How to compost without spending much. It's Contrary to popular belief, but best compost isn't really natural. You can easily pamper nature at little cost.

Nature Takes It's Time

Books always enthuse about how woodland compost grows under the canopy of natural trees or bushes. That's fine if you don't need the best compost and don't object to waiting up to 10 years.

If you boost nature with superior conditions you'll get the richest compost in a very short time.

Organic Garden Compost

In natural gardening we're not prepared to wait five years for adequate compost, so we speed things up, by offering ideal raw materials and ventilation/humidity.

Do you really want the best compost? It varies with your garden.

What matters to you in this list?

• Time of composting

• Quality of composting

• Amount of weight-lifting involved

• Price of tools

• Neighbors nearness

• Your ability to hire someone

You must choose how you use your own abilities and the size of your garden and location in the world to get compost that will meet your needs.

If you want a composter for a flat with a balcony, for your kitchen compost, your decisions about quality and quantity will be very different from a hobby farmer wanting to manage 5 acres.

Ingenuity

Ah yes, you can't make compost without compost bins. Really?!

If your garden is on your balcony, perhaps you need a manure worm compost bin, but if you have some land, why not make a compost stack? The outside will dry too much, but it will start to heat up when you have a 3 foot cube (or 1 metre cube) if you have the right conditions. It can get too dry or become too wet. In Australia we don't have bears, so I've successfully put dead hens into stacks made that way. You build stacks by doing the corners first, then build the sides in between, then if the center ever gets too low, a little. The rule is to "keep the corners high" and then the sides. That way your stack won't fall down.

Can you get spoiled Alfalfa (Lucerne) bales? Build bins of bales and fill in with compostables. Look for used stuff in the roadside waste disposal. An old formica kitchen table would make a perfect side for a compost bin.

You can make worm bins with corrugated iron... Worms live in the top 6 inches of compost and don't like light, so you need a cover. You also need a fluid-catching arrangement to catch the worm liquid compost.

Do you need a kitchen fork, or a garden fork, or a front-end loader to do your work? That's up to you. I have three compost bins and a couple of composting stacks.

The best compost is made quickest because you are pampering Nature. But do you need quality rather than quantity compost?

How to compost for you - are you fit enough for the heavy garden work for instance?