If you've never heard of composting before, basically the process involves the breakdown of organic material to create natural fertilizer for your garden or yard. Done properly, it can be more effective and much less expensive than buying specialty soils at a gardening store. Plus, it's all natural and will cut down on the amount of waste disposed of in the garbage.
To start out with, you need a place to compost. If you have a small garden or just one or two raised beds then you won't need very much compost and you could probably keep enough in a medium to large wooden box or plastic container. If you're planning to use the fertilizer for a large area of your yard then you'll want quite a bit of compost, probably a section of your yard fenced off for the pile.
Begin by laying down some loose dirt in your container or pile. I would say your best bet is to have at least 1/3 of the space filled with regular every day kind of dirt that you can dig up. If it's very dry and clumped together, you may want to wet it down and mix it up, trying to break up as many of the clumps as possible.
Once you have a nice layer of dirt, place on top any organic material you might find. This includes apple cores, orange peels, coffee grounds, dry leaves, grass clippings, egg shells, and much more. Things that are NOT okay to use are any animal material or by-products, such as meat and dairy.
Once you have a nice layer of organic material, fill the container or pile the rest of the way with mort dirt. Again, it has to be loose dirt that's not too dry and clumpy. It's important to cover all organic material with dirt. Anything poking out of the top could attract unwanted insects and animals, such as roaches or silverfish and stray cats or racoons depending on the climate you live in. If it's all buried well under a nice covering layer of soil you won't have to worry about that.
The final step is to add a generous helping of worms. It's the worms, you see, that will break down all of that material to create rich, wonderful soil for your plants. The more you can find the better. I usually wait until it rains and then head out with a pair of rubber gloves and a pail to scoop them off the sidewalk. If you'd rather not do that, most fishing tackle shops will have a variety of "live bait" available and you should be able to find live worms there. I like to repeat this step when possible, because in a compost heap, where it's not really blocked off entirely, the worms might migrate out the bottom to another section of the yard.
If you made your compost in a container, sometimes it's a good idea to have the container chained down or otherwise secured. This will prevent curious animals, such as stray cats and dogs or raccoons and other wildlife, from trying to knock over the bin. A medium to large wooden box should be sturdy enough, but some plastic containers will tip over and end up spilling your compost all over the place. If you're using some such container, consider keeping it in a storage shed if you have one available.
Feel free to add more organic materials whenever you have them available. Most people I know keep a small pail in the kitchen, kind of like a recycling bin, to store things in until they're brought to the compost bin at the end of the night. When adding organic material you can scoop off a top layer of dirt, toss in your pail of treasures, and then cover everything over again.
Sometimes it’s a good idea when adding more material to stir everything up a bit so that the soil at the bottom doesn’t become too packed down. It’s important to get the air cycling through at least once every couple of days. This is more difficult with larger compost heaps, but can be accomplished by inserting a shovel into the pile and rotating it. Make sure that you have a very sturdy shovel before attempting this, because there are few things more embarrassing than explaining why you’re holding two separate pieces of the same shovel.
Don't forget to give your compost bin lots of time to work. Things don't usually break down in an hour, after all. I would say roughly once a week, depending on how many worms you have and how hard they work, you should be able to make a withdrawal.
When you're ready to take advantage of all your hard work, pull off the top two layers of dirt/organic material and pull from the bottom of the pile. That's where the soil will be richest. If there's anything still in the soil, such as left over egg shells or apple cores, you can pick it out and put it back in the compost heap if you'd like. Otherwise, don't worry too much about it, because it'll finish composting in your flower bed.
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I would like to make a correction as I have recently (as in yesterday) been given new information about composting. Apparently, composting using worms is actually called vermicomposting and it requires specific worm types. I also thought my sidewalk worms did a good job, but apparently they are not nearly as efficient as "Red Wrigglers" which are commonly found in gardening shops and bait/tackle stores. I'm not entirely sure it's necessary to buy the worms, but I haven't tried it with the red wrigglers yet. Maybe they are more efficient and I just didn't know it yet.
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