Composting Calculator
Grower tool
Build a balanced compost recipe.
Mix your inputs and watch the carbon to nitrogen ratio move in real time. The working window is 25 to 35 parts carbon per part nitrogen. Go lower and the pile turns wet and anaerobic and loses nitrogen to the air. Go higher and decomposition stalls while microbes scavenge for nitrogen.
Recipe name
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Your mix
Analysis
nitrogen
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- Total weight
- 0
- Ingredients
- 0
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Build a mix and save it. Recipes are stored in this browser only.
Preferences
Existing weights are clamped to the new range when this changes.
On your phone
This page builds the pile. Layers runs it.
Getting the ratio right is day one. What happens over the next ninety days is temperature, moisture, turns, and knowing when to leave it alone. We built Layers for that part, and the C:N math in its recipe builder is the same math running on this page.
Most composting apps hand everyone the same advice. Layers asks which method you are running first, because a worm bin is not a hot pile and a bokashi bucket should never be turned.
- Six methods, six sets of rules. Hot, vermicompost, bokashi, cold, tumbler, and Johnson-Su bioreactor. Temperature targets, moisture ranges, and reminders all change with the method.
- Log it in seconds. Temperature, moisture, turns, and photos, with guidance that flags a problem before it costs you the batch.
- Weather aware. Outdoor piles get recommendations that account for what is actually coming, powered by Apple Weather.
- Widgets and Live Activities. Latest temperature on the Home Screen, a method-aware countdown on the Lock Screen, and an active pile pinned to the Dynamic Island.
- Curing and harvest. A real resting phase with its own guidance, then a run summary at the finish: temperature curve, turn count, photo timeline, total days.
- Compare your batches. Overlay curves from up to four runs of the same method and work out what made the good one good.
- iCloud sync and full export. Your records, on your devices, yours to take.
- Price
- Free
- Platform
- iPhone
- Requires
- iOS 17.6
- Data collected
- None
Next step
A good pile is a fed pile. Feed it on purpose.
Composting at field scale is a different animal than a backyard bin: turning schedules, moisture, pile geometry, and what the finished product is actually for. Tell us what you have to work with and what you want out of it.
C:N values are published averages and vary with moisture, age, and source. Treat them as a starting point and adjust from what the pile actually does. Saved recipes, custom ingredients, and preferences are stored in this browser only. Clearing site data removes them, and they do not follow you to another device.