Comments on: All about Carbon and Nitrogen materials

By: lars

lars — Mon, 02 May 2011 00:58:15 +0000

@Randall

If they are dried leaves, then they will be carbon rich, even though the color is still green.

By: Randall

Randall — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 02:41:04 +0000

Would whole tea leaves be considered a brown or a green item? They look green but they are technically dead leaves so I’m not sure how to categorize them.

Thanks

By: lars

lars — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:25:49 +0000

@Susan

Think about it this way. You know how a banana peel is kind of wet and heavy, but dry leaves are really lightweight? Think of how many leaves you would have to have to equal the weight of a banana peel. Basically, nitrogen rich materials are usually wetter and heavier. So you need a bigger mass of carbon rich materials to end up with a 50 / 50 ratio by weight.

You don’t have to overthink it though.

Just throw your stuff in there and see what happens. If it’s too dry, add water. If it’s too wet, add more dry leaves. Etc. Everything rots eventually! It’s just a matter of how fast or how slow.

Bugs in the compost are normal, and help with the decomposition process. They are no big deal. If you have ants, it’s often because the compost is too dry and needs more nitrogen rich materials and/or water.

By: Susan

Susan — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 20:42:17 +0000

I’m still having trouble with this because I can’t even begin to guess how much dry leaves, paper, etc. weigh compared to food scraps, etc.
Above, it says “Basically, for every pound of food scraps you put in your compost bin, you will want to put about a pound of leaves, newspaper or combination of other carbon rich materials in as well.”
On another page it says “The ideal ratio approaches 25 parts browns to 1 part greens. Judge the amounts roughly equal by weight.”

On another page, people have posted lots of questions about ants, flies, maggots and other “creatures.” Would love to get answers on those.

Thanks!

By: lars

lars — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:37:56 +0000

Good spot!

Thanks for letting me know. I corrected it. Newspaper is carbon rich.

By: David

David — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:57:05 +0000

Hello, I just noticed something confusing in this article. Which sentence is correct?
“for every pound of food scraps you put in your compost bin, you will want to put about a pound of leaves, newspaper or combination of other nitrogen rich materials in as well”
But later, this sentence appears:
“carbon-rich materials are things like dead leaves, straw or newspaper”

I think the second sentence is correct, based on everything else in the site, but the first sentence was confusing to see. Shouldn’t it be “or combination of other carbon-rich materials as well” instead of “nitrogen rich”?