Home Composting – making your own soil improvers and growing media

You can easily make your own compost to use as a soil improver or mulch in the garden. Making a compost to use as part of a home-made growing medium to use for raising plants in pots requires a bit more skill. For this you will have to be more careful choosing what you compost (avoid any diseased plants and weeds with seeds), compost it for longer and the compost may need sieving before use. It will be too heavy and have too many nutrients to use on its own in a pot so will have to be diluted with coir fibre, fine bark or peat (use compost as a third to a half of the mix). It is often better to use a home-produced growing medium containing compost for older plants (ideal for tubs/patio planters) than for raising seeds/cuttings.

Practical tips for making good home compost:

• Site your bin/heap in a place where it gets at least some sun.
• DO compost a mixture of woody and soft material.
• Vegetable peelings, fruit waste, grass clippings, shrub prunings, annual weeds, tea bags, leaf litter and cardboard are all fine to compost.
• DO NOT add cooked food, meat, dairy products, diseased plants, perennial weeds (eg thistles), plastic, glass.
• The more often you mix/turn the compost the faster it will mature.
• It usually takes 6-12 months, depending on how often you mix it.
• The compost is ready when it is dark brown and soil-like.