Composting is the closest thing gardening has to alchemy. You put in peelings, prunings and the things you'd otherwise bin, and a few months later you pull out crumbly, sweet-smelling soil food that no shop can sell you as well. It's the cornerstone of low-waste, low-impact living, and it's far harder to get badly wrong than most beginners fear.
The Only Rule That Really Matters
Good compost is a balance of two things: greens and browns. Greens are the wet, nitrogen-rich materials — vegetable peelings, grass clippings, coffee grounds. Browns are the dry, carbon-rich ones — cardboard, dead leaves, straw, torn-up egg boxes. Roughly equal amounts of each, layered or mixed, keeps the heap sweet and working. Too many greens and it turns to slime; too many browns and it just sits there. The detailed composting guidance from the RHS is worth a read if you want to fine-tune the ratio, but most people learn it by feel within a season.
Air, Moisture and a Bit of Patience
A compost heap is alive, and like anything alive it needs air and water. Turning the heap every few weeks with a fork stops it going anaerobic and speeds everything up. It should feel about as damp as a wrung-out sponge — add water in a dry spell, add browns if it's soggy. Then mostly leave it alone. Somewhere between three months and a year, depending on the weather and how often you turn it, you'll have finished compost at the bottom.
What to Leave Out
A few things don't belong in a home heap: cooked food, meat and fish (they attract rats), perennial weed roots, and anything diseased. Keep those out and almost everything else from the kitchen and garden is fair game. Spread the finished compost on your beds in autumn or spring and watch the soil — and everything in it — improve year on year.
Start small, get the green-to-brown balance roughly right, and turn it when you remember. Composting rewards the casual gardener as generously as the dedicated one.
