Composting Tips – How To Set Up Your Composting Project for Success

There are lists of composting tips everywhere you look and here is no exception. This short list, however, may be the best of all, as  planning your project carefully should ensure that you are setting yourself up for success!

By: Barbara Moss

Composting is a great way to produce the base materials of a great garden, whether you are interested in growing vegetables, flowers, trees or shrubs. And, let’s face it, we do want our gardens to be the best, don’t we?

The challenge for most gardeners and would-be composters is choosing a  system that they can stick with and not just toss  aside when things don’t go quite right. This is where many new-comers and even some experienced gardeners fall by the way-side. They have overly high expectations and when disappointment or boredom set in, or when the effort seems too much, it is only too easy to step back and walk  away.  This is a shame, because the rewards for pushing on and sticking to a system are tremendous, both for your plants and for you.

The Good News

The good news is that none of this bad stuff is necessary. There is one powerful tool that can help you enormously and that tool is called ‘planning’.  It is free! Take note of these composting tips and what they tell you – just spending some hours planning your project properly will go a long way to alleviating any problems that may arise. This is because you will have an understanding about what you are taking on and you will be prepared to deal with any set-backs. You will have selected a system appropriate to your circumstances, one that will produce enough compost to make a difference and one that will ensure that the work involved does not become drudgery.

 So – 3 Composting Tips

 1 – Choosing a compost system. Ask all the right questions and your answers will lead you to the method that will be most likely to lead you to success. Ask – how much room do I have available? How much money do I want to spend? How much time and energy do I want to expend? Am I physically fit? Do I want to compost in the backyard, or indoors? How much waste do I have? Can I scrounge from friends and neighbours? There are dozens of points you should clarify and the more you question, the deeper you dig, the more likely you are to choose correctly the first time round. Planning is the key.

 2 – Once you have decided on your system, (or indeed systems) you will need to acquire a container, or something suitable to hold your ingredients. This will be dictated to some degree by your method, but you will still have to opt whether or not to go the simple, low-cost route of DIY, or whether will you succumb to the seductive murmurings of the husky-voiced, gardening shop sales assistants and consider a commercially manufactured unit with, or without, all the whistles and bells. You can read more on this subject here and once again – planning will keep you on track

 3 – The final step and the third of my composting tips, is to decide carefully where to site your pile or your bin. This will largely be dependent on the size of your garden and the system, or method you have chosen. Once again – ask the right questions and the answers will dictate your decision. You do not want your bin to be a half-mile walk from the house, for example, if you are going to be dealing with mainly kitchen waste! Planning once again.

Making compost can be an extremely enjoyable and even therapeutic occupation or it can be a pain in the neck. It is certainly a source of the best fertiliser, mulch and potting mix on the planet and it can be achieved with minimum cost. Following these three simple composting tips and doing careful planning, will set you off on the right path.

Go on – just try it!