15 Apr A Step-by-Step Guide to making great garden compost at home
Composting is an excellent and sustainable way of turning kitchen scraps and yard waste into nutrient-rich fertiliser for your home garden. The best thing about making your own compost is that it will save you money on fertilisers and use up some of your household waste. You’ll also avoid nasty greenhouse gas emissions often produced when food scraps end up in landfills.
And if you don’t have a huge garden, you can donate your freshly made compost to your local community garden!
Organic Biolink™ Compost Starter makes the process easier, transforming waste into high-quality compost at home in just three weeks.
It contains live microorganisms that break down organic materials in an aerobic environment to make stable and usable organic compost. This really speeds up the process of composting. And don’t worry—it’s also safe for worms!
7 simple steps to creating balanced organic compost in your backyard compost bin at home
Step 1: Gather Your Materials
- You’ll need a backyard compost bin and a pack of Biolink Compost Starter.
- Kitchen scraps like fruit and vegetable peelings, coffee grounds, eggshells, and pet hair are ideal for your compost bin. You can also add grass clippings. These materials are referred to as ‘green’ waste.
- It’s good to have a balance of ‘brown’ waste, too—such as drier, woodier backyard waste like leaves and small branches, paper, and plain brown cardboard. All these materials are best shredded or ground down, allowing the microbes access to the greatest surface area of the material for better breakdown.
- Most people know what shouldn’t go into your compost – avoid meat, seafood, bones, oils and fats, dairy products, pet waste, and other random stuff like labels, sticky tape, and compostable bags.
- You’ll also need a shovel, pitchfork, or a compost aerator.
- You might also want to add some moisture, so have a watering can or hose handy.
Step 2: Layer Your Ingredients
Start by layering your compost bin with a mixture of kitchen scraps and yard waste. Aim for a balance of green materials (nitrogen-rich) 50% and brown materials (carbon-rich) 50%. Sprinkle Biolink Compost Starter evenly over each layer to introduce beneficial microbes that accelerate the composting process. Use about 40 to 50 grams to ½ a cubic metre of material.
Step 3: Maintain Moisture Levels
Moisture is crucial for composting, so ensure your compost pile stays damp, like a wrung-out sponge. Water the pile as needed, especially during dry weather or if the materials appear dry.
Step 4: Turn the Pile Regularly
Use a shovel, pitchfork, or compost aerator to turn the compost pile gently every few days. If you have a tumbler compost unit, turn it every few days for aeration. Turning aerates the pile, providing oxygen for the microbes and speeding up the breakdown of waste into composite material.
Step 5: Check the temperature of your compost
Due to microbial activity, the pile will heat up as the composting process progresses. You can use a compost thermometer to check the internal temperature, aiming for a range of 55°C – 65°C. High temperatures help kill pathogens and weed seeds while accelerating the breakdown process.
Step 6: Get ready to use your compost in your home garden
Normal composting can take months, but by using our Compost Starter, your compost should be ready after about three weeks. It should have a dark, crumbly texture and an earthy smell. Transfer the finished compost to your garden beds or use it as a top dressing for potted plants.
Step 7: Repeat by starting a new batch of compost
Composting is an ongoing cycle, so continue to add kitchen scraps and yard waste to your compost bin. Use Biolink Compost Starter with every new batch to maintain a healthy microbial community and speed up composting.
TIP: In our experience, you’re best to make one batch of compost at a time, otherwise, your brown to green ratio becomes imbalanced. It will either end up a wet and gooey or dry, non-digested organic material
Why does Biolink Compost Starter improve your home composting process?
We’ve carefully selected specific ingredients to enhance the quality of your compost. These include:
- Blood Meal: High in Nitrogen, it stimulates microbes to break down compost and manure sludge. It also balances the Nitrogen (green material) and Carbon (brown material) ratio in compost piles, making energy more readily available when applied to the soil.
- Fish Meal: Rich in Phosphorus and Nitrogen, it supports the proliferation of bacteria and fungi in your compost bin.
- Bone Meal: A plentiful source of Phosphorus and Calcium.
- Microbes: These are inoculants for your compost heap. We’ve selected the most effective bacteria for rapid breakdown of waste materials. Our microbial blend includes Bacillus subtilis, Enterococcus faecium, Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus casei, Pediococcus pentosaceus, Aspergillus oryzae, Aspergillus niger, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
- Humic Fulvic: Acts as a fungal stimulant, buffering excess salt and toxins. Humic and Fulvic are concentrated sources of Carbon.
With Biolink Compost Starter, creating balanced compost in your backyard compost bin or tumbler is easier and faster than ever.
By following these simple steps and harnessing the power of beneficial microbes, you can turn kitchen and yard waste into nutrient-rich compost and fertiliser for your home garden in just three weeks. It will help create a better environment for growing veggies, flowers, herbs, and all sorts of plants.
Happy composting!
You’ll find our Compost Starter in our online store.