I hope this is the right forum for this, since it’s related to food and gardening. If not, I apologize in advance.
In this thread, several people have mentioned putting coffee grounds, eggshells, and other items in a compost heap instead of throwing them away or putting them down the garbage disposal. I recently bought my first house and would like to start composting, but I have no idea how. What do you put in a compost heap? What should you NOT put in one (aside from inorganic matter, I assume)?
Nothing inorganic – no meat or grease – no carnivore poop (though chickenshit, horseshit, and bullshit are all good). Mix “greens” (fresh material) with “browns” (dried leaves, etc.). Make sure the pieces aren’t too big or too hard – corncobs, pinecones, and pistachio shells all take way too long to decompose.
Other than that – it’s not that hard. Your best bet is to start two piles; one that you’ll throw stuff on now, then let decompose next year, and then another one that you’ll throw stuff on next year.
Etc. – I’m on my way outta here (and off the boards) for a week or so – but there’s plenty of other knowlegable folks around.
The first thing you do is get a compost bin. Mine was very cheap, sponsored by our waste collection company, so I didn’t do a lot of research into it.
What we put in are all peelings from vegetables, coffee grounds, the cores of apples, lemons after we’ve squeezed out the juice. We also put in white paper towels that haven’t been used for soap and grease. I don’t put in anything cooked, and I never put in meat or anything greasy.
How much you turn the compost depends on your bin. I probably don’t turn mine often enough, but it’s been fine.
If it is working, there should be no odor. I’ve had mine running for about 8 years, and it (along with composted horse manure) turned my awful garden soil into wonderful soil.
I don’t consider myself an expert, but what I’ve done seems to work pretty well.
We have a little plastic can in our kitchen to collect peelings, and take this out to the compost bin every few days. It is amazing how much you collect.
Good luck!
–
On preview, while I should have mentioned the mixing green and brown, I’ve had problems with putting leaves into my compost. They don’t seem to break down as quickly as other things, and there is a tendency to overhwhelm the compost bin with them. I’ve even taken them out after they didn’t do anything for a few months. It’s tempting to put them in, since we only get one big green can to put yard waste in, which gets picked up once a week - not enough for leaf season. But if you use leaves, start off small.
You can just have a compost pile on the ground, but it can get messy and probably won’t go as fast as a bin, which tend to be black and thus attract heat. There’s tons online about composting - here’s one introduction (http://www.compostguide.com/). You may also be interested in vermacomposting, where you have a great big colony of worms that eat your kitchen trash.
That’s a good link, Zsofia. It has a handy list of what you should and should not throw in the pile. It never would have occured to me to include cardboard, hair and dryer lint.
Thanks for the advice, everybody! I will get out there and start my compost bin this weekend.
You should be able to get some kind of compost activator from your local garden centre. One brand that’s popular here is called “Garotta”, I don’t know what the US equivalent is. It helps get the bacteria established, since what you’re doing is basically bacteria-farming and making use of the fruits of their labours. I guess once it’s up and running, there’s nothing like a few bucketloads of compost to help another heap get started.
I didn’t read the link, but another thing you can add to your pile is the contents of your vacuum cleaner bag.
When I first got into composting, I lived in Sacramento. The city sponsored a free, weekly composting class you could attend and at the end of the class, they’d give you a free composting bin which was basically a large semi-rigid roll of plastic with holes in it you roll to the size you want, stand it on its end and start tossing your compost material in. You might google around your local city websites and see if your city offers something similar.
Composting can be as much or as little work as you want. The way I compost currently is what I’d call the lazy way. I live in an area that doesn’t freeze, so that helps a bit. I see you live in Texas, so you probably don’t have to worry about prolonged freezes either.
I got the Pedian H Easy Composting Kit which comes with all you need to get started. It’s basically a large plastic bag with holes in it and you just start dumping your compost in layers, mixing greens and browns, then occasionally sprinkling some of the compost “activator” powder over each layer. You might get a pitch fork and turn the pile once in awhile but I rarely do. If I did I’d get compost even quicker, but I did say “lazy” didn’t I? I get pretty good compost within six months, doing very little work. If I were more diligent, I could probably have compost more quickly by turning and tending the pile more.
The one thing I do differently which helps if you’re lazy like me is I added red wiggler worms. They do the work for you. Call around to all the local bait shops and someone should have the red wigglers. Toss them into your pile and they’ll do their thing. As long as your pile is large enough in the winter, they’ll survive just fine.
I live in the suburbs of Houston, so I should have no trouble with freezes (one time this winter it got down to OMG 30 degrees and I got to stay home from work due to ice!). Finding a bait shop also will be easy. If I buy worms, what do I do? Just dump them on top of the pile and wish them luck? I’ll be especially happy if I don’t have to touch them. I’ve touched worms before, but I don’t go out of my way to do it, you know?
I hope it won’t be too hot for the worms. My backyard has heavy shade from a couple of massive oak trees, so it’s warm but not scorching, and plenty damp.
The worms will find their way in, I assure you. Near us, there are companies that sell compost systems where the compost comes from worm tailings. It’s slightly different from normal composting, based on what I see at their booth at the farmers’ market. I’ve never tried it, but I’ve been tempted.
I’m in the Bay Area, so I don’t have to worry about weather either, and the compost pile gets warm enough you won’t have to.
I didn’t use a starter, I think. That might have made it take longer, but it worked fine anyway. I’m definitely a lazy composter - I do turn the pile with a pitchfork when I think of it. My bin comes with an extra bottom piece, so you can move the entire pile, piece by piece, to a new location which really turns it. I’ve seen expensive ones that let you turn a handle every day also.
Composting is great since you’re working with nature, and it pretty much takes care of itself if you don’t add anything stupid to it.
Nah, worms are pretty good at taking care of themselves. If it’s too hot, they move to where it’s cooler, too cold, they move to where it’s warmer and if you have a large healthy pile of compost going, it’ll be warm towards the center. The bait shop will sell you a little styrofoam container of worms - get the red wigglers, they’re better at composting than regular earthworms - and you just dump them on the pile. They’ll find their way down into it and start doing their wormy thing, composting, naturally increasing their numbers for however much nummy kitchen scraps you can give them, etc. No touching required but you don’t want your little wormies to feel unloved, do you?
Couple hints from my experience: you don’t really need to compost coffee grounds. You can dump them directly around your plants if you want. They’re like instant compost. I like to dry my egg shells a day or so and crumble them up by hand. They don’t break down on their own that quickly. Come Halloween, those pumpkins make great compost but the shells of the pumpkin seeds seemingly never break down, so you’ll be finding pumpkin seed shells all over your garden for years. The first year after you composted the pumpkin seeds, you’ll probably also find pumpkin seedlings sprouting all over. Speaking of seeds, lots of them survive the composting process so expect lots of interesting things sprouting both in the compost pile and wherever you spread your compost. Never, ever compost weeds with any seeds on them. That’s asking for disaster. If you find yourself with a bunch of weed trimmings, it’s better to throw them away or if you’re intent on composting them, let them dry, burn them, and add the ash to the compost pile.
