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1) Put compost in the oven at 200ºF for one hour, if you want to use compost for houseplants. This sterilizes it.
2) Give a tea party, for your plants. Soak a cloth bag full of mulch in a bucket of water. When it looks like tea, water your plants with this nutritious liquid.
3) Keep the odds right. For a successful compost, keep the 30:1 ratio of carbon and nitrogen. Carbon is brown waste (dry leaves, twigs, straw, coffee grounds etc) Nitrogen is green waste (food scraps, peels, grass cuttings etc.)
4) Some no-no's. Avoid putting these in your compost pile: BBQ ashes/coal, dishwater, cat/dog feces, kitty litter, meat, fish , dairy or poultry scraps or cooking grease.
5) Layering works. Add a thin layer of garden soil after putting fresh food wastes in, it contains micro organisms and helps getting the compost going.
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6) The sponge test. Your compost pile has the right moisture level if you can squeeze a few drops of water out of a handful of compost. If it is too wet, add more try matter.
7) Keep it even. The compost breaks down more evenly if you chop up large pieces like tree chunks etc. into smaller pieces. This way all of it will be ready at the same time - kind of like cooking.
8) Don't forget to breathe. A healthy compost needs air, turn the pile weekly. If it smells like ammonia, you there is too much nitrogen and you need to add carbon rich materials (the brown stuff like dry leaves.)
9) Patience is a virtue. Different materials decompose at different rates, this is natures own process and it requires time. There are activator mediums you can purchase and add. But in the end, time will take care of things naturally.
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