How to Make Compost for Your Organic Vegetable Garden

Compost is a mysterious, almost mythical, substance to many gardeners. It can help dry soil hold more water, compacted soils regain their flexibility and poor soils bring forth bountiful organic vegetable gardens. Often referred to as Black Gold by gardeners who revere it, compost really involves more science than magic and is relatively simple to make and use. All you will need to get started is a small corner of your backyard, some grass clippings, leaves or other yard waste (including any giant zucchinis that you never got around to harvesting) and a good digging fork or shovel to turn your pile with. When making the pile, make sure that you have a balance of lush materials, such as animal manures and fresh grass clippings and drier, woodier materials such as sawdust, wood chips and sticks.

In order to make your compost pile a success, and to provide yourself with a wonderful soil amendment, you will need a only few ingredients: organic materials, such as leaves, wood chips, grass clippings and produce, water and air. When your pile of carefully selected materials is kept well-aerated and at an appropriate moisture level, it will attract a group of microbes, such as beneficial bacteria and fungi, that will work hard to break your yard waste down into compost.

In order to help these magical microbes, you will need to keep the pile moist, but not wet. Microbes need to drink too. The material in the pile should feel about as wet as a wrung-out sponge. As the microbes work on breaking down the material that you have put into your compost pile, they give off a lot of heat. You will need to make sure that your pile doesn't get too hot (over 150 degrees F) because this will kill the microbes and stop the composting process. Since the pile tends to be warmer in the middle than on the outside, turning your compost with a digging fork or a shovel will help release the trapped heat. Turn your pile with the goal of getting whatever was in the middle to the outside and vice-versa.

Turning the pile serves two functions: letting the pile cool and aerating it so that the hard-working microbes can get a breath of fresh air. Not all microbes need air to survive, but the ones that you want in your compost pile do. If you monitor the temperature of your compost pile regularly, keep it moist and turn it as needed, your finished compost should be ready after about three turns.

Finished compost doesn't have any recognizable parent material in it. So if you see whole leaves, vegetable chunks and the like in your compost, it's not done yet. Once your pile has finished composting, the compost is ready to put right onto your garden where it will do wonders for your soil and your plants.