About CompostLab
CompostLab exists because composting advice splits into two useless extremes: vague folk wisdom ("just add more browns, dear") and dense agricultural science written for operators of windrow turners. We build the bridge — a calculator and guides that turn published composting science into decisions a person can make at a bin with a bucket of scraps in one hand.
The site began, as these things do, with a failed pile: a spring heap of grass clippings that collapsed into an ammonia-scented mat. The fix turned out to be arithmetic — carbon-to-nitrogen blending — and the numbers to do it properly were scattered across extension PDFs and 1990s university web pages that deserve more daylight. CompostLab gathers them, cites them, and honestly displays their disagreements instead of laundering them into false precision.
What we publish
Three kinds of pages: the C/N ratio calculator (pure client-side math, no accounts, no tracking of your inputs), reference pillars like the greens vs browns materials table, and practical guides from worm bins to winter composting.
Editorial standards
- Sourced numbers only: C:N values, temperatures and moisture ranges come from Cornell's Waste Management Institute pages, university extension services (CSU, OSU, UMN, NC State) and comparable institutions. Where sources disagree we show the range and say so.
- Dated verification: every factual page carries a "Last verified" date. Values are re-checked against the sources on review.
- No fake precision: typical values are midpoints of published ranges — labeled as estimates, never as lab results for your materials.
- Educational, not agronomic consulting: we explain the science of rot; we don't know your site, your soil or your local regulations.
Corrections are welcome — composting science includes a lot of old datasets, and being told precisely where we're wrong is the nicest gift a reader can give. Reach us via the contact page.