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1. What goes in a compost bin or pile?

A combination of materials containing nitrogen (vegetable scraps) and carbon (sawdust and leaves) or green and brown materials. For premium compost, for those of you who are more particular about your soil amendments, keep your carbon to nitrogen ingredients ratio 30:1. In other words, you need 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen. For the rest of you, combine equal parts of browns and greens.

2. What factors affect the composting process?

Keep your browns and greens balanced. Too many greens can make a pile soggy while excessive browns take a long time to decompose. Materials should be moist, but not very wet.

Also, be sure turn your piles with a stick, pitch fork or aerator so air can flow through occasionally. If you want quick compost, chop your ingredients up into smaller pieces.

3. What items should be included?

For your greens: Fruit and vegetable trimmings, coffee grounds, egg shells, garden trimmings, plant leaves, flower petals, barnyard manure (from non-meat eating animals), weed leaves or stems, house plants and potting mix.

For your browns: Autumn leaves, twigs, stalks, sawdust or shavings from non-treated wood, cardboard, napkins or paper towels.

4. What should not be included?

Diseased plants, clippings with herbicides on them, disease or insect-infected plants, pet feces, meat, bones or dairy products, weed seed heads or roots, needles, cones or coated paper should not be included.