile.
11. Never add meat or dairy products, including bones, to your compost pile. The fats and oils will attract animals and pests, and they'll cause an unsavory odor.
12. Round out your compost pile with nitrogen-rich grass clippings, leaves, and non-diseased weeds and plant remnants.
13. An inexpensive mulching blade works on any mower to chop grass and leaves into fine bits perfect for garden mulch or your composting bin. No more bagging!
