You simply need to know two types of ingredients for composting, carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich ingredients. Never use meat, fish, or dairy products as your ingredients because they attract flies and animals.
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| To succeed in compost, carbon to nitrogen ratio is more important than you can imagine. |
First, identify your ingredients and sort them into two categories:
1. Carbon-Rich Ingredients(Browns):
Corn Stalks, Corrugated cardboard, Dry leaves, Mixed paper products, Newspaper, Pine needles, Sawdusts, Straw, Woody plant trimmings.
2. Nitrogen-Rich ingredients(Greens):
Chicken Manure, Coffee grounds, Garden plants and weeds, Hay, Kitchen scraps (No dairy, meat, fish...),Rotted manure.
For decomposer bacteria, carbon supplies energy while nitrogen builds their cells. When there are too many carbon-rich ingredients, bacteria have enough energy supply but their reproduction is low since bacteria can’t develop their cells without nitrogen. Therefore, their population is limited and the decomposition rate slows down.
However, if you have too many nitrogen-rich ingredients, the pile will have an unpleasant odor because the bacteria don’t have enough energy supply to work through the nitrogen, excess nitrogen is lost to the atmosphere as smelly ammonia gas. Composting still goes slow.
The theoretical ratio for the carbonaceous and nitrogenous materials should be close to 30:1 by weight, which means for each 30kg carbonaceous material, you need to mix with 1 kg nitrogenous materials. However, don’t get bogged down with the precise amount of carbon and nitrogen ingredients.
A practical ratio when you mix the two ingredients is:
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