I need to know how to make compost (house, water, soil)

[Aptor hours]

Could somebody explain how to make compost in very very simple terms

[Hemlock140]

You need a mix of green and brown, with moisture to enable the material to decompose. green includes grass clippings, green leaves, vegetable and fruit scraps. Brown includes dry grass, dead leaves, and thin clippings. Watering it and turning frequently to allow air in helps speed up the process and keep it from getting moldy. Nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus will be produced by the feeding of microorganisms and in time mulch becomes ready to incorporate into the soil.

[lifelongMOgal]

Composting For Dummies Cheat Sheet - For Dummies

[Mac_Muz]

You can't do that, you will break a nail. I don't care about my nails so I make about 12 cubic yards each year.

[NCN]

I went to Sam's and bought a compost bin for under $50. When we eat the fruit, lettuce, cabbage, rake grass, leaves, chop off weeds, etc. we open up the top and throw these scraps inside. Next Spring we open up the little door at the bottom and rake the compost out. Simple. It looks like compost you buy at the store and all we did was fill it up.

[opalminor]

Just make a pile of greens & browns, with lots of dead leaves. Save a small container of kitchen scraps (keep in freezer to not attract bugs).. and when it's full, let it thaw a few mins, and dig a small hole in the pile, put the scraps in there, cover it up and try to keep it covered with leaves too. If you have problems with animals you might need to put it in a composting container (that's a whole 'nother story).
Keeping adding food scraps, hose it down now & then, and turn it over with shovel (which requires you to move it over a few feet).. then when you turn it again in a couple weeks/months you can move it back to the original spot if you wish. When you make a hole in it to add scraps, or when you turn it over, you should feel warmth coming out of it- that's how you know it's 'working'.
It will keep getting smaller but just keep adding stuff. Eventually you can start a new pile, while the first one keeps decomposing down. Eventually it will be nice dark rich soil. That's pretty much the simplest & cheapest way to do it.

[lollykoko]

I do vermiculture composting in my basement, using a couple of 18 gallon totes. I got the information needed to start by watching several videos on YouTube then decided how fancy I wanted to get. My current set-up is very simple, takes care of my kitchen scraps, and provides very rich soil amendment.

Next time around I will epoxy a spigot into a hole cut in the side of the bottom tote for easier draining of the compost tea.

[hey teach]

I made a compost bin out of wood pallets. Take 7 pallets. Use 6 to make a rectangle and put one in the middle to make 2 compartments.. Attach them together with rope or duck tape or any thing that will hold.

Put you fruit and vegetable scraps, lawn cuttings, leaves, anything plant matter ( no meat, bones,or fecal matter) in one compartment. Once a week, raise the middle pallet and using a rake, fork, whatever works for you, turn the material over into the other side. Remember the more you put in the more you get out.

[Mac_Muz]

Hey, I built something like that when I lived in Md, but 3 comparments, Rough material went in one end, was raked to the middle and again to the far end. That idea works well if you don't live in hell Froze over like Aptor and I do. Right now and while I don't know her exact location, I do know she is around 8 degrees below 0 as i type. That last night she had something like -21 degrees below 0.

That idea won't work at all here. Well not right now anyway.

I make large piles of waste inter locking them in layers waste greens and all to incluse coffe grounds, and etc, Then a layer of soil to cover, then card board to cover, then begin again in that order.

This allows a deep self insulating heap that stays well above 0 inside of the pile in winter and can use natural snow for more insulation. As the snow melts here and there during winter it feeds moisture to the pile system.

Now the problem is that to break this mass up in Spring is either a lot of back breaking work or you need a machine with forks. I am lucky with access to a Bob Cat and it has forks and buckes and even a back hoe.

In fall i build these piles, and have 2 right now. One is in the garden with a zillion earth worms i moved from the garden, to winter over.

The other pile is contained in a chicken wire fencing since it is active and recieve food wastes from the house every day. All the wire does is keep the 2 dogs honest.

In this pile there is a resident red squirrel living. I guess he is toasty warm down in there.

Each pile will be all broken up after the rest of the land is more or less free of snow. This will mix in the outter frozen layers and the both of each piles should be near to garden grade soil.

The garden has 0 top soil when I started it in Dec 06 when I first came here, and knew to compost before I knew there was 0 soil.

Last year was the first time to fully cover the 60 x 100 area in soil enough with a few buckets (bob cat) to spare. This year I will added one pile to the garden for sure, but am not sure what i will do with the other yet. It will be used here somewhere, but I can't say right now.

[Nor'Eastah]

Lots of interesting material here (no pun intended!)

Compost is an excellent soil additive when you wish to (like Mac, above) add "tilth" to your soil...to make it rich and dense and moisture-holding, rather than just sandy "dirt" that has no air spaces in it for roots, and no ability to hold in moisture.

However, as a fertilizer, in and of itself, compost does not make a "closed system" (e.g. you throw in your scraps, wait till it rots, spread it around, eat the food grown there, and throw in the scraps again). I find it hard to believe how many folks think that compost is what makes a garden "organic" and that if you use it, no further fertilizer is needed. This will lead to inferior results in the not-so-long term.

There are rock soils (limes, phosphates), seed meals, kelp meal, fish emulsion, and other amendments that vastly add to the nutritional value of your produce, and very little of that comes from compost. The best way to prepare a garden is to plant alfalfa the year before, make 3-4 cuttings during the summer, rake and compost this material into heaps, and allow it to compost over 6 months to a year. Alfalfa breaks through hard pan and brings up all sorts of minerals from the subsoil, which are needed for real nutrition in your food. Planting a year of alfalfa, adding other soil amendments, and composting your waste materials for better soil tilth, is a 3-pronged approach that has been proven to add better nutritive value to produce, than just adding compost alone. And your food will be every bit as "organic".