Compost That Works

Make your own “black gold” and capture the nutrition from garden waste

Learn how to make your own high quality, reliable compost—every time! Turn garden waste, food scraps, animal waste and even newspaper and cardboard into nutritious compost full of organic matter, nutrients and healthy soil microbes. Close the “nutrition loop” in your backyard and save on fertilisers at the same time!

Really great, well-made compost is one of the cornerstones of organic food production. The trouble is, it’s almost impossible to buy, as commercial compost and soil are often relatively sterile or low in nutrition.

Fallen fruit, fruit tree prunings, and other garden waste can—and should—be returned to the soil to save the valuable nutrients they contain. It’s called nutrient cycling, and is a key organic growing principle.

Recycling your garden offcuts, food scraps and other organic “waste” is as important as recycling your rubbish, but without a good system to manage it, all too often it ends up in landfill where it produces destructive greenhouse gases.

Lots of people have tried making their own compost, with little success—it ends up smelly, too dry, slimy, or it just attracts rodents and other pests.

In this module you’ll learn about eight different compost systems and their pros and cons, and how to choose the right one for you.

There’s plenty of details about making awesome hot compost, how to get the ratio of ingredients right, and even some handy examples to help you work it out. Includes which materials to use, troubleshooting and how to tell when your compost is finished.

You’ll understand how to turn a problem into safe and free fertiliser for your garden.

What’s included in this unit:

Module 1: Make compost

• Unit 1: Choose the right compost system (article)
• Unit 2: Compost and why we use it (video)
• Unit 3: Build a hot compost pile (activity)

Module 2: Improve the health of your garden

• Unit 1a: Maximise soil fertility (article)
• Unit 1b: Maximise soil fertility (audio)
• Unit 2: Keep the nutrients in your garden (activity)