The first link below gives some good advice about composting. The second link has some good info about natural pest control as well as the site I get all my seeds from. They have a good section on when, how and where to plant your garden as well.

Depends on what you are composting, and when, if it’s spring better hurray, If I’m having the garden tilled I just turn it under, if not I just make a compost pile and start turning keeping it wet and adding any thing I can find, but the big thing now is you should have been doing it last fall, if you take too much time with it now , you’ll find your self behind on the garden. It sometimes become a balancing act of what to do next, I have a great organic spray, I use a hose end sprayer, it has the force to knock aphids and spider mites off the plants and get the organic spray to the full plant even when they are grown. Also if I’ve sprayed with my organic spray there are some things I put in if it gets over 85% I want to spray off any way, by that I mean in the morning of the day that it will be that hot I wash the plants to keep the soap and veggie oil from causing solar damage.. I use a mixture of dish soap, vegetable oil as contact insecticides and diatomaceous earth as a residual, I put in baking soda and fill it up with skim milk, the last two ingredients are anti fungals and saved my plants last year from blight. I mix it all into one mix set the dial on 3 1/2, and spray the plants top and bottom, I almost always spray after 8pm, this will allow that I don’t get the bee’s although the diatomaceious earth will kill bees the flowers are usually closed and because the bee’s don’t frequent any other part of the plant, it works out fine. Love those Bee’s

most any thing that grows or is a product of growth can be compost material. but always consider the source.paper,food scraps,cardboard, leaves ,garden waste,grass trimmings . i just pile it up and keep it moist and turn it over once in a while ,if your in a hurry a bit of animal waste manure or chemical fertilizer will speed it along,but don’t expect much composting when it’s cold ,cold slows it to a halt ,but in the spring and summer it goes very quickly. i also cut mine up with a mulching lawn mower ,that speeds it along also.don’t let it dry out ,and not soggy wet either,just a bit damp. if you mulch it like that you can use it on the garden as a weed suppressant and moisture retention mulch,then in the fall till it into the soil ,it will have broken down very well by then.remember compost is NOT fertilizer. it helps the soil in many ways but the plants still need their food ,if you use a chemical fertilizer or manure to help break down the compost ,that should be enough food for plants also.but remember with fertilizer less is more,so err on the side of less.