Composting

Your New Year’s Resolution—turn over a new leaf, or lots of them. Start composting.  Recycle your fruit and vegetable waste, and yard and garden trimmings into a rich soil amendment for your garden, all in your own backyard.  Composting is simply the natural process of organic matter decomposing. The end product is a soil, a humus-like material—a multivitamin for your garden soil.

Compost:

• improves soil structure by adding organic content, thereby increasing the water-holding capacity of your soil and reducing your need to water
• helps keep heavy clay soil from compacting, making it easier to work; root systems develop better
• gives sandy soil better structure
• promotes soil fertility
• stimulates healthy root development
• aids erosion control

Below is a collection of resources just for the home gardener. 

Also visit the Horticulture Center link in the gold bar above for details on the composting demonstration at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center.

Resources

Note: PDF files open in a new window/tab.

• Sacramento County Master Gardeners' information about composting for the home gardener (PDF 143KB). (EHN 98)
  
  
• Master Gardener Composters' timely tips for garden composting and worm composting.
  
  
• California Master Gardener tip sheet (PDF) - Composting is Good for Your Garden and the Environment.
  
  
• Compost in a Hurry (PDF) explains the essential steps for creating finished compost in as little as 2 to 3 weeks. (ANR 8037)
  
  
• Fair Oaks Horticulture Center gardening events schedule.
  
  
• Composting workshops sponsored by the Sacramento County Master Gardeners.
  
  
• Cornell Composting provides composting educational materials, including fact sheets, developed by Cornell University.
  
  
• Composting in the Home Garden from the University of Illinois Extension.

Composting with worms

• Learn the basic steps for creating a worm bin (PDF 99KB) from Sacramento County Master Gardeners. (GN 144)

ANR = free publication from the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources Catalog
PN = free publication from UC Integrated Pest Management
EHN = Environmental Horticulture Notes from the UCCE Master Gardeners of Sacramento County
GN = Garden Notes from the UCCE Master Gardeners of Sacramento County

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