What is Composting and How to Home Compost?

Put off by Composting? Don't Be! Let me show you how easy it is!

What is composting?

Composting is the act of turning waste from your kitchen and garden into food for your urban garden. It is the keystone to organic farming.

Composting is the biological decomposition of organic waste such as food scraps and plant materials by microorganisms. Microorganisms like worms, bacteria, and fungi break down these organic matters into compost which is loaded with nutrients for your soil. Compost makes great fertilizers and soil conditioners (helps the quality of the soil to attain its peak condition).

Materials needed for Composting?

Home composting starts with gathering the right ingredients. There are two main types of compostable ingredients - Green materials and Brown materials.

Green materials are high in Nitrogen and are wet in nature like fruit & vegetable scraps, tea leaves and coffee grounds which you can recycle from your kitchen. But BEWARE: Some big supermarket tea brands use plastics in their teabags (Yup! Really Bad!) which do not decompose meaning that when your compost is ready, you will find plastic pieces in your compost. We need to stop using these brands till they make a change but if you are stuck with some of these brands for now, just take the tea leaves out of the teabags to place just the leaves in the compost and bin the separated, used tea bags into a recyclable plastic bin.

I placed a small, easy-to-wipe down, ceramic garbage can on our kitchen countertop to collect these scraps. You can also find green matter from your urban gardens like plants' prunings and harvest remains from microgreen & sprouts.

Brown materials are high in Carbon and are dry items like dry leaves, paper, and cardboard items.

We have two recycle bins placed outside in our small urban garden to separate the brown and green matter found in the garden.

Composting is the best way to recycle, decreasing the garbage we add to our landfills.

Tools needed for Composting?

I bought a Hot Pink colored composter from Amazon and lugged it back to Hong Kong. However, you can use any container like a bucket or a garbage can but you would need to drill holes at the bottom so there will be airflow. Place a shallow basin or plate underneath to collect the drained water.

Where to Place the Composter

The microorganisms are heat-loving and so it is best to place your composter in a sunny area.

Composting Procedure

Per the instruction of the composter, place 75% of the Green matter and 25% of the Brown matter (by weight) into the drum of the composter and rotate the drum 3 full revolutions around every 3 days to mix up Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Water. Turning the drum more often than the recommended instruction can disturb the microorganisms and slow down the composting process.

The drum helps to preserve the heat inside the compost pile. The turning of the drum generates more heat which increases the growth of the heat-loving microorganisms and they, in turn, will generate even more heat. The hotter the compost pile is, the faster the composting process will occur. The final compost is usually ready in about 4-8 weeks.

You might have to add more brown matter or green mater over time depending on how your compost looks. The weather in Hong Kong is humid so I find myself occasionally having to add more brown matter like shredded paper from my Mom's paper shredder to offset the over-wetness of the green matter.

Tips to increase the speed of composting - cut the compostable material to an efficient size of 1-inch cube to create more area for the microorganisms to grow and for oxygen to aerate the compost pile.

Final Compost

The final compost is crumbly in texture and smells nice like good soil. The compost should not smell bad. If it does, add more Brown matter to your compost pile.

What Green Matter to Avoid?

Meats, dairy, and any cooked items make your compost smell and attract pests. We do not want that.

Extra Compost?

Even if you do not have an urban farm, you can practice composting a.k.a. recycling and donate the compost to the plants in your residential complex and public parks.

Composting should become a way of life as it is good for the environment. It reduces household garbage which otherwise ends up in the landfills and puts back nutrients into our soil. Let us all start to do our part, so collectively we can put a dent in our environmental crisis.

My Hot Pink Composter