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Recycle with Compost Pile The compost pile is the home gardener's recycling factory. Instead of throwing away valuable organic materials, recycle them for use in your garden. Compost is a good fertilizer and soil conditioner when worked into garden soil and is an excellent mulch. Enlarge photo A closed composting bin is a good way to recycle fruit and vegetable scraps because it keeps out pests. You can compost many types of organic materials. Sod, grass clippings (avoid clippings from lawns recently treated with weed killers), healthy leaves, hay, straw, young weeds (avoid seed-laden weed material), manure, chopped corn stalks, shredded newspaper, and many kinds of vegetable and fruit refuse from the kitchen are good materials for composting. Shredding or otherwise converting the material into small particles speeds up the composting process. Oak, walnut, and laurel leaves are slow to decay and do not make good composting materials. Do not put diseased plant materials; meat or dairy products; or dog, cat, or pig manure in a compost pile. Two piles or bins are better than one for making compost. Make them 4 to 6 feet high, 3 to 5 feet wide, and any convenient length. Add a variety of organic materials to the pile and mix them together. Add a cup of fertilizer high in nitrogen, such as ammonium sulfate, for each cubic foot of compost material. If compost contains animal manure, add less fertilizer. Moisten the organic material thoroughly and continue adding material until the bin is full or the pile is the size you want. Pack the material tightly around the edges, but only lightly in the center. The center of the pile will settle more than the edges. Although the compost pile needs watering periodically during the summer, steady rains will leach nutrients out of the compost during the winter. Prevent this loss by covering the pile with plastic sheeting during the winter. Autumn leaves may not compost completely during the winter. Turn them over every month or so to promote decomposition. To turn, fork the material from one bin to another, putting the drier outside materials in the center of the pile. When all of the ingredients have decomposed to a uniform, loamy-appearing material, the compost is ready to use.

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