How to Make a Compost Pile & 5 Tips to Make Compost FASTER / How to Compost # 1

hi everyone welcome to the side of my house where I do all of my composting this is where the black gold magic happens now a lot of you might be wondering what's the big deal about compost doesn't it take a long time to break down don't you have to have exactly the right ratio of greens and browns to make it happen isn't it a lot of work don't you need to be smart to do it and what's the big deal about feeding your garden with compost first of all what is compost compost is made up of leaves grass clippings kitchen scraps coffee grounds things that you've collected from around your garden that you then put into a compost pile it breaks down decomposes and make some great organic matter for your soil now I like to add compost to my garden each time I plant its nutrient-dense nice and fluffy heads good aeration and drainage to the soil there's many different ways to compost you can just pile up the materials in your garden and just let them rot over time or you can build a place to put your compost such as this DIY compost bin or you can purchase a ready-made bin that keeps your compost contained and keeps the critters out so here's what you need to do first you need to start collecting some materials my friend Harry has been collecting leaves for me so here I've got a whole bunch of leaves collected for my compost pile and I've also been collecting some food scraps from my kitchen I've got all kinds of food scraps in here including eggshells you just don't want to have any meat or dairy in your compost pile and I've also been collecting some coffee grounds now a great way to get free coffee grounds is to go around to your local coffee shops and ask them for the coffee grounds that they've already used a lot of times they just throw it away and they love to give it away for gardeners so it's reused for composting and here's some more things I've been collecting from my garden as I trim off trees pull out my old bean plants I've been keeping them putting them in these buckets and I just don't use any plants that are diseased or have a lot of bugs now that I have all of my materials collected the first tip for building a compost pile that breaks down faster is to build a large pile a large pile will get hotter hotter breaks down quicker which gives you free black gold for your garden now if you have a hard time collecting a whole bunch of materials at once you can definitely build a small but often small piles don't heat up they stay cold and can take about six months even up to about two years to break down into compost and since we want compost fast we're gonna make it big now the optimal size for a hot compost pile is three feet wide by three feet tall now we're partnering up with Smart Pots for this video and today we're gonna be making our compost in the Smart Pots Compost Sak now I've composted in the Compost Sak for years and I absolutely love it because it keeps the compost nice and neat and contained on the side of my house it's the perfect size for a hot compost pile it's about three feet tall about two and a half feet wide and one thing I really like about it is it comes with a cover which is great because it keeps the heat in and it keeps the critters out and I know that's a problem for a lot of people so the cover it works really well for that now the second tip to make compost that breaks down faster in your garden is to use the right materials your new use materials called browns and greens which doesn't refer to the color of the material but more the type of material that they are Browns are carbon rich materials and consists of dried leaves dried grasses twigs from your garden corn stalks you can even use sawdust from untreated lumber or straw they add bulk and they help circulate in your compost pile greens on the other hand are nitrogen-rich materials such as food scraps from your kitchen clippings from your garden coffee grounds including coffee filters and tea bags these add essential nutrients and help your compost pile heat up now when it comes time to putting the materials into your compost pile a good ratio is one part green to three to four parts brown now don't get too caught up in this it doesn't have to be exact now tip 3 to make compost that breaks down faster is the smaller the materials the better now my friend Harry collected all these leaves for me and shredded a lot of them up with his leaf shredder you can also run over them with the lawn mower in your yard to get them nice and small because smaller will break down faster you can run your food scraps through the blender if you really want them to break down fast or you can just chop them off with a shovel as you add them to your compost which we'll be doing today so now that we have all of our materials collected for our compost pile we're just gonna layer them in the compost sack keep it really simple I've just folded down the sides of the compost sack to make it easier to add everything to it now if you don't have this many material stock piled all at once just add them to the sack as you go and then once your sack gets full you can stop adding materials so that so everything heats up and then your compost will break down faster so first off we're gonna add some dried leaves first I'm just gonna add a layer of dried shredded leaves now that I have my compost sack about a third of the way full with the dried shredded leaves it's time to talk about the fourth tip for helping compost break down faster and that is keep it moist when you keep your compost pile moist you feed the microbes which are tiny organisms that help break down the organic matter and make it into light fluffy soil so I'm just gonna water down my shredded leaves so we're gonna mix it in so the water soaks into the leaves your compost pile should be about as moist as a wrung out sponge so now that we have a layer of Browns or a shredded leaves in our compost sack it's time to add a layer of greens and here I'm gonna add some leaves and some garden scraps I just cut out of the garden I'm gonna pour those in then we're gonna chop them up so that they're smaller and break down faster so for that I'm going to use my pointed shovel and just start chopping now I'm going to add in a layer of coffee grounds which is also a good green material now add a little bit more water I'm gonna mix it in just so all the water gets mixed in with the materials now while I'm mixing the compost materials together it's a good time to talk about the fifth tip for helping your compost breakdown faster and that is you've got to give it air remember those microbes I told you about those tiny organisms that help your compost to break down faster they also need air to do their important work of making nice fluffy compost that will feed your garden and we're also going to be turning it and giving an air over the next few weeks as the compost is breaking down so now I'm just going to continue layering my grounds and my greens adding water and mixing it in until my Compost Sak is full now one thing I really like about the compost sack is the fabric not only is it super durable but it's aerated so the water drains right through to help your compost from getting waterlogged it also gives really good air flow to your compost which helps it break down faster gonna add in some more coffee grounds I love the smell of black coffee grounds as my Compost Sak is filling up with my materials I'm just gonna unfold the sides continue to fill it up to the very top and then just continue filling it up to the very top to chop these up a little bit add some more water mix it in now keep in mind that as you're adding materials and chopping it up your compost pile will get smaller so when I first added this bunch of leaves it was up to here and I chopped it down the materials are smaller now it's way down to here and your compost pile will also get smaller as it decomposes let's add some more leaves wet them down mix it in so I'm just repeating the steps of layering adding water mixing it in until we get to the top of the bag we're almost there so our Compost Sak is full we've done our five tips to help our compost breakdown faster we built a nice big pile so it gets hot breaks down quicker we have a good mix of greens and browns chop them up nice and small moisten everything up and when we turned it we added some air next what I'm gonna do is cover the compost sack with this handy cover that comes with it this is going to help keep the heat in and keep the critters out now what I'm going to do in about three to five days is come out and check my pile either with a compost thermometer or with a piece of rebar to see if it's getting hot and then at that point I'll be turning my pile to add more air to help keep the microbes happy then the compost will break down quicker so make sure you subscribe because we'll definitely be coming back to give you that update I want to thank Smart Pots for partnering with us on this video head over to smartpots.com to check out the Compost Sak and use the code calikim for a 10% discount well comment below if you're making compost to feed your garden I can't wait to make some beautiful black gold along with you thanks for watching we'll see on the next video

Channel: CaliKim29 Garden & Home DIY

Views: 461,802

Keywords: how to make compost faster, how to make compost pile, 5 tips to make compost faster, how to make hot compost, smart pots compost sak, compost sak, materials for compost pile, making a compost pile, ratio of browns and greens for compost, browns and greens for compost, composting with leaves, how to compost with leaves, how to use coffee grounds in compost, how to compost in Compost Sak, how to compost in Smart Pots compost sak, how to compost in fabric compost sak

Id: x0xrnOR_mY4

Length: 10min 4sec (604 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 12 2020