Composting 101: Gardener Explains How To Start Composting At Home

From waste reduction to water retention, Master Gardener and TikTok creator Jessica McCollum breaks down the benefits of composting and why “it’s one of the best things you can add to your garden.”

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You know we have a nickname for it in gardening world we call it Black Gold because it’s one of the best things that you can add to your garden hi my name is Jessica I’ve been a home Gardener for 15 years and a Master Gardener with my

County for 3 years I am also an educator on social media and I specialize in teaching beginner gardeners here’s a basic breakdown of composting it’s basically broken down organic matter if you go into say the forest or the wood this happens naturally if you see a bunch of fallen

Leaves on the ground and you kind of dig down you’ll see those leaves start to break down break down until they turn into something that almost looks like soil with composting we have three different categories of materials we have our Browns these are our materials that are high in carbon some examples of

Browns would be cardboard shredded paper straw we have greens which are material that is high in nitrogen these are going to be grass clipping plant scraps from the garden and fruit and vegetable scraps but you want to gather a good mix of those Browns greens and balance you

Roughly want to have a 2:1 ratio of Browns to Greens my compost piles are just made from wood and hardware cloth you just basically want to have good air flow any kind of soil compost can improve the structure of it it can provide nutrients to your plants it can

Improve the drainage of the soil it help the soil retain moisture it also provides a type of mulch to the soil composting reduces waste that’s another really important thing or adding things like food scraps or tree and shrub trimmings or shredded newspaper all kinds of things that would normally go

Into the trash and this is a way to break it down and turn it into something useful there’s so many benefits to composting mainly for me it’s one of the best things you can add to your garden and a lot of times it’s very little cost it’s things that you’re already using

Yeah just just do it