The Importance of C/N Ratio In Composting: It Is More Important Than You Might Think

gardeningabc (53)in #gardening • 8 years ago

Composting ingredients: What is carbon-nitrogen ratio?

Dried leaves have a lot of carbon in them and so they are considered a “brown” in the composting world. The microbes that are present in compost use carbon as their energy to thrive. An ingredient such as coffee grounds is considered a “green” (though it is not green in color); because they have a lot of nitrogen in them. The microbes in compost use nitrogen as their protein to thrive.

Any organic matter will compost down….eventually. But if you don’t want to wait indefinitely and want to quicken the process, you will need to build a compost pile that has browns(C) and greens(N) mixed throughout.

This is what you can do, open a bag of leaves and put about 4 shovelfuls of leaves in the area you are going to use for your compost pile and then sprinkle a shovelful of coffee grounds on top and sprinkle with water. Keep layering until you run out of either leaves or coffee grounds, making sure you dampen each layer. Every few days turn your compost pile and make sure it smells fine and looks fine and isn’t too dry. If you want to speed up the process, even more, run the leaves through a mulcher and then use a 1 to 1 ratio.

Brown ingredients of composting:

Browns are things like dried leaves, shredded paper, and cardboard, wood chips, hay, mulch and wood ash etc.

Green ingredients of composting:

Greens are things like fruits, vegetables, coffee grounds, and filters, tea bags, manure (cow, horse, goat, chicken, sheep and, rabbit) and grass clippings.

What not to compost:

Don’t compost things like pet waste, fats and oils, meats and bones, coal and charcoal, dairy or anything with pesticides or diseased plants.

Here is something you need to remember:

Your compost should have an earthy smell to it.

If it smells bad, you need more nitrogen.
If it’s slimey, you need more carbon.
If it’s really dry, you need to dampen it.
Really, it’s really not complicated.