Does anyone compost?

[SDSorority]

Does anyone compost their fruit and veggie scraps? How do you do it? Is it easy to do? I love the idea of being able to recycle!!

 

[Jen_in_NH]

We have for many years now. We just keep a plastic bucket for food scraps, and then at the end of the day, one of us takes it outside and dumps it on the rest of the pile. About once a week, we cover it up with dirt, and then keep piling stuff on it. It makes great garden fertilizer the next year.

This year, we're not doing as much composting. Our chickens like the scraps

 

[tinkarooni]

We do. We took a class with the local agricultural cooperative extension and received composters for free. There is a whole formula of green to brown. Essentially you have to layer greens (kitchen scraps) and layer them with browns, (dried grass, newspaper, hay). Keep it moist and mix it up every now and than and voila in 8 weeks you have compost. You can add store bought accelerator, top soil, or cat food to speed up the process.

If you don't keep it moist and turn it it will take longer, one batch took me all summer long, I was pretty busy that summer. Now I have 6 composters lined up outside by the garden and keep multiple batches going at once. I keep a kitty litter bucket with the snap on lid under the kitchen sink and fill that up. The kids run the bucket out and dump it in. Good Luck.

 

[Soben]

What I have learned about composting...
Chop your kitchen scraps up
Don't stress about brown vs. green, just make sure you have some of each
It will take longer than you think, be patient
Cover the pile so it doesn't dry out
Don't worry about the heat, even if it doesn't heat up, it will break down eventually
Don't read too much about, they make it way to complicated, Mother Nature designed the system and it works
Just do it

 

[momejay]

We use an old trash can that has no lid. Every night DD takes the potato peels, veggie stems, whatever out to the can. At the end of the week we add it to our garden soil. Banana peels are great for tomatoes. Orange peels keep ants away so we plant them near sidewalks. Hair from the vaccume goes on the border of the garden. The smell of hair & especially dog hair is supposed to keep out bunnies & gophers.

 

[DSNY4ever]

We use an old trash can that has no lid. Every night DD takes the potato peels, veggie stems, whatever out to the can. At the end of the week we add it to our garden soil. Banana peels are great for tomatoes. Orange peels keep ants away so we plant them near sidewalks. Hair from the vaccume goes on the border of the garden. The smell of hair & especially dog hair is supposed to keep out bunnies & gophers.

Huh, I never knew that about he orange peels or dog hair.

We have a small yard with not a lot of room for a compost pile (I wish we did!), but we have a small spinning compost bin that we bought from the Gaiam website. It works pretty well and we are able to compost most of the year (sometimes it gets too full and we have to stop for a while to let it do its thing) Between composting and recycling we barely have any garbage which is nice.

 

[skip323]

We've been doing it for a few years now. All fruit and veggie scraps. Coffee grounds. We empty the vaccum canister into it (occasionally have to pull an earring or lego or something from that group), dryer lint, paper towels and tissues if we put them in the bin. shredded paper (from bills etc), some newspaper and some yard scraps, hair from pets and our own hair that is cleaned out from the combs and brushes. And rinsed off eggshells too!

We keep a pail that we got at a store for it...one of the ones that has the charcoal filter in the top to keep the fruit flies out (not a problem if you take it out every night but...alas, we do not).

As a pp mentioned, between recycling and composting we do not have too much trash...some but not a lot!

 

[SDSorority]

What I have learned about composting...
Chop your kitchen scraps up
Don't stress about brown vs. green, just make sure you have some of each
It will take longer than you think, be patient
Cover the pile so it doesn't dry out
Don't worry about the heat, even if it doesn't heat up, it will break down eventually
Don't read too much about, they make it way to complicated, Mother Nature designed the system and it works
Just do it

My type of post!

 

[StephMK]

Wow, I had no idea all those other things can go into compost. Really, napkins & tissues, vacuum crud? I'll have to try to hair on our garden because someone is eating our strawberry plant & I just planted tomatoes.

We've never tried one but each year I think about it. If I can find a reasonable container for storage, I want to see if we can do it this year. I'd also like to put in a rain barrel & then expand our garden next year.

 

[Pixiedust34]

Yes. We bought a compost container (kind of like a garbage can) and use that for fruit and veggie scraps, tea bags, and egg shells. You have to cut things up small and stir the compost with a stick. It takes a while for the compost to be ready to use. We just used last year's dirt for some plants this year.

The recycling is great, and the compost dirt is good to use. With keeping a compost and recycling cans, paper, glass jars, etc., our family of 4 sometimes has only 1 trash bag to put out each week.

Here is a good link about composting. http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/organics/homecompost/

 

[Mickeypooh99]

What I have learned about composting...
Chop your kitchen scraps up
Don't stress about brown vs. green, just make sure you have some of each
It will take longer than you think, be patient
Cover the pile so it doesn't dry out
Don't worry about the heat, even if it doesn't heat up, it will break down eventually
Don't read too much about, they make it way to complicated, Mother Nature designed the system and it works
Just do it

This sounds a lot like me! I don't cover the pile though.

I have two piles made from 5 wooden pallets. I got the pallets free from a store that throws them out. Basically use 2 in the back 1 on each side, and 1in the middle to divide. So you have like a rectangle divided in half, and then the front is open. Hope that makes sense.

I add all my compost materials to one side until it is almost full, then I let that side rot while I add to the other side. If I leave it completely alone it will compost in a year. So I usually get all the composted dirt out in the spring for my garden, and then switch sides again. If you turn it with a pitch fork once in awhile it will compost faster. It depends on how often you turn it, and how small you cut everything up. I'm not in a hurry so I leave mine be.

 

[DeniseinNS]

We have been for quite a few years now with the greenbin that the city provides, it gets picked up every 1-2 weeks. They accept:

•Fruit & vegetable peelings
•Table scraps, meat, fish, bones
•Dairy products
•Cooking oil & fat
•Bread, rice, pasta
•Coffee grounds, filters, tea bags
•Eggshells
•Boxboard & Soiled Paper (cereal, shoe, cracker & cookie boxes)
•Paper towel rolls
•Food napkins
•Paper towels and soiled paper
•Grass, leaves & brush
•House & garden plant waste
•Sawdust & wood shavings

 

[tzolkin]

Wow, I had no idea all those other things can go into compost. Really, napkins & tissues, vacuum crud?

I haven't tried dumping the vacuum or the dryer lint in like PP mentioned, but I do throw paper towels in ours. I use a spray bottle of vinegar and water to wipe down the counters in our kitchen and bathrooms a few times a day, so I just toss those paper towels into the compost bucket. If I use any sort of disinfectant or window cleaner, I thow those paper towels in the trash.

 

[CajunDixie]

I do things a lil differently then everyone else. I have a worm compost tub. I started with a plastic tub with a lid, drilled a few 1/4" air holes near the top, added a little dirt mixed with coffee grounds, added in a couple cartons of redworms from a bait store, cover with shredded moistened newspapers. When you have fruit or veggie scraps simply give them a rough chop, pull the newspapers back spread out the scraps and cover with the papers. I add crushed eggshells and/or coffee grounds for grit for the worms to be able to digest the scraps. There is no smell as the moist papers cover the food and the worms eat it pretty quickly. Worms will reproduce but only in porportion with the container they are in at the time. When the level of compost rises or you have a need for it simply take the lid off after they have eaten the current layer of scraps and give them time to burrow down then push the majority of the compost to one side and add the fresh scraps to the low side. The worms will "move" over to the fresh side within a day or so.

You can then mix the fresh compost with dirt for plants, add it into your garden or mix it with water to make a compost tea to water plants.

Again the rules are flexible and you'll learn as you go.

 

[Brancaneve]

I have been debating having a compost pile and wondering if it will, in fact, be like having another pet.

But then I walked into Home Depot and saw the most wonderful bin. It is on a stand, in a barrel shape and a handle that turns the bin. There is an opening at the top with a hinged door. No more shoveling the stuff around to make sure it's all mixed up! Does anyone have one of these? Do you recommend it?

 

[mrs.sammich]

I love adding stuff to our compost pile (sick huh?) My favorite is dryer lint. It had to be good for something right? What a thrill it is to use the soil later in the garden.
PP, I want to have a worm bin! It was not on the schedule for this year, but look out next spring!
Another cool bin we have is where we dump the leaves in the fall. Sometimes they are shredded from the leaf vac or the bagger on the mower. Sometimes they are just whole leaves. Flip the pile a few times in the winter (unless your under snow like last year) and you've got great mulch for your garden. A brillant short cut I've picked up, blow the leaves out of the beds on to the path or grass. Run them over with the mower until they are super fine, then take the mower and blow them back into the beds as mulch. Oh man, I love dirty work.

 

[QVCshopper]

We do, and it's very easy. Between composting and recycling, we have cut down our garbage to about half a bag each week for 4 of us (3 of us are home almost always). I put it in an old hose container (talk about recycling), but I'm hoping to get a real compost bin something soon by taking a class or something like that. Just remember no meat. I've also almost cut out my paper towel usage. I use towels instead.

 

[Leleluvsdis]

I want to try composting, and I would really like to start recycling. We just recently moved and we have room to do these things now. I'm leaning more towards the barrel composter vs the wooden box. Does anyone know of any good reading materials for doing so?

 

[skiingfast]

I've had my composter going for 12-15 years. I use two identical bins. Because winter freezes the bins from December to April they don't do anything for 5 months. The bins are about like pallets and I line the inside with Chicken wire. I fill one bin for a full year, and use the dirt in the other for planting in the summer.
*If the compost doesn't get air it creates methane a poisonous gas and greenhouse gas*

I mix it a lot about daily when I dump stuff in I also put some water in the organic recycling container.
I also take worms off the driveway when it rains and toss them in.
I put in some napkins and paper towels and egg cartons. Paper won't compost in a year so it is mostly filler.
I don't put in any meats because it attracks animals.
I don't put in any breads because they will get moldy and mold stops the composting bacterias.
I take the stickers off apples, bannanas, ect...
Pits from avacado and peaches take a couple years.
I put in grass clippings I get from a lawn crew.
I get great dirt out of it.

 

[mickeytattoo95]

I have been debating having a compost pile and wondering if it will, in fact, be like having another pet.

But then I walked into Home Depot and saw the most wonderful bin. It is on a stand, in a barrel shape and a handle that turns the bin. There is an opening at the top with a hinged door. No more shoveling the stuff around to make sure it's all mixed up! Does anyone have one of these? Do you recommend it?

Yes, I have this! It almost looks like a cement mixer. We kind of hid it on the side of the yard along some trees. It gets plenty of sun and it's pretty much composting for dummies. We started with some dirt, have added leaves and then the veggie kitchen scraps, coffee grounds egg shells, etc. I was surprised how quickly it filled up. The only thing is that once you put the stuff in there, you need to flip it every other day or so and not continue adding to it or else you have to restart the clock so to speak.

You'll need a back-up can or place to store the next set of scraps until your 1st batch of compost is finished cooking.

It really only took about 4 weeks to break down, but we've already seen some 90 degree days so that helped. I love knowing that my family is doing everything we can to go "green." This fertilizes our home grown vegetable garden.