Gardener tips: how to make a compost pit with your own hands

Recommendation points

• The benefits and disadvantages of your compost pit
• Benefits
• Minuses
• Choosing a place for a compost pit
• How to make and install the structure correctly
• How to make a composter
• Option with a ready-made box
• Option without ready-made box
• How to compost
• Wrong compost bin

Every gardener knows the benefits of organic fertilizers such as compost. But not everyone knows that you can cook it yourself. How to properly organize the place for compost, where to place it and how to use this fertilizer in the future, we will tell in this article.

Compost is an organic fertilizer commonly purchased from garden stores to enrich the soil under vegetable and fruit trees. People say that there is no gardener who does not have his own abscess. This is the name of the compost pit because this useful fertilizer is the result of rotting (decomposition) of garden and home food waste. Not everyone knows that, thanks to a well-chosen place and the correct laying of products for decay, there will be no unpleasant smell and unaesthetic appearance..

The benefits and disadvantages of your compost pit

Fertilizers are especially needed all year round on a farm with a greenhouse. Although a good harvest in the garden also depends on the presence of useful minerals in the soil. Buying them in a store, there is not enough confidence that the product rotted on its own, and not with the help of accelerating chemicals. Indeed, it takes almost 2 years to process and obtain high-quality compost from the moment of laying products intended for decay..

Benefits

There is no question of destruction or removal of cut grass, leaves from the garden and plant residues from the garden, with the exception of insoluble waste (construction and household).

All cooking waste goes into the pit, except meat leftovers (there are pets for this).

Greenhouse owners have fresh compost at any time of the year, making it easier to grow vegetables in winter and reduce the cost of buying fertilizers.

Minuses

As mentioned, the pit smells bad. Despite the correctly chosen place and the observance of the storage technology, there is no escape from the “fragrances” while stirring. But this happens once every 2-3 months..

Choosing a place for a compost pit

A site near a toilet, a cesspool or at the end of a garden is the best option. In advance, it is necessary to provide for the availability of a free approach for moving with bulk waste:

• leaves
• cut grass
• tree trimming

The waste shredder should be nearby so that the crushed mass does not have to be carried far.

How to make and install the structure correctly

The most convenient for long-term use will be a wooden box, consisting of three compartments. The length of the compartment is 1 m. The width is 80 cm. The greater distance between the walls will make it difficult to warm up in winter. Why three departments:

1. For fresh waste that must fade.
2. For those who have begun the process of decay.
3. For finished compost.

Before proceeding with the installation of the composter, you should understand how it works.. Waste will be constantly added to the third compartment from the second, in which the decay process has begun. At this time, at the very bottom there will already be ready-made compost, which can be taken out thanks to a correctly calculated design. This compartment should have a device that allows you to open the bottom of the drawer. The one where the ready-made compost is located. After removing it, the ripening compost in the middle of the box will go down and ripen. The upper part of the structure is replenished with compost from the middle box that has begun.

Important! You can’t trample the contents! More likely, from high pressure, there will be not rotted mass, but pressed silage.

The first box is used as a collection of all waste for storage and wilting. If you wish, you can only make 2 boxes. Then dry leaves awaiting their turn will be piled up next to the structure..

How to make a composter

Option with a ready-made box

In a previously dug hole (up to 1 meter), corresponding to the size of the box, we put thick branches, pieces of stones or other material that will allow the structure not to touch the ground, to be slightly raised. This will improve gas exchange, prevent moisture accumulation and provide air circulation..

Oxygen access is necessary for those microorganisms that process crushed waste and turn it into organic fertilizer.

We install and secure a finished box without a bottom on it. The front part of the structure must be collapsible! For ease of use in the future.

Option without ready-made box

Make a structure by driving in stand-up bars in the corners of the pit, sheathe them with boards and divide them into 2-3 parts, according to the owner’s choice. Ventilation holes are required!

How to compost

Place a layer of dry leaves or hay (straw) on the bottom of the composter, provided with drainage from large branches. Next, we apply all the available garden and garden waste, sprinkling them with earth with manure every 30 cm and moistening with mullein solution. It’s a good idea to add some real compost to the first bin. This will speed up the decay process..

Moisture contributes to composting. For the first year, water the mass in both compartments every time you turn over and add waste.

By the fall, the contents of the first section will gradually “shrink”. It must be replenished with the next batch of crushed waste from the medium and mixed (1 time in 2 months). In the spring, we no longer disturb the overwintered compost, we only replenish it to the top from the middle section. Without trampling!

Next spring the compost will be ready in the lower compartment of the first bin.

There are many more ways to set up a compost pit (heap). But not all of them are successful and comfortable..

Wrong compost bin

A dug hole is an economical option, but rotted compost can only be used when the entire process is completed. Let us remind you – this is 1-2 years.

An ordinary heap in a secluded corner of the garden looks unaesthetic, and you will have to make several of them. Such compost is suitable only for adding it to the soil in the current year. It needs to be constantly mixed and moistened frequently. Bad smells are provided!

What can be put in a composter is a long list. It’s easier to say what you can’t compost:

• synthetic, plastic and rubber fabrics;
• iron objects;
• chemical and household waste;
• meat waste;
• human excrement.

It is not worth covering the structure with a film for the winter. Microbiological activity in the composter heats the contents up to 65 ° C. Therefore, even winter ventilation promotes a uniform decay process..

In conclusion, I would like to add that the finished compost has a pleasant smell of earth and rotten autumn leaves..