What goes into compost?
Compost is made out of organic materials such as kitchen scraps, weeds, and lawn clippings, plus dirt and air. Kitchen scraps include peels, vegetable trimmings, crushed egg shells, tea bags, coffee grounds, and no-meat-no-sweet-no-grease leftovers. Usually the pile is made in layers of the different ingredients, because the different materials help each other decompose: a layer of yard trimmings, a layer of kitchen scraps, a layer of dirt, a layer of lawn trimmings, another layer of dirt, etc. Intersperse layers of dry vegetation with layers of soil and layers of green vegetation/kitchen waste. Each layer is about two or three inches thick. Let the rain fall in, and in dry weather add enough water to keep the pile moist. You do not have to be exact about these layers; just pile on what you have, and work towards keeping a balance. Again, see our page: Compost Simplified for details.
