Compost bins at the Esperance community garden. Photo: Nikki Bailey.
Composting creates a natural fertiliser that improves soil, while keeping waste out of landfill.
Experienced gardeners say with the right knowledge it is easy to set up at home.
“Gather and Grow” event organiser Silke Apel helps maintain the worm farms and compost bases at the Esperance community garden.
She gave some tips for backyard composting.
“If you make one cubic metre of compost with the right ratios of materials like carbon to nitrogen it can break down really quickly,” Ms Apel said.
“If you turn it every few days, after about four weeks you will have a finished compost pile.
“You need carbon rich materials like brown leaves, straw and then your nitrogen rich materials which can be fresh grass clippings or food scraps.
“You just need to mix and layer them and keep it a little bit wet and that creates the best environment for the microbes to break down quickly.
“You help it by aerating it every few days – so moving it – and after four weeks you will have finished compost to put on your garden.”
Research into Australian composting activities by Compost Connect found one third of Australians used backyard composting and more than half of Australians were interested in composting in the future.
Ms Apel said the easiest way to compost was by creating a worm farm because they did not require much maintenance.
“With the worm farms any food scraps can go in there,” she said.
“It’s best if they are already in smaller pieces because the worms have smaller mouths, so if there’s big chunks in there it takes quite a while for the worms to break it down.
“As a finished product you get worm casting that you can put straight on your garden.”
Locals who do not have space for composting are welcome to put their organics in the correct composting bins at the Esperance community garden.
