Composting How to Tip No. 1 - It is easy to keep a yard neat even with a compost heap. If you feel your homemade heap or container looks untidy, buy a commercially produced bin or tumbler. They are generally attractive space-savers that in fact also speed up the decomposition process. Eventually the storage of your heap will become of special importance as you need to make space for the large food crop your soil is sure to produce!

Your container choices:
* Popular colors – green and black
* Size – directly proportional to household size (e.g., 250 liters for a family of 4 or 5)
* Bins – fixed on (and exposed to) the ground for a slowly decomposing pile
* Tumblers – rotating for faster decomposition through better aeration
* Barrels – rotating wooden tumbler for even better aeration and quicker decomposition

Composting How to Tip No 2. - The decay process can be speeded up,not only by the use of specially aerated tumblers, but also by the selection of the correct mix of materials (browns and greens) or by a few simple methods such as crushing eggshells and chopping wood before they are tossed in, or avoiding the use of hard-to-decompose material (eg., charcoal, which may also be harmful). A simple guide is as follows...

Use 75% or less browns and 25% or more greens:
* Browns – decomposes slowly, therefore crush, chop up, wet down (e.g., wood, straw, sawdust from conifers; but deciduous sawdust decays fast)
* Greens – decomposes rapidly (e.g., fresh plant waste, vegetable scraps, fruit rinds)

Shredding speeds up decay because it increases the surface over which decomposition can take place; while turning speeds up decay because it gives microbes that work on decomposing a pile more oxygen.

Composting How To Tip No. 3 – Eliminating smell is only an issue for improperly kept compost piles. If your pile has the right balance between browns and greens, is properly aerated, kept moist enough, AND uses only correct ingredients, smell will never be an issue.

Remember, rapid decomposition is your goal. Therefore, do not use hard to break down (not to mention unsafe) ingredients, such as meat scraps, bones, processed food, dairy products, and fat.

Also, turn your pile regularly. That is the advantage of using a tumbler that you can just turn every time you put in something; as opposed to a pile where you'll have to grab a shovel and toss your compost pile manually.

In addition, a composting how to guide would not be compete without a few short words about keeping pests away from your heap. For one thing any smell could attract flies. If you have that under control, you can simply close the container immediately after adding anything to it. Should flies get in there, they may breed. When using a ground heap, remember to cover food scraps with several inches of wood chips or shredded newspaper, or cover the hole with a tarp.