Lazy compost

Here's how I whip up some compost - it's the simplest recipe.

Find a spot in the garden to build your compost pile. It needs to get some rain and some sun.
 
Lay some cardboard on the area. It doesn’t need to cover the whole area. Earthworms like cardboard, and we want earthworms.
 
Then, add any of these things over the next few months:

• Kitchen scraps: fruit and vege, cooking water, egg shells, serviettes, coffee grounds, tea bags. Pretty much anything you’d eat, except meat.
• Weeds – not pest plants, see Weedbusters
• Twigs (help aerate the pile)
• Leaves
• Earth clods to introduce some microorganisms
• Wood ash. You can chuck meat bones on the fire
• Cardboard, paper 
• Vacuum cleaner dust, pet fur.

 
Every month or so, visit the beach (not a marine reserve) and fill a wool bag or two with any types of seaweed. Chuck it on the heap.

Continue building the pile.

Nasturtium seeds thrown on the pile have grown. They too will be compost when they get in the way of my garden plan

​​After a few months, or when it gets high (as in tall - not stinky), turn it over. I move the pile to a space next to it (remember it’s lazy compost), using the biggest garden fork. 
 
As you do this, you will see all the critters hard at work turning your waste into beautiful soil: black beetles, centipedes, hoppers, slaters, many red worms, and more.

Only a few of the hundreds of worms in the compost

Where the heap was, you now have a weed-free patch ready to plant. And, you can use the healthy soil from the bottom of the compost pile. Win-win!

​That’s lazy compost. Easy peasy! When you've used it you can plant where it was.

Waste has decomposed nicely. And a bonus avocado plant.