How to Make Organic Compost

To grow beautiful flower or tasty vegetables, gardeners often put compost in their soil.  Compost is produced by allowing vegetable matter to decompose naturally.

How do you start?

First, the compost’s ingredients have to be collected.  Any raw vegetable or plant material is suitable, including leaves grass, vegetable peelings and fruit cores.  To introduce helpful bacteria into the compost, some garden soil is also mixed in.

Where do you put it?

Next, the compost mixture is put into a special composting bin, or piled up in the corner of the garden.  The compost is left alone for many months while nature does its work.

What turns it into compost?

Microbes, such as bacteria and fungi, soon begin to rot the vegetable material.  As a side-effect, natural warmth is produced in the compost.  This, in turn, helps to speed up the process.  Eventually, natural decomposition transforms the waste vegetable material into soft brown compost.

What is the compost used for?

Finally, gardeners either dig the compost into the soil or spread it on the surface.  Compost replaces nutrients in the soil, because it contains nitrogen and other important elements.