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Organic Gardening involves using materials that can give something back to the soil to help keep it restored and healthy. Organic matter such as grass clippings, decaying plant waste, fall leaves and vegetable scraps are the building blocks of compost. Adding compost to your soil is a wonderful and sure way of raising a healthy and beautiful garden organically. Another main point to remember when gardening organically includes growing plants that are well suited to the site. Plants that are better adapted to the climate and growing conditions provided will not have to be given much attention. Do not allow plants to become too wet, too dry or too shaded. Plants that are less stressed out will have a better chance of not being attacked by insects.

Encourage beneficial insects to hunt in your garden. The common ladybug, birds, frogs and lizards control pests by eating them. You can make your garden hospitable for your natural allies by keeping a water source (just a dish-full, it that's all you got) nearby for them and by not wiping out the entire pest population with a pesticide and sending them somewhere else in search of water or food. Grow plants with small blossoms like Sweet Alyssum and Dill, which attract predatory insects who feed on flower nectar between attacks on pests. Sticky traps and pheromone lures are other ways to control pests without hurting other living things in your garden. Horticulture oils, insecticidal soaps and hot pepper sprays also work well against many pests.

Here is what you need:
1) Carbon-rich brown materials, like fall leaves, straw, dead flowers from your garden and shredded newspaper. 2) Nitrogen-rich "green" materials, like grass clippings, plant-based kitchen waste (vegetable peelins and fruit rinds, but no meat scraps), or barnyard animal manure (evem though it's color is usually brown, it is full of nitrogen like the other "green" stuff). 3) A shovelful or two of garden soil. 4) A site that is at least 3 feet long by 3 feet wide.

Here is what you do:
Start by spreading a several-inch thick layer of coarse, dry brown stuff, like straw, cornstalks, or leaves, where you want to build your pile. Top that with several inches of green stuff. Add a thin layer of soil and then add a layer of brown stuff. Moisten the three layers. Continue layering the green stuff and brown stuff with a little soil mixed in until the pile is 3 feet high. If it takes a while before you have enough material to build the pile that high, don't worry -- just keep adding to the pile until it gets to at least 3 feet high. Every couple of weeks, use a garden fork or shovel to turn the pile, moving the stuff at the center of the pile to the outside and working the stuff on the outside to the center of the pile. Keep the pile moist, but not soggy. When you first turn the pile, you may see steam rising from it. This is a sign the pile is heating up as a result of the materials in it decomposing. If the turn the pile every couple weeks and keep it moist, you will see earthworms throughout the pile and the center of the pile turining into a black, crumbly, sweet-smelling soil. When you have enough finished compost in the pile to use in your garden, shovel out the finished compost and start your next pile with any material that hasn't fully decomposed in the previous one.

Do you need a compost bin to compost?
No. If the pile is at least 3 by 3 by 3 feet, it will have enough mass to decompose in just a pile without a bin. Many gardeners buy or biuld compost bins, however, because they keep the pile neat. Some are designed to make turning the compost easier or to protect it from soaking rains.