It is the earthy end of king and commoner. It is the plant food scientists have made from precise amounts of TNT and buffalo manure. It is the backyard pile that makes the garden grow. It is compost, and you can make your own!

Probably composting kings and commoners, even TNT, is more than home composters want to handle, but a well-kept heap of organic matter returning to its humble beginnings is more than just tradition: It is economic, environmental and gardening good sense.

Statistics abound to prove the sanity of composting to reduce the solid waste streaming to landfills, but none is more persuasive than the fact that the Fresh Kills, N.Y., landfill has outgrown the Great Wall of China to become the largest man-made structure on earth. Let us compost.

Compost, of course, is the human-aided return of organic refuse to water-soluble nutrients plants can use. This makes home-cooked compost a great additive to the garden. Rich in microorganisms and nutrients, compost boosts soil quality and reduces or eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers. Compost recipes vary as widely as the gurus who promote them, but putting together a tasty heap (for the plants) is really easy.

All this process really requires is organic material and a place in the sun. Jonathan Collinson, senior projects director at Woods End Research Lab, Mount Vernon, a compost research firm, outlines the minimum effort approach: “Go out in the backyard, drive four posts in the ground and wrap them with chicken wire. Turn the heap once in the year (it takes to become compost) … Do that. The compost will make itself.”

And it will, after a fashion, completing the cycle in about a year. But to make a regular supply of compost, a little work is in order.

First of all, plan what will go into the heap. While anything organic will decompose — even, as mentioned, highly explosive TNT — the backyard composter should focus on materials that 1) compost easily; 2) will not leave hazardous chemicals behind; 3) will help the process along.

This can be done by watching something known to initiates as the carbon to nitrogen (C:N) ratio. Carbon (the cellular building block) and nitrogen (the essential element of protein) both fill active roles in a heap in a ratio of about 25:1. Tom Christopher and Marty Asher, in their “Compost This Book!” simplify the ratio by dividing compostables into the high-nitrogen “green and juicies,” such as vegetable wastes, grass clippings, manure — and the high-carbon “dry and browns,” like leaves, sawdust, cardboard, paper and bark. Mix it two parts brown for every part green, and the compost will cook away.

Gordon Hammond, 19-year composter and publisher of ECHOES magazine up in The County, recommends adding wood ash or ground limestone to keep the pile near a neutral pH, and soil to bring in the microscopic biodegraders who really make the compost.

That is not all. “You will need a shovel and a pitchfork,” says Lisa Mushrall of Blue Barrens Farm in Columbia. The shovel is to spread the finished product, and the pitchfork to aerate the heap. Minimal effort composters shirk this, and composting will happen without it, but regularly tossing the heap can, with the other suggestsions here, speed the heap up to a batch every two weeks .

How often should compost be aerated? “The more often you turn it over,” Mushrall says, “the faster you will make it into what you can use.” So suit your compost compulsion, but once a week wouldn’t be excessive.

Watering the heap will keep it moist for biodegraders, who are made mostly of water and need it to reproduce. For those who think compost is on an aesthetic par with the doll over the extra toilet paper roll, a square of four pallets makes a good bin, as it holds the pile together and allows in plenty of air.

Just as care of the heap doesn’t need to be fixed, neither is the heap’s diet set in stone. Still, some things don’t belong in a heap, and some can, though they might cause problems.

First in the “not a good idea” category is anything large and woody. High in carbon, large branches, corn stalks, cardboard will all break down very slowly — unless they are shredded.

Meat is another. Animal fat does not break down well, and unless composted in a closed bin, it is likely to attract visitors like stray dogs — who may add their own contribution to the heap.

Speaking of dogs, their waste, along with that of cats and pet birds, should never be added to the compost because of the possibility of disease.

The last common taboo is newsprint. Unless the newspaper is printed in soy-or water-based ink, composting will release carcinogenic little compounds called polyaromatic hydrocarbons. The best idea: if it can’t be recycled, check with the local paper before composting old news. (Thumbs up for the Bangor Daily News, by the way, but chuck glossy inserts like “USA Weekend.”)

A good rule of thumb from Gordon Hammond: “You’ve got to know it’s organic. If you don’t know it will break down, you shouldn’t put it on the heap.”

And when it does break down, the remaining brown or black crumbly mass — each composter’s unique recipe — will be a gardening treasure in the tradition of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, even Roman Emperor Tiberius. And you thought compost was new.

“It sounds like progress,” Hammond admits, “but what we’re really doing is coming full circle.”

Information about composting has begun to pile up at an amazing rate. To help guide the reader to the works that have risen to the top of the heap, I have compiled the following lists of books and organizations who should prove helpful:

Its sheer bulk wins “The Complete Book of Composting,” by J.I. Rodale, and the staff of “Organic Gardening Magazine,” first mention. The book covers home composting as well as farm and commercial operations, and there is little doubt why its 1,008 pages are titled complete.

My personal favorite is a book published just last year by the Sierra Club Press, “Compost This Book!” by Tom Christopher and Marty Asher. Specifically written for the backyard composter, it’s the handy little guide none of us should be without.

Several organizations have information about composting: Seattle Tilth Association (4649 Sunnyside Ave. North, Seattle Wash. 98103), through its Master Composter Program, provides information on setting up local chapters of this educational program. In Maine, Woods End Research Laboratory (Route 2, Box 1850, Mount Vernon 04352) does compost research and analysis and has published an ever increasing number of books on the subject. Local cooperative extensions can provide basic information, but for the really tough stuff, composters can turn to the Dream Team of Compost, the Maine Compost Team. Its members are Bill Seekins (Deptartment of Agriculture: State House Station 28, Augusta 04333; 287-3511), Geoff Hill (Maine Waste Management Agency, 800-662-4545) and Richard Verville (Kennebec Co. Cooperative Extension, 800-287-1487).