Making your Own Organic Compost at Home

The idea of home kitchen gardening is to have fresh vegetable readily available and to avoid buying vegetable that has been exposed to uncontrolled use of pesticides and of course to budget our kitchen expenses. If we are buying fertilizer for our garden this is adding to the cost and also this does not help the soil as we will have to continue using  fertilizer to get good results. Therefore it is a good  practice to return the nutrients to the soil by way of  adding organic matter into it.

In this entry I would like to share my experience of making organic compost at home.

What is compost

Compost is a mixture of decayed organic matter that can be mixed with soil to make soil rich. It is safe, with no associated cost and the benefits are great. Your vegetable plants will look healthy and full.

How to make compost

Compost pit ready to be filled

Locate a place away from the house preferably somewhere in the back yard  to make a slightly deep pit. This can be about 1 to 2 feet deep depending on ones estimate and amount of fill available.  Normally, I make a rectangular pit 2 by 3 feet and about 2 feet deep. I find this to be of a reasonable size pit since it fills up in about  6 weeks  and  is ready for use in about another 6 weeks. If we have small children at home it is advisable for safety reasons to erect a barrier around the compost. As we keep filling the pit, make sure to  turn the rotting matter once in a while to make the decay process faster. After turning the rotting matter we can put a thin layer of soil on top if the pit gives out smell. Once the pit is full cover it with a thin layer of soil and leave it for some time. We can time and again dig and turn the rotting matter. Dig another similar pit and start filling it before emptying the previous pit.

What to put in the compost

Filling the compost pit

There are a lot of vegetable peelings and waste coming from our kitchen which we can safety use in our garden. I always keep a plastic container  which I keep filling with kitchen waste. Anything that can decay.  I then  empty this container in the pit. I also fill the pit with dried leaves and grass after raking the compound. In fact over the years after seeing the benefits of using compost in my garden I try to fill the pit quickly.

We can also put in soft branches into the pit after pruning trees in our compound but make sure that we chop then into as small pieces as we can otherwise they may take a longer time to decay. If the pit is too dry put some water in it once in a while. This will speed up decay.

How to use compost

Compost ready for use

Once the matter has totally decayed and formed rich manure, dig it out and mix it with soil to prepare a new garden bed. Normally the compost would contain a lot of small insects so it is not advisable to put it directly in the existing garden or on the plants on the same day. We can spread the dug out compost somewhere and then later on use it in the existing garden. 




Keeping compost at home is a good habit. Cultivate this habit into family members . In fact, always emphasize on reuse, and recycling. Let us start keeping a container in our kitchen now for kitchen waste and prepare a compose pit.


written by:
Abu Aidan