“Compost is the recycling of organic materials that is added to soil in order to facilitate healthy plant growth.”

When I lived in Atlanta I shared a 4 bedroom house with three other people. One of them had an extensive green thumb. She grew things like kale, tomatoes, beans, peppers, and melons all in our downhill front yard. Every spring and summer season we had an abundant vegetable garden that bore so much that we would give it away to the neighbors. When I moved to Texas I decided I wanted to flex my green thumb as well. Unfortunately, I moved into an apartment with a square patio on the second floor with no space to house any form of gardening; or so I thought.

I had to start with just one plant. I googled things like “how to start a garden,” “how to pot a plant,” “how to grow a tree” and other basic planting euphemisms. The search grew formidable the deeper down the rabbit hole I went. From specific soil brands to sunlight schedules, the idea of becoming a gardener began to overwhelm me. I thought all a plant needed was a little sunlight, a little water, and a lot of love! I wanted gardening to feel as simple yet prosperous as I knew the universe would have it be. I learned a lot through my research tour on how to grow a seedling, and the main thing that stuck out to me was the usage of compost. 

Compost is the recycling of organic materials that are added to soil in order to facilitate healthy plant growth. It is simply made and used to fertilize the soil by adding plant nutrients and beneficial organisms, such as worms and fungal mycelium, that encourage germination back into the soil. 

There are two things to keep in mind when starting your own compost:

• The first thing is the location. You can start your compost anywhere and in anything but you want to make sure that wherever it has good drainage. You don’t want the compost to be sitting in still water.

• The second thing is the size of your compost pile. You don’t want it to be too large and overrun your garden. If you are using a container use one that is preferably no more than 3 feet high and 5 feet wide. This is just to ensure that the compost intakes enough heat from the sun. Aside from that, there are only 3 things you will need to begin your compost heap: something brown, something green, and water.

Something Brown

Browns are carbon-rich materials. The main job of browns in a compost pile is to be the food source for soil-dwelling organisms that work with the microbes to break down the green contents of your compost pile. These items are items that are naturally brown or turn brown during the decomposition process such as coffee grinds, soil, leaves/ tree bark, sawdust, hay, paper, and/or cardboard. 

Something Green

Greens are materials that are rich in nitrogen or protein. They help the microorganisms in the pile grow and multiply quickly. Green materials are mostly wet or recently growing materials and come from plants that were green at some point, though that doesn’t always have to be the case. Green items include grass, vegetable and fruit scraps, trimmings from other plants, animal manure, and/or eggshells.

When constructing your compost pile you want to layer in three parts brown items, one part green items, and then a thin covering of water before adding the next layer. But realistically, you can layer as you will and adjust the ratios if you notice the pile isn’t heating up, add more green, or if it smells, add more brown. Every so often using a rake, your hands, or another tool to turn the contents of your compost to make for even exposure and you’re done. 

There are a plethora of benefits to using compost in your gardening projects. Compost can hold between 5 to 20 times its own weight in water. Therefore, adding compost increases the amount of water that is able to penetrate into the soil and your plants will absorb more water, resulting in fewer times that you’ll need to be watering the plant overall. Composts protect against plant disease and treat nutrient deficiencies within the plant by adding back certain microorganisms that the plant would typically get from being out in and amongst nature. Compost also loosens the soil allowing space for roots to spread and prevents erosion and soil splattering. Overall there are no downfalls to using compost in your gardening projects and because it is used from recycled materials, all you need is a space to house the concoction. Happy gardening!