Which reminds me, I cleaned out our outdoor fire pit and added those ashes to the pile. Water is a very important ingredient for a healthy compost pile. Start building your compost pile. I like to really chop up woody material because it takes so long to decompose and making the pieces small gives more surface area for the decomposition process to work. The larger twigs and sticks also provide an air pocket within your pile.
Air is another important ingredient to healthy composting.
This is the smaller twigs and cuttings, dry grass, straw, or even a couple of bags of steer manure, or fresh green manure if you can get your hands on it. Basically, what you want is stuff that is high in carbon, like corn stalks or dry leaves, even shredded newspaper or fibre egg cartons. I like to get the roots when I weed and try to keep the dirt on them to help add microbes, fungi, and trace elements which might be hanging out there. Once I have my three layers piled up, I wet this down with water until it is pretty well soaked. I don't want to waterlog the pile, just make sure it is good and wet, but still with air spaces within.