Compost is easy to make. Nature does it every day on the forest floor just by letting leaves and such accumulate and rot. However, most gardeners want it in fair quantity and good quality which requires some planning and forethought. The results are more than worth it.

Once it is built a compost pile will finish in about a year, but if it is turned once that can drop to six months. In fact, the more often the pile is turned the faster it composts. The full impact of this can be seen with the hot composting method which can produce finished compost in as little as two weeks. This speed comes with two costs. First is the sheer labor of turning the pile every three to four days. Think of this as an aerobic exercise event. Second is the loss of some of the nitrogen which gets given off in a faint ammonia smell. For most gardeners this is an acceptable trade off for the finished compost.

Hot composting has a few simple steps . 1.Gather materials for the pile. Brown, dry materials such as spoiled hay or dry leaves provide carbon while wet, green material like grass clippings or kitchen waste supply nitrogen. About twice as much brown to green by volume should give a good carbon to nitrogen ratio for fast compost. 2.Build the pile with a good mix of both brown and green materials. A couple of forkfuls of each in sequence gives a better mix than thick layers of either. 3.Make the pile large enough to provide its own insulation for the center to retain heat. Minimum size is three feet high, wide and deep. It is easier for mixing to make the pile longer rather higher. Besides which it is a lot of work to pile higher than four feet and the weight of the pile will compact it to where it is not able to get enough air to work properly. 4.Add some soil for good activation. Microorganisms found in garden soil do the actual work of composting. While they are all around, they are prevalent in good, garden soil that already has some compost in it. Adding a shovel full of soil every now and then as the pile is built supplies plenty of bacteria and fungi for a quick start. If you have a lot of old sods or weeks with their roots in your pile, the soil is already there. 5.Get the pieces of material as small as possible. Corn stalks can be cut up, leaves can be run over with a lawn mower and so on. The more pieces the greater the surface area for the microorganisms to feed on. Some dedicated composters will shred everything before hand while others count on the physical action of the first couple of turnings combined with microbial action to break up the materials. 6.Make sure the moisture content is correct. It should feel about as damp as a wrung out sponge. Chances are, all other things being equal, if the pile does not heat it likely needs moisture. 7.Turn the pile as indicated by day or temperature. While all of the above are good advice for any compost pile, hot piles are turned piles. To turn the pile use a fork to tear off the material breaking it up as you go. The stuff from the top and sides make the center of the new pile while the center of the old becomes the new top and sides. Either turn every three to five days or whenever the pile cools down. You can use a commercial thermometer to monitor the heat and turn when the pile is below 120°F or whenever the pile is no longer too hot to keep your hand in it for more than a minute.

These simple steps should give you finished compost easily in a month and some composters claim to have finished material in as little as two weeks.

About the Author

An avid gardener for over 25 years, Darrell Feltmate brings to Compost Central a wealth of knowledge of making compost for the best garden ever. He has had compost piles over 25 feet long and others in neat bins. Some piles have finished in as little as two weeks. Over the years many shavings from his wood turning have been compost for the garden.