Do You Know What You Can Compost?

What To Compost

First Published Date: June 25, 2010

Composting is something that is incredibly good for your garden and for the environment. When you compost, you keep waste from being thrown away and you give your garden and plants the vital nutrients it needs to grow strong and healthy. Composting is very easy to do. Essentially, all you do is take organic waste, mix it up with dirt, throw in some mulching worms and keep rotating the compost every few weeks and you will have great compost for your garden. As for what you can compost, there are plenty of different things you can compost.

One thing you can compost is your hair and nails. These items are organic and will disappear over time but if you put them in your compost you can give your garden a big shot of nitrogen and calcium, which is very important for your garden. So, when you have a haircut, or cut your nails throw the waste into the compost and help your garden out.

You can compost your jeans and cotton shirts. This is because denim and cotton are organic and will break away over time. All you have to do is cut up the pieces of the clothes and throw them into the compost. They will disappear over time and give your garden lots of great nutrients and minerals. All that will be left eventually are the buttons and zippers, and you should probably just remove those when you throw the clothes in the garden in the first place.

Vegetable waste, fruit waste and any other type of food can be thrown into your compost. This gives your compost many vitamins, nutrients and minerals that will help your garden grow very strong. Now, it is important to note that you cannot put meat or egg shells into your compost. Egg shells do not break down so you have to mash them into a powder so that it can biodegrade. Meat runs the risk of getting maggots into your compost, which will cause your compost to be ruined.

If you rake the leaves on your lawn, then you will be able to compost the yard waste. Many homeowners now leave leaves on their lawn through the winter because it helps to provide the lawn with nutrients and you can use that same concept in your garden. Just take the yard waste and mix it into your compost and the following year you will have a very healthy garden.

Animal waste, specifically manure from horses and cows is extremely high in nitrogen and a good way to help your garden out. You should only use the manure of horses and cows, unless you have a special composter that can handle human or dog waste. Done right, you will help the garden with minerals and nutrients that come from the food the animals eat.

Compost is something that can help your garden greatly and it is essential if you are going to be doing any sort of organic gardening.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Thegreenlivingblog.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on June 25, 2010.