Home composting: turn garden and food scraps into soil improver
Home composting can handle many uncooked plant scraps and garden materials. The result is a soil improver rather than a potting compost.
Getting started
Use a lidded compost bin, a ventilated bay or a covered heap on soil where possible. Choose a practical location with access for adding material and removing finished compost.
Balance greens and browns
Mix moist nitrogen-rich “greens” such as fruit and vegetable peelings, coffee grounds and grass cuttings with dry carbon-rich “browns” such as torn cardboard, egg boxes, dead leaves and small woody material.
- Wet, compacted or smelly: add dry browns and mix in air.
- Dry and inactive: add moist greens and a little water.
- Very slow: cut material smaller and turn the heap occasionally.
Usually suitable
Fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds and paper filters, loose tea leaves, crushed eggshells, grass, leaves, flowers, small prunings, plain uncoated cardboard and herbivore bedding.
Usually keep out of an open cool heap
Meat, fish, dairy, oils, pet faeces, nappies, treated wood, glossy laminated card and compostable plastics without a home-compostable certification. A sealed hot-composting or bokashi system has different rules.
When it is ready
Finished compost is dark, crumbly and earthy-smelling, with few recognisable ingredients. Return unfinished pieces to the heap and use the mature material as a mulch or soil improver.
✓ Last checked: 17 Jul 2026. Spot an error or an out-of-date rule?