Green and Brown Mixtures for Making Compost at Home

Homesfornh.com – Compost is an important ingredient to make the soil fertile. It is made of organic waste that has a smooth texture after the decomposing process. Make DIY compost at home is an effective way to reduce organic waste in your trash bin and decrease the trash pile in the landfill. You can take the organic waste as a compost mixture and make your plants healthy. There are two kinds of compost mixture based on the substance and the effectivity in the soil. Therefore, in this article, we will discuss Green and Brown Mixtures for Making Compost at Home. Moreover, you can get many benefits that you will get from compost. Most of them are:

1. Compost makes the fertile soil
2. Hold adequate water and minerals
3. Has nitrogen and carbon dioxide for the soil nutrients
4. Contains good microorganism to fertile the soil
5. Makes your plants healthy
6. A low-budget fertilizer from your kitchen waste

Green and brown compost mixture is beneficial to combine in your compost bin. To know more about green and brown compost mixture, we give you examples of both mixtures and show you how to make compost at home.

Classifying Green and Brown Materials for Compost Mixture

There are two types of materials to make compost. Green materials are high carbon dioxide and dry, while brown materials are wet and contain high nitrogen. We give a short description of both materials below:

• Green Materials

Green materials are easy to find from your kitchen waste. Vegetables and fruits are the common sources of green materials because both have wet textures. To make a perfect ingredient for the compost mixture, you need to chop the green materials into small pieces. The small shapes make it easy to decompose in the soil. It keeps the soil moist and helps the microorganism to grow and multiply quickly. Other green materials you can add into your compost bin are grass clippings, tea bags, leaves, lake moss, barnyard or herbivores manure, seaweed, healthy flowers, plant chopping, coffee grounds/filter, and eggshells. These materials should break into pieces to fasten the decomposing process and attract worms.

• Brown Materials

Carbon dioxide is important to stimulate the plant’s growth. You need to add brown materials to make your compost healthy. The amounts of brown materials should be more than the green materials. Adding too much nitrogen from the wet materials may cause rotten compost. Thus you can use brown materials to make good compost. There are cardboard, dry leaves, shredded leaves, toilet paper rolls, tissue, newspapers, paper towels, chipped wood, oat hay, rice hay, and wood ash. These materials are dry and high in carbon dioxide. The chipped wood is optional because it takes the longest time to decompose.

Don’t Do These Things to Your Compost Bin

Compost should consist of organic materials from plants or herbivores animal feces. The wrong materials lead you to fail compost. Here, the things you need to avoid:

• Don’t let the compost too dry and too wet

The composition to make healthy compost is the humidity in the soil. The dry soil may kill the good microorganism in the soil, while the wet soil causes your compost smelly. The smelly compost means it needs more brown materials, or the soil is too wet, then the organic materials are rotten.

• Don’t add meat, fish, dairy, and bone to your compost mixture

Meat, fish, dairy, and bone are the materials that you need to avoid. Don’t add them to your compost mixture. The meat, fish, dairy, bone are smelly and can attract attention to rats, rodents, flies, and even cause pests in your compost.

• Not measuring the range between green and brown materials in the compost mixture

The thing you need to do with your compost materials is how much amount that you need to add to one compost bin. Don’t give too many green materials because they make the rotten compost and become smelly. The right ratio is 3:1 of brown materials and green materials.

Simple Steps to Make Compost at Home

Make compost at home is easy since the green and brown materials that you can find at home. Don’t throw them away in the trash bin. Take advantage of the waste materials to be beneficial organic compost. We have simple steps to make it at home:

• Tools

The first of all is taking all the tools that you need. Some basic gardening tools to make compost are a container for the compost bin, gardening gloves, garden trowel or shovel, watering can or gardening hose, and two buckets to classify the green and brown materials. Add another tool if you need it.

• Classifying materials

Making compost at home needs some materials to create compost layers. The green materials, brown materials, and garden soil are important to arrange for each layer. Classify the materials on the buckets. You can take the garden soil by using another bucket or container. The garden soil is the key to lock heat from green and brown materials during the decomposing process. It also keeps the smell inside the container and helps microorganisms to grow.

• Arrange the compost layers in a container

This is the main step to arrange the materials for each layer. Take your container or compost bin and give 2-4 inches of soil on the bottom. Flatten the soil before you add green materials. The layering process depends on your need for how many layers in your compost bin size. If you have a big container, you can make three layers of green and brown materials. Cover the green materials by the soil, then add brown materials for the next layer. Pushed the brown materials to compact the mixture. The last layer is the garden soil. It should take more soil to cover your compost bin properly.

• Put your compost bin in a sunny place

The decomposing process is about decaying the organic materials by good microorganisms in the soil. It needs sunlight to increase the heat in the soil. The sunlight gives nutrition to the soil and feeds the microorganism in your compost bin. Moreover, an outdoor area provides fresh air that gives enough oxygen to the soil. Since you have covered the compost materials by the soil layer, don’t put a seal on your compost bin

• Regular watering

Compost is made of green and brown materials with enough soil, sunlight, and water. The decomposing process in the compost bin needs water. Humidity is important to decay the organic materials naturally. You can water your compost bin when the soil starts to dry. Put another container beneath it to hold water during the watering process. This wasted water is good to feed your plants. The thing to avoid is overwatering the compost bin because it makes your compost smelly.

• Turn the compost

Write on your note the first day you make compost. It helps you to check how long it takes to get perfect compost. You should also note the day to turn your compost mixture in the compost bin. Use a shovel or garden trowel to dig and turn the soil layer. This step is beneficial to give oxygen into the soil. You can start to turn the compost in the second week when the soil is dry. Dig the soil at some spots. If you don’t want to turn it, then water it. Repeat this step and give regular watering till you get the smooth compost in your compost bin. Usually, it takes 30-45 days to decomposing.

Conclusion

Thus our discussion about Green and Brown Mixtures for Making Compost at Home. Compost is an organic fertilizer from green and brown materials. This fertilizer makes your plants healthy to grow well. Nowadays, gardening becomes an important activity to do at home, especially to survive during the pandemic and supply healthy food for the family. Don’t throw the kitchen waste and other organic things into a trash bin. It is better to compile them and make your compost. We hope this short guide is helpful for you to make compost at home. May you can transform your organic trash into beneficial fertilizer. Happy gardening!