Brown gold! If you garden, you must use it. Shredded leaves, grass clippings, kitchen waste (not meat or fats). Banana skins buried in the ground next to plants will rot soon and give off their potassium. I am fortunate that I can get horse manure to add to my compost pile. Even if I just put leaves in a pile, eventually it will be compost. I just pile it all up (green and brown and kitchen waste) then add nitrogen (or any dry fertilizer); then wet it down. I try to turn it to aerate it. The same result can be had by driving a bar into the pile to make holes to admit the air. By adding oxygen, it helps to speed up the composting process. I cover with a tarp. In about a week you can see the steam coming from the pile. Covering is not necessary; but it helps. As I say, it will become compost sooner or later anyway. I keep adding it to the garden every time I plant something – as top dressing and also mixing it into the soil… I never screen it. Even when I spread it on my lawn, I just rake off the parts that haven’t rotted yet and return them to the compost heap. There is no doubt that it does make a huge difference. So, don’t throw anything away that is biodegradable; just add it to the pile and Mother Nature will do the rest. Compost, done properly, will not have an odor nor will it attract flies.
Garden gold – try it!
