A Few Don'ts for Your Compost

While you can allow your compost pile to degrade naturally, or increased, the decomposing process by watering and turning a bit, turning your compost pile too often isn't going to allow the heat to build up naturally, allowing the decomposing process to continue. Drying leaves, dried grass clippings, or other dry composting products are not going to degrade. So make sure you don't turn your compost pile too frequently, and make sure you water it just enough so it's moist at all times without saturating it or drowning it.

Make sure that you have plenty of nitrogen in your compost pile. Without nitrogen, again no heat will build up, slowing down the disintegration process, allowing your compost to blow away in the wind. You might try adding grass clippings to increase the nitrogen content, or even possibly a bit of blood meal. Anything that adds nitrogen to the pile is going to help the disintegration or decomposing process.

If you notice that you're constantly smelling an ammonia type odor, there's a chance you have too much nitrogen in your compost. This is when you're going to need to add carbonaceous wastes. The same can be sad if you have a rotten egg odor, there's a good chance your pile is too saturated with water, and it's filled up the air pockets, keeping oxygen from the pile itself.

Many people will add meat scraps to their compost pile, but if you have animals around there's a good chance your compost pile is going to be dug up. If you must add meat scraps or other edible food into your compost pile, dig it down very deep so the smell does not attract the animals in the neighborhood.

Also, believe it or not, don't add the contents of your litter box to your compost pile. Cat waste can harbor a microorganism by the name of toxoplasmosis. This is a disease that actually attacks people's central nervous system, while not too bad for adults, the disease can be very bad for the elderly or infants. The same can be said for sewage sludge to add it to your compost pile, heavy metals included in the sludge can actually enter the food chain through your garden and be extremely dangerous to people

There are plenty of things you can add to your compost pile that won't cause problems, just make sure that if you're not sure what to add, you do your research and make sure compost pile is safe.

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