Garden Compost
Here are a few of the major sources of organic material you can use.
Leaves
Leaves are one of the finest and easiest things to make garden compost from. If you only have a few leaves, simply run your lawnmower over them and let them sit on the lawn. They’ll compost in place with no more fuss or muss, hauling or heaving.
If you have more than a few and you can’t chop them up (or choose not to) then you have several options.
The first is to pack them into green garbage bags and store them for the winter or even a year or two. If over the winter, you can use them as mulch and they’ll compost in place. If for a few years, you’ll find they’ll mostly break down in the bag and you can use them directly onto the garden as “almost garden compost” or leaf mould.
These bagged leaves can also be mixed with grass clippings to create a fast garden compost.
The second is to construct big garden compost piles of leaves. They will rot down quite quickly if constructed properly and will provide you with ready compost by the middle of the following summer (or earlier if you add nitrogen and turn over as per the directions on this site)
Grass Clipping Garden Compost
Grass clippings are almost perfect compost material all by themselves. They have the perfect carbon to nitrogen ratio and a pile of them will heat up and compost very quickly.
The problem of course is getting enough garden compost material versus keeping the lawn healthy.
Leaving the clippings on the lawn is ideal as the nitrogen is immediately recycled to feed the upcoming grass. If you remove the clippings, you’ll have to add fertilizer to keep the lawn actively growing. Recycling is far easier if you don’t have to pick up material and lug it around.
If you have too many grass clippings (you’ve been away and nobody mowed the lawn and now it resembles a hayfield) then composting them is an ideal way to use them.
I also use them directly on vegetable gardens as mulch without composting.
Plant Clippings
Generally, these are all composted regardless of condition or disease. There are only a few diseases (clubroot for example) that should not be composted.
Any kind of mould or brown leaf rotting can be composted.
Remember that it is not only the heat of the garden compost pile but bacterial action that takes care of problems. And quite frankly, most of the common garden fungi and bacteria are so common that getting rid of few dead leaves into the garbage isn’t going to accomplish anything (other than more work for the gardener). Get the compost and compost tea working in your garden and forget about sending most damaged leaves to the dump.
Garden Weeds
Garden weeds make great garden compost. They too are rich in nutrients because those extensive root systems collect more than their share. Compost them.
The only warning comes from things like bindweed or other really noxious and persistently spreading weeds. If you want to compost these, put them into a garbage bag with some freshly mown grass and allow to sit in that bag for a few months or until you can’t recognize the leaves. That’ll fix ‘em.
Weed Seeds
Weed seeds will be killed in a hot compost system but will survive a cold one.
Also – weedy compost can be dug in where the sunlight can’t get to it. This means the seeds will have a tougher time germinating than if you spread it on the surface.
Hedge Trimmings
This woody material does not compost very quickly. So you can chop it up finely and mix it with grass clippings to get it started.
Or, you can chop it up and make a compost pile of all the clippings. This will take up to two years to make a rough but useable compost.
Or you can chop it up finely and add it to a regular compost pile. You’ll have to add a little extra nitrogen material (green material) to help break down the woody stems.
Newspapers
Newspaper makes an excellent mulch. It will also break down (if ripped into smaller bits) in compost.
The best thing to do is recycle this material whenever possible.
Sawdust
As slow to break down as hedge and tree trimmings. This cellulose material is broken down by fungi and this takes a fair bit of nitrogen to keep the process working.
Sawdust can be thinly spread on gardens as a mulch. Do not dig it in or it will consume nitrogen. Spread on the surface of the soil, it isn’t a problem.
It can also be piled up and composted slowly to a fine rich compost. Mixing with grass clippings will help break it down quicker.
Do not use sawdust from wood treated with wood preservative in a compost pile (the anti-fungal material kills compost fungi too).
Animal Manure
Generally, it is not recommended to add the manure from household pets to the garden compost pile. Dogs and cats in particular can hold parasites humans are susceptible to and only a very hot compost will kill these.
If you have access to farm animal wastes, then a hot compost system utilizing these materials (particularly if they are bedded on straw) will produce an excellent pathogen free compost. Remember we’re not talking about using raw manure in tea or gardens, we’re talking about using a fully composted manure.
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