Just a coffee can’s worth can be enough for 20 or 30 gallons’ worth of other materials.

It’s okay to use, but don’t overdo it.

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You can compost newsprint and other regular paper.

Don’t compost slick, colorful paper, because the ink might cause problems to your compost pile.

Paper should make up no more than 10 or 15 percent of your compost pile, max. Small amounts is better than large amounts. It doesn’t break down quickly enough if you add to much.

Thanks!

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There are two ways to approach composting with a tumbling bin. (Either the Envirocycle, or any other tumbler model.)

You can batch compost, where you fill the whole thing up at once, and then tumble it and leave it alone until the entire batch is finished, and then empty it out and go again.

Or you can continuously compost, where you keep adding and adding and adding to the bin over time. If you do it this way, some of the material will be fully broken down, and some will still be breaking down. At a certain point, you can either stop adding and let the rest of it break down until it is finished, or you can dump it out, run it through a screen and throw the unfinished parts back in the tumbler and keep going.

For convenience, most people continuously compost.

Batch composting is where you get faster results, and that’s what they always use when tumblers promise some incredibly fast time that isn’t realistic for most normal people.

That sounds like you got good advice about adding more carbon rich (brown) materials. A lot of people end up adding too many kitchen scraps, and not enough browns, so that’s a common issue.

And some bugs and even larvae in your compost is normal and nothing to worry about. They won’t hurt anything. Flies are usually the result of a lot of fruit. In a regular bin or pile, you can bury the fruit deeper and it will solve that problem. In a tumbler, you might try tumbling the bin so that the fruit is on the bottom.

Sandie

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Hi,

I’m going to move your question over to the “Got Composting Questions” page in a few days.

If you have ants, that usually means that your compost is too dry. Soak it down with your water hose, and add more nitrogen rich materials to help the compost get hotter, and that should solve your problem.

Unless they are fire ants, it’s really not that big of a deal to have some in your compost anyway. But keeping your compost moist enough and hot enough typically drives them away regardless.

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Worm composting and regular composting are two different types of composting. You don’t want to add worms to a regular compost bin, because the compost heats up in a regular bin as it breaks down, and it will kill the worms.

With a regular compost bin that has an open bottom, sometimes earthworms will crawl up from the ground into the bin naturally. But they will stay away from the hot part of the compost, or escape back into the ground when it gets too hot.

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Yes, I think that would probably be okay, as long as you checked the products to make sure they didn’t have anything dangerous, or anything that is going to kill all the microbes that are breaking down the compost.