What Is Composting?

Composting is a topic that many new gardeners have questions about, and often may shy away from as they are worried about smells or other common misconceptions about compost. But composting is actually an easy way to make your gardening efforts more sustainable, so this month we're starting a short series on composting. This week we're starting off with a basic introduction to composting - what it is, and how it works.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In basic terms, composting is recycling your kitchen waste and lawn trimmings and turning them into a valuable resource for your garden or houseplants.  This is done by speeding up the process that the materials you use to compost would naturally go through on their own – decomposition.

Compost is not soil.  It is a common misconception that the end-result of composting is the dirt that you find in the ground.  It is actually a richer substance that acts as a fertilizer (enriching the soil) to grow hardier and healthier plants.

Before you begin composting there are choices to be made – what type of container and style suits your project, what you will be putting into your compost bin, and the location of your bin.  But regardless of these decisions, how you convert your waste into compost happens the same way.  It is a breakdown of waste materials as they are digested by microbes (bacteria and fungi).

The microbes are the workers of the composting equation.  They need air, water, and food to do their job and it is up to you to supply it to them in the right amounts.  If you have heard that having a compost bin or pile creates a foul odor it is most likely the result of not enough air circulating throughout the waste material.  Without air, the material will still break down but it will be done by anaerobic microbes (organisms that do not need oxygen) as opposed to aerobic (ones that need oxygen).  So if you do have an unpleasant smell coming from your compost bin or pile, you can rotate the material to let in more air, or add a substance to create more room for the air to circulate.  Wood chips or hay and straw are good for this.

Composting is good for both the environment and for your garden – it eliminates the amount of waste you throw away and enriches the soil your plants grow in.

Be sure to check back next week when we'll cover the next topic in our composting series!