Composting your food waste

What is composting?

Composting food scraps, newspaper and garden waste creates a nutrient-rich soil. This soil is perfect for your garden, adding important bacteria and nutrients.

How to compost?

• Take your leaves, prunings, newspaper and cardboard and put them on the bottom of your compost bin
• Layer different types of waste, alternating between waste and soil. This way, it won’t attract flies or smell
• Once a week, turn over your compost mix with a garden fork. This will help speed up the break down process. After you turn it over, cover it with soil. Add some water if the compost material doesn’t feel damp
• Add a thin layer of damp, shredded paper or cardboard once a week. This will also speed up the process

Handy composting tips

• If you chop your food scraps up, you’ll speed up the decomposition process
• Keep the air circulating by turning it over
• Keep it covered
• If your compost smells, it’s probably too wet and you need to add some cardboard or newspaper
• If your compost is attracting animals, you may have some meat, dairy or oils in your compost
• If your compost contains ants it may be too dry – add some water
• If your compost is not breaking down, make sure you have an even balance of wet items and dry items

How to use compost in your garden

When your compost smells like soil and is crumbly, it’s ready to use in your garden. You can dig it into your garden beds, put it under trees, plants and bushes as mulch or use it as potting mix.

Worm farming is a simple way to reduce the amount of waste you place in the bin. By putting your organic waste into a worm farm, you’ll end up with a rich fertiliser which your garden will love.

How to start and maintain your worm farm

1. Pick a spot out of the direct sunlight for your worm farm to live. In the winter months, you can move them to a sunnier spot for warmth
2. There are three levels to the worm farm; the bottom, middle and top. Line the middle layer in newspaper and cardboard. Cut it to fit
3. Soak the bedding block that comes with your worm farm in water for 30 minutes and spread it over the newspaper/cardboard base. If you don’t have a bedding block you can use compost
4. Add your worms and cover them with a few sheets of damp newspaper and a hessian sack or t-shirt. Put the lid back on and you’re done!
5. After your middle layer is full, you can start using the top layer. Place the food scraps in and cover it with the sack or a shirt
6. The worms will start feeding and living up the top
7. Turn over your soil using a garden fork to aerate your worm farm

Where can I buy a worm farm?

You can buy worm farms from your local hardware store. They generally come with bedding made from coconut fibre. Compost worms are usually sold separately.

How do I use the fertiliser from my worm farm?

Worms create two types of fertilizer: solid and liquid. Solid fertiliser, or “worm castings”, will develop in the middle and top layers and be ready for harvest every 4-6 months. Just scrape away the top level and harvest the castings – they look like rich, dark soil.

Liquid fertiliser is worm wee, and will accumulate at the bottom of the worm farm. Just turn the tap at the bottom and empty the liquid into a container. Dilute one part wee with seven parts water for a great fertiliser.

Handy worm farming tips

• Worms will eat approximately their weight in food each day, so a few handfuls every few days should be more than enough
• If you cut the food up into smaller pieces the worms can eat it more easily
• Give your worms a balanced diet; take a few different items from the ‘Acceptable’ list above and mix it up for your worms
• If your worm farm smells, remove any rotten food. You’re probably over-feeding your worms and the food is not getting eaten
• Turn over your soil to aerate it
• When you squeeze the soil, a little bit of water should drip out. If it doesn’t, spray it with a bit of water
• If there are other insects in your farm, don’t worry about it. They also play a role in decomposition
• If you have ants, your worm farm is too dry
• Don’t worry about going away, worms can live for 4 weeks without fresh food. Just put damp newspaper on top and put it in a damp location. Leave your worm juice tap open with a container underneath it

Yes In My Back Yard (YIMBY) is a community-run backyard composting project based in Castlemaine, Victoria.

A team of community composters collect food scraps from 10-20 of their immediate neighbours and turn it into high quality compost, to be used, shared or traded.

YIMBY utilises a hot composting method which once implemented speeds up the composting process, enables you to compost a broader range of food scraps (than other methods of composting) and produces a safe and high quality compost. 

There are a number of ways you can get involved: 

• Become a YIMBY hub for your immediate neighbours collecting their food waste and composting it
• Contribute your food scraps to a YIMBY composter in your immediate area by placing all your food scraps in a dedicated collection bucket ready for collection 
• Support the work of YIMBY in a number of other ways 

Learn more on the YIMBY website which includes full details and includes a wealth of composting resources.