Composting is an essential skill to learn for any serious gardener. Known affectionately as black gold, compost is a rich, nutritious soil improver and costs little to make besides time. As well as ...

Turning compost piles provides more air to beneficial microbes, helping to speed up the composting process and creating enough heat to kill weed seeds, pests, and pathogens. Aim to turn a hot compost ...

My office is just down the road from the Washington State University composting facility. It processes more than 10,000 pounds of organic waste every month. That’s a lot of compost! I talked about ...

It takes time to make compost. Organic matter requires about two to three months to break down in hot compost piles, and up to a year or more in cold composting systems. But if you add a compost ...

Starre Vartan is an environmental and science journalist. She holds an MFA degree from Columbia University and Geology and English degrees from Syracuse University. Hot composting is the process ...