Faster Compost, Better Results! Want to learn how to get better Compost, faster and easier? Compost piles can often slow down, become inefficient, and not perform like we want them to. Has your pile stopped producing that Black Gold we covet so much? Are you running out of room because your organic waste isn’t decomposing fast enough? In this article, I will give you my top 5 strategies to speed up your compost pile so that you can achieve faster results, with a better Compost end product for both overall soil health and your garden’s sustainability.
Each strategy is easier than the next and in 5 minutes you can be on your way to a fast, efficient, amazing Compost pile!
Why to speed up your compost
There are a few reasons why you’d want to speed up your compost pile:
- Maybe you actually need the compost
- Maybe you’re running out of room and you need the space
Either way, let’s dive right in to help you speed up the process and get your compost pile working faster for you.
5 Strategies to speed up your compost
1. Aerate
The first strategy that I’d recommend to speed up the decomposition of your compost is to aerate.
Composting is an aerobic process that consumes oxygen as it decomposes your organic wastes. Simply turn your pile frequently to get that air throughout the compost profile.
The microorganisms doing all that hard work will appreciate the breath of fresh air and in turn work even harder for you.
2. Moisture Control
The second strategy to speed up your compost is the right moisture level. You can often speed up your compost by drying it out just a little bit especially if it’s already too wet.
The reason for this is is that excess water tends to fill in the air gaps inside the compost and when you take away those free air gaps your compost is gonna slow right down.
Remember if aeration is one of the ways that you can speed up your compost taking that air away is definitely one of the ways that you can slow it down.
It’s a pretty easy fix even if your compost has gotten a little bit too wet on you.
To dry out an over-saturated compost you simply need to add some more shredded cardboard, some more shredded paper to tame the dampness.
3. Add smaller materials to speed up your compost
The third boosting strategy for your compost is to add smaller materials.
It’s simple, the smaller that your organic inputs are the more surface area there is, and the more surface area there is for those microorganisms and microbes to start working for you the faster it’s going to go.
Get your organic waste into as smaller pieces as possible either by hand or by machine and your compost will work amazingly.
4. Add existing completed compost
Our fourth method to speed up composting is to simply add existing completed compost. As we mentioned the heavy lifting of the decomposition process is done by microbes and bacteria.
One teaspoon of finished compost can contain upwards of a hundred million of these organisms, hungry and looking for more compost.
Adding just a little bit of your finished compost to the new stuff can really jumpstart the process and get that new compost pile humming.
5. Nitrogen Booster
The final strategy that I employ to really get my compost pile moving is to add a nitrogen booster.
By nitrogen booster, I mean what we consider a green input. Things such as grass clippings, fresh garden or kitchen waste, and even shredded weeds.
Nitrogen allows the microorganisms within your compost to reproduce. Short bursts of high nitrogen content will allow your compost pile to explode with high population levels of these very microbes. Thus greatly increasing the speed of the entire process.
It’s literally an energy boost for your compost.
Conclusion
Composting is a magnificent fantastic process that at its heart is the ultimate recycling program. Not only does it allow us to dispose of organic waste for free easily, the byproduct of its process is literally one of the most important components of our garden.
Its entire efficiency is dictated by the microorganisms that are breaking it down, how many they are, and how happy they are.
The five methods that we discussed here today not only increase your population of microbes, fast and easy, they also keep them happy and productive.
Hey if you’ve got any other composting tips that you’d love to share with the community make sure to leave them in the comments down below.
Hey, thanks for reading guys. I appreciate the support more than you know and if you’re getting value from this article please share it to spread the word and help your fellow gardener to grow better. Happy Gardening!
