Got Composting Questions?
Do have any burning questions about composting that we haven’t answered here?
Leave us a comment and let us know!
We’ll do our best to answer your question, and to improve the site for anyone else who might want to know the same thing.
Please note that your question will not appear immediately on the page. It will go into the “moderation” area, where I will answer it and then publish it.
Questions often get answered as quickly as the same day.
{ 454 comments… read them below or add one }
I purchased a rectangular, black, plastic, compost bin but there were no instructions regarding how often I need to “turn” the compost. I live in Austin, TX, so I’m concerned about the combustibility of the contents during the hot summer months. Any tips?
Thanks!
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Hey there! Thanks so much for your question, it’s an excellent one to ask.
We answered your question with a video and blog post.
Hope this helps, and thanks for reading!
My husband’s grandmother had a beautiful vegetable garden. She just put leaves, newspaper, and vegetable scraps down the rows of her garden. She raked/tilled in under every few weeks. Is this a good idea?
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Hey there, Heather!
Thanks for your comment. What your husband’s grandmother was doing is called trench composting, and we have answered your question and explained the process in a video and blog post.
Thank you very much for reading, and hope this helps!
It would be very nice if you can add information about paper towels that are compostable. You mentionned that brown material is good for adding to your composting, would the commercial brown paper towels used in washrooms can be considered as brown material as well? I was told by an Environmental company that the paper towels are also used to be spread on landfill to prevent the smell.
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Thank you very much for your question, Lynn!
We have explained the answer to your question and clarified a few things in the form of a video and blog post.
Thanks so much for reading, and hope this helps!
Can you compost acanned vegetable product if the can is bulged and air escapes when opened?
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Hey Joanne~
Thanks for the question! It’s a really good one. We’ve answered it in the form of a video and a blog post for you. Hope this helps, and have a great day!
I have a large pile of old grass clippings, the inside of which is a bit moldy and musty. Is the material OK for composting with the mold? Thanks.
Can you compost old bread?
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Thanks for your question.
Absolutely, yes!
If you are worried about pests, just make sure you bury it a little deeper in the pile.
I am a first year composter. I am using a commercial compost bin and have been trying to follow all of the correct steps to produce good dirt. My problem is that my compost bin is full of ants. I assume this is a problem. What is going on? What do I have to do to rid my compost of all the ants?
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Ants are usually a sign of one of three possible things, or a combo. 1) Too many carbon rich materials and not enough nitrogen rich materials, so your compost isn’t hot enough. 2) Your compost is too dried out, so it has cooled off. 3) You have fruit or kitchen scraps on the top of the pile, so the ants find it.
So either add more nitrogen rich stuff, soak the pile with your water hose to get it damp again, or bury kitchen scraps deeper into the bin when you add them, under leaves or grass clippings. Or some combination of those things!
I have a Tumbleweed composter, and have been filling it for over a year. My question is, how do I get the composted stuff out without also dumping out fresh banana peels, coffee grounds, twigs, etc.? Thanks, Karen
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There are two ways to compost with a tumbler — either Continuously, like you are doing, or in Batches, where you fill the entire tumbler up at once, and then wait until everything breaks down together. (We shot a video about Batch vs. Continuous Composting that goes into more detail.)
If you’re composting continuously with your Tumbleweed, you can do one of two things. 1) You can stop adding stuff to the bin for a few weeks and continue tumbling, until the freshest items have finished breaking down, and then unload the tumbler. 2) You can unload it now, and just put it through a compost screen to screen out the materials that aren’t yet finished so you can put them back in the bin.
Can I compost enriched wheat flour?
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Absolutely. And now your next batch of compost will also have more vitamins than ever!
Vitamins in compost? I thought I was interested in microbes and minerals and enzymes.
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I was just making a joke, because vitamins are what the flour is enriched with. Seriously though, it’s perfectly find to compost enriched flour.
Hi there,
I just started composting. I bought a black 32 gallon rubber-maid waste can with a lid and I drilled 1/4″ holes in the sides, lid, and bottom for aeration purposes.
I’ve added brown and green materials and now find that I have flies getting inside the barrel. Is this ok?, or should I start over with a new barrel and small holes. It looks as though the flies are getting in through the holes. : o (
Can flies be a problem to composting using a barrel?
Thanks!
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In general, flies or insects are not a problem as far as the making of compost goes. They can be a nuisance, but they won’t hurt anything.
Too many kitchen scraps and not enough carbon materials can attract flies. If you bury the kitchen scraps deeper into the pile, that helps. Or put them under leaves or grass clippings, if you have either of those available.
I’m guessing it’s probably because you have a large amount of green material that might be attracting them, and not the design of the composter itself.
Hi,
I built a compost corral from landscape logs. How do I or can I continuous compost with it ? Also is it normal for the composting material down inside to turn white. It is hot and steaming when I turn it once every week or two. I am totally new at this. Thank You.
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If it’s hard to get your materials in and out of the bin, you might be better off batch composting instead of continuous composting.
If your compost is hot and steaming, then you’re doing a very good job and it’s going well. I’m not sure why something would turn white, but I’m sure it’s fine, seeing how well you are doing with the temperature. There are many variables about what compost might look like as it breaks down, because there are an infinite number of things that you might be composting. Kitchen scraps, yard waste, etc.
Is it possible to compost disposable latex gloves?
I use 2-3/day in the treatment of a health problem and feel a bit guilty sending them to a landfill. There isn’t anything toxic on the used gloves that I know of.
Suspect they’d take a while to break down but might do so after 6 months or so if the conditions were right.
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I would try it with just one pair, and see what happens. But I am pretty sure that unless you are making a lot of compost, 2 to 3 pair a day would quickly overload your pile and ruin the composting process. Having too much of one material slows things down, and something unusual like that REALLY has the chance to slow down the process.
how often should i turn my compost? is the goal to continuously mix the brown and the green layers or to keep them separated?
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The idea is to keep the compost 1) mixed, 2) aerated, and 3) about the dampness of a wrung out sponge. In my mind, turning the compost more than once every few days is a waste of effort. (So no, you aren’t trying to keep the greens and browns separated.) But there’s no definitive answer, and it mostly depends upon the results you are getting and your personal preference.
I have a Compact Compostumble comoster. Can I use worms in it?
Many thanks,
Charlene
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No, you can’t use worms in it, unfortunately.
Vermicomposting is an entirely different type of composting than regular composting. With regular composting, the compost heats up as it breaks down, and that heat will cook the worms. So if you add worms, they will almost certainly die.
Worm bins are designed for worms to live in, and you should only use worms if you have a real worm bin to keep them in. You can see what vermicomposting bins look like here:
http://www.cleanairgardening.com/vermicomposting-products.html
We have a tumbiling Composter but we don’t know what to do. How often to turn it. If anything needs to be put in it other than the actual items being composted. and basically, what do we use. I’ve heard that lime is good but if so, how much do we have to use?
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Lime affects the pH of soil. It is not necessary for composting, and I do not recommend adding it to your compost.
You can add compost accelerators to your compost bin, but even that is optional and not required. Just the contents of the bin itself is good enough.
Hi
We have a compost tumbler and have tried composting in it but haven’t had much luck. Too much rain got into it and it turned into a VERY stinky toxic stew that the dogs got into and got poisoned from. One nearly died. Very close call. Micotoxin poisoning, they said. Anyway, we have been putting mainly kitchen scraps in there but not a lot of other lawn clippings, or no cardboard or paper. All organic stuff. I guess we have just about everything wrong, from what I’ve read. The moisture level’s too high, there isn’t enough brown material and the balance is totally wrong. Am I correct in adding sawdust, grass clippings, white paper (envelopes, letters etc.?) Will that save this current batch that has turned much like the bad batch I just mentioned? Thanks.
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It sounds like you definitely need more brown materials. But you want to be careful not to overload it with white paper, or with too much sawdust. Paper and sawdust can both overwhelm your pile very easily.
If you add paper, the smaller you shred it up, the better results you’ll have.
And remember that FRESH grass clippings are a NITROGEN rich material. It’s only if you let them completely dry out that they become a CARBON rich material. So dumping in fresh grass clippings will not help, and will only make things more off balance.
For the dampness issue, if you leave the lid off on sunny days, it will help the materials dry out faster.
There’s nothing in this site about who you are and your background. Can you give us more information about who is behind this site?
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Hi Jeff. Here’s our About page.
I am a master composter, based in Dallas, Texas. I work for Clean Air Gardening as my day job.
I am just beginning my first composting. I feel i have a good carbon/nitrogen mix and am excited about this venture. You’ve answered many of my questions, so, thanks for this site.
The only question I had is; could you “blend” some of the kitchen scrap “green” material you use; such as watermelon rind or cantelope peel? I do cut these into smaller pieces, but i wondered about running them through my food processor to allow them to break down faster because of the smaller size….
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Yes, you can absolutely blend the kitchen scraps to make them break down a little bit faster. But I don’t know if it’s worth all of the trouble.
You’ll want to find a balance between the speed of composting, and the amount of work that you want to put into it. For me, it’s WAY too much trouble to be bothered with something like that. But if you enjoy it, then it would result in slightly faster compost.
One thing that I do recommend if you have a lot of leaves is a leaf shredder. Or barring that, you can run over a pile of leaves with your lawnmower to break them down into smaller pieces. That work is often worth the trouble.
But kitchen scraps typically break down pretty fast anyway, so I don’t know if I would bother.
We compost our paper towels and we compost gDiapers (when soiled with urine, not with poop). Doing both has got me thinking–why can’t we compost the toilet paper I use for #1? Is the content of toilet paper significantly different from paper towels?
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There’s no technical reason that you can’t compost toilet paper, as long as you aren’t trying to compost human feces.
TP would break down even easier than paper towels.
Seems like too much trouble to me. And you’d have to figure out where to store it until you added it to the pile.
I have a dead rat in my composting bin. I just started composting so the material is only about 10 inches high in an Earth Machine Home Composter. I suppose the compost isn’t hot enough. I wasn’t going to remove him, so I covered him with compost. Was this the wrong thing to do?
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I don’t think I would want to dig out a dead rat either, so I would also probably just leave it there. It should decompose pretty quickly, if you keep adding material to your bin. Theoretically, you don’t want to add dead animals to your compost. But practically, if a rat died in the bin, I’d just leave it alone too.
Alternatively, if you have a shovel, you could always pick up the bin, move it over a few feet, and shovel all of the materials EXCEPT for the rat into the bin again. Then just bury the rat a few inches underground.
We have our first batch in a tumbler brewing. We have some sort of a white, one inch grub that has multiplied in our composter. What could it be and is it a bad thing? If I use that eventual dirt for a garden, will the grubs then eat my plant roots? How can I prevent them from developing in my next batch?
Thank you,
Janae
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That’s a good question!
I’m not sure if I can tell you whether or not it’s a bad kind of grub or not, because I’m not an expert on that. In general, it’s common to get small insects or pill bugs in your compost, and they don’t cause any harm.
There are two ways that you could handle it, I think.
1. If you can get your compost going where it gets hotter, the problem will take care of itself, because it will cook anything in the bin.
2. You could also add some kind of Spinosad based organic insecticide to the bin if you can’t generate enough heat, and that would also take care of the problem.
I have started composting this year and things are going pretty well except I always seem to need more brown material, I guess you get seasonal highs and lows. When the leaves fall I’ll be overwhelmed with brown stuff.
Anyway my question is that my wife and I are vegan and often have leftover soups or stews which contain mostly cooked vegetables with some starch rice, pasta etc. When these leftovers are going bad is it OK to add them to our pile? I know they are nitrogen rich and very very wet but if we keep them balanced do they pose a problem?
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Yes, you can add those to your pile. I would just be careful to bury that stuff a few inches into the pile, rather than just pouring it on top. If you leave it on top, it might attract pests. (So you can uncover the pile a little bit, pour it in, and then cover it back up.)
we have been composting for about 2 months. our compost doesn’t seem to have generated any heat yet, but it seemed like things were starting to break down. this past week, the compost has generated a horrible smell, like rotting garbage (which is I guess what it is) and the whole thing is covered in tiny black flying bugs. can you tell what we did wrong? do we have to dig out all the compost and start over? or is there something we can do to fix it? thanks a lot.
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If it smells like rotting garbage, you probably have too many vegetable scraps, and not enough carbon rich materials. You’re not adding meat or dairy or grease or bones, are you? Those are all no-nos!
Try adding covering up the kitchen scraps with leaves, or grass clippings if you don’t have any leaves.
You don’t have to start over. Compost happens, even if you do it badly. You just keep going.
Shredded newspaper also makes a source of carbon if you don’t have anything else. Even shredded cardboard will work in a pinch.
Bugs or flies don’t hurt anything. Burying food scraps underneath grass clippings or leaves will typically solve that problem.
I have come across 40 lbs of cinnamon power from an auction of a restaurant, can it be put in my compost pile and mixed in. does any body have any comments thanks
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Cinnamon should probably be fine. I would only worry that adding all 40 pounds at once might slow down your composting, because too much of any one material can do that.
Maybe add a few pounds at a time each week or two and mix it in until you see how well the pile is taking it, and then add more or add less, depending on your results.
cleaning out freezer , have a large bad of trout. can I cut it up or blend it up in small pieces and put in compost , or just throw out with the cinnamon, thanks for comments
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If it were me, I would bury the trout underneath the compost pile, rather than adding it to the compost directly. You’ll get a lot of stink with rotting fish, and it can attract pests. But if you bury it, it should solve both of those problems.
1. what benefits does compost have towards plant life?
2. how does compost affect the human race?
3. how many kg’s of compost does newzealand produce every year?
4. how many kg’s of compost did newzealand produce in 1970?
5. what is so important about compost?
6. what is so important about composting?
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Sorry, but I’m not going to write your research paper for you. You should try doing it yourself.
ummm…….. I’m just learning about composting and all, but how do you know when its done????
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When your compost is finished, it typically looks like dark, rich earth. And it will smell like fertile soil — not like rotting vegetables. You can tell when it’s finished, because it pretty much looks like what you get when you buy a bag of finished compost at the store.
Hi there! My compost is full of earwigs. They tend to hang out near the bottom of the pile, and I find them when I’m turning the pile. Is this a problem?
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No, it’s not a problem. They help with the decomposition of the materials into finished compost.
Carbon is part of all organic matter, no? So the ‘green’ material has carbon also, I would think. Are you referring to a particular form of carbon that is necessary for aerobic bacteria to flourish that is only found in the ‘brown’ stuff?
As for using paper for the compost heap, are inked envelopes (sometimes with colored inks) and scratch paper with ball point pen writing OK for the pile?
It is great that this is such an active site with a spot for one-to-one communication. Thanks for your work at this site, I appreciate it very much.
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Yes, you are correct. If you pick up any of the more detailed composting books, they’ll have all of these really precise carbon to nitrogen ratios of specific ingredients. For example, according to the Rodale composting book, vegetable wastes have a carbon/nitrogen ratio of 12:1.
From my perspective, it’s not useful to get into that much detail, because composting isn’t a math formula. In general, if you get a good balance of materials that are typically “carbon rich” and materials that are typically “nitrogen rich,” you’ll end up with good composting results.
Scratch paper with ballpoint ink is fine. Envelopes are typically fine too. You just want to avoid overdoing it with too much paper at once. Paper can clog up your pile pretty quickly. Shredding or tearing it up by hand helps it break down faster.
Thank you for your answer to my previous question.
I will be ‘inheriting’ a completely filled compost bin (wood-slatted, open top, approximately 3 feet by 5 feet, 4 feet high) come this end of September when we move to our new place in Southeast France. The top visible layer is dried, overgrown grass clippings. I am planning to prepare a 4 foot wide, 12 foot long unframed raised vegetable bed around end of March. It would be wonderful if I can get the contents of the bin ready for incorporating into and spreading on the bed.
What would be the best approach in discovering what is in that bin? There could be non-biodegradable material and maybe an imbalance between ‘browns’ and ‘greens.’
I am thinking of using the batch approach when aerating and moistening the pile in the coming months (typical winter has only a couple of weeks at most of below freezing temperatures), and possibly adding some store-bought compost and/or commercial activator. Would that approach result in compost ready for use in about six months?
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I wouldn’t even worry about exactly what’s in it. Compost happens eventually, even if you are doing it wrong. Everything rots!
I’d just mix it up well when you get there and keep going with it. As long as you make sure it is wet enough (or dry enough), and you mix it aerate it, you should have finished compost in six months, no problem. The stuff at the bottom is probably already finished compost right now, I’d guess. If there’s any non biodegradable material in there, just use a metal screen and run everything through that before you put it in your beds.
My advice would be to dig as much compost as you can into your raised bed garden BEFORE spring, so that anything that isn’t completely finished composting will have time to break down completely before you plant. Maybe in December or January at the latest, so it has some time. If you bury the half finished stuff, it’s called “trench composting.” It breaks down very quickly once it is buried, and improves your soil quickly.
I forgot to mention that all slats on the bin are fixed.
Your answer is very helpful, especially regarding screening compost to ensure that there are no big chunks of remaining non-biodegradable stuff and your general don’t-worry-stuff-rots-through-time approach.
After investigating trench composting, I am unclear on how to combine digging out the unframed, raised bed with trench composting. It is my understanding that compost needs to be thoroughly rotted before it can be incorporated into soil (or else it robs nitrogen from the growing plants themselves, is that correct?) Can partially rotten refuse just be incorporated into soil, or does it need to be buried first? And how deeply buried?
Should the focus instead be on burying the partially decomposed refuse and not incorporating at first, but later on, just before spring planting, do the incorporating? I am planning to double spade the unframed, raised bed, so about 10 inches of soil can be put on the side, then I can place the partially rotted refuse which then gets covered up with the displaced soil. Since it is important that the digging is done before a frost, I will heed the weather forecast (typically little frost, but there can always be a surprise change). Since I will be switching from bin composting to trench composting, perhaps I need to do that much earlier than January anyway?
As you can probably tell, though I have researched the topic, I have very little hands on experience with composting! Thank you for your patience and time.
For next year, if luck willing, as I expand the vegetable/fruit plots, I could make the paths, though narrow, about 1.5 feet wide (between the unframed raised beds), to be trenches also, eventually skimming off the excess composted soil for use on other beds before laying down weed cloth and covering with gravel to make nice, clean paths.
The more I read about trench gardening, the more it seems I need to make the creative effort to accommodate it in my garden, using the framed compost bin to be just a stockpile receptacle. I would appreciate your feedback on the soundness of this approach.
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Just bury it deep enough to prevent any pests from digging it back up. So at least several inches deep, but you don’t have to go crazy with it.
In general, you’ll want to give the materials at least three months underground before it completely breaks down. So you can’t bury the material and immediately plant — you’d need to bury it in fall or winter, and then plant in the spring.
If it’s completely finished compost, you can either put it on top of the soil, or work it into the soil. And you don’t have to give it any additional time unless you’re worried that it isn’t actually finished compost yet. I just piled a bunch of finished compost on my own garden that is growing right now, for example, because I was confident that it was completely finished.
Can you add orange peel to a compost bin?
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Yes, absolutely.
With worm composting, the worms don’t like citrus. But with regular composting, it’s fine.
I am assuming I can add corn husks and cobs to my compost pile. What do I need to do to them to assist in the decomposition process? Also I have a myrtle tree in my yard that drops blossons all summer. I have been hesitant to add them to the pile, because I am continuous composting, so the pile doesn’t stay hot. I don’t want the seeds to germinate. This pertains to other kinds of seeds as well (squash seeds, watermelon seeds, etc.). Thanks for any help I can get…
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With corn husks and corn cobs, shredding them before you put them into the compost pile will help them break down faster.
With seeds or weeds, you can throw them into a five gallon bucket for three or four days before adding them to the compost. Weeds and seeds will quickly rot when they are left in water, so they’ll no longer sprout after that.
If your compost is hot enough, it will destroy the seeds on its own. But most people don’t get the temperature of their compost very high, so you are correct about worrying if they’ll sprout later.
Also I m wondering about tough leaves like magnolias or waxy leaves like holly bush leaves. What can I do to get them ready for the compost heap? We have a myrtle tree that sheds thin strips of bark all summer. Can this go in the compost pile?
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All of that stuff can be composted, but it will take much, much longer to break down. If you recognize that and don’t have a problem with it, then it’s fine to compost it. If you don’t want to wait that long, you might want to avoid those items.
With any of those materials, shredding before putting it into the compost can help it break down a lot faster.
Thanks for the advice!
Hello again!
First of all, thank you so much for a great site. It has been a huge help in my composting endeavor.
I have recently found mushrooms growing inside my compost container. At first I thought it an anomaly, however after going through some memory files in my brain, I remembered that my wife and I had thrown kitchen scraps with some mushroom pieces in it into the container about 3 weeks ago. : o (
Are mushrooms bad for composting?
Thank you!
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Mushrooms can grow spontaneously when there are wet and woody conditions. You’ll see them sometimes in your flowerbeds after a rain if you have some kind of a bark mulch, for example.
So the mushrooms growing in the compost aren’t necessarily related to putting mushrooms into your compost pile.
But to answer your question, mushrooms are perfectly okay for composting, and in compost. Your pile is perfectly okay. In fact, you can buy bagged “mushroom compost” at most nurseries and garden centers!
My friend has a large garden in our sandy soil (southeast GA on the coast). He also has goats and chickens and ducks and a lot of lawn and oak trees. He also has 2 John Deere tractors. How can I help him get started composting? I thought about planting a green cover crop this winter over his garden, but don’t know what to suggest. He has room to work compost into his garden and to also start a good sized compost pile. He is also growing lots of varieties of fruit and nut trees.
Please make specific suggestions as to how I can help him. Thanks so much.
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You might check out this Organic Gardening magazine article about cover crops:
http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s-3-81-789,00.html
If your friend has a lot of space, then a simple large compost pile might be the easiest thing for him to do. Or, since he has power equipment, he could also do his own trench composting where you bury the materials and you’re done.
I’m also intrigued with this concept that I recently read about. I don’t have the equipment to do this myself, but your friend does!
http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/
We live in an apartment with no yard debris bins, gardens, or houseplants. However, we produce a ton of compost material and would like to start collecting but we need a place to drop it off. Do you know of any good ways to search for local places to drop compost materials?
Thanks for your help!
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There’s always indoor composting, with bins like these:
http://www.cleanairgardening.com/bokashi-cycle-indoor-compost-bin.html
http://www.cleanairgardening.com/indoor-composter.html
http://www.cleanairgardening.com/autocomposter.html
But then you still have the issue of what to do with your finished compost!
There are only a few places I know of, like most of Germany, and San Francisco, where they give you a separate bin for organic materials that can be composted. But maybe you could try Craigstlist and see if there are any gardeners or composters in your area who would want a weekly drop off of your stuff. That’s my best suggestion.
Hey! Thanks for your website, I’ve found it hugely helpful. I’m planning on starting a compost with the cooking classes at my school this year, but I didn’t know a thing about what I was going to have to do. I just have a few questions left. I live in New Jersey, and since it gets pretty cold I was wondering if this would affect the frequency with which I would have to turn the pile. (Do you turn it when it gets too hot? I was confused) I don’t want it to stay too cold. Also, does adding water make the pile hotter or colder? Should I be worried about the pile actually freezing?
Thanks for your help!
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In general with composting in cold areas, the composting process can slow down or even come to a complete stop during an extended freezing period. But it’s really no big deal. You can still keep adding materials, and when the weather warms up again, the composting process will start up all on its own. It’s possible for a really good compost pile to continue to generate its own heat even in really cold weather. But most people won’t have their pile or bin going that well.
Adding water could make the pile hotter or colder, depending on the circumstances. You want to keep your compost pile about the dampness of a wrung out sponge. So if it were too dry, then adding water would probably help it heat up and start going again. But if it were already too wet, then adding water would make it worse.
I’ve just purchased a regular plastic trash can to use as a composting bin. I know I need to put some holes in it for drainage and aeration. Do you have any recommendations for the number, size, and/or location of said holes?
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I would say in general, the more holes, the merrier.
You could use a big drill bit and drill dozens of holes through the bottom and all around the sides, and that would probably be fine. You could also optionally drill holes through the lid that you’ll be using, so that a little water can drain in if it rains.
I’d just start out drilling “a bunch” and try it out and see how it goes. If it seems like liquid isn’t draining well, then come back with the drill and put even more holes in it!
Will it be a problem to set up my compost where there are tree roots?
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No, it should be fine. The nutrients from the compost breaking down can wash into the soil, which would benefit the tree.
I once had a compost bin against a fence line near some large shrubs, and you could see where the roots from the shrubs had grown up into the bottom of the bin, seeking out the rich nutrients.
We recently moved into a new home with a huge 2-acre yard. At the back is a scrub/tree-shaded area, where the previous owners dumped their leaves and grass clippings. This area receives almost no sun whatsoever. There is about a foot of deep brown, very wet, very dense, quasi-broken-down stuff that could possibly be considered mulch. My main question are, is there any way to tell if there’s something harmful in there? Have we been gifted with a starter batch of compost? Is it alright to being mixing stuff in there, or should we worry about mold and such since it’s so wet?
Thanks for the wonderful site!
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You don’t have to have full sun to make compost. You can even make compost in black garbage bags by filling a bag full of leaves, putting in a scoop of something nitrogen rich and some water, and leaving it for six months or a year to break down. At the end of that period, you’ll have finished compost.
You probably already have finished compost at the bottom of the pile. If it looks earthy, with maybe a little bit of leaf texture left, it’s probably ready to be spread wherever you want to use it.
You could pitchfork or rake away the top layer into a new pile, harvest all of the finished compost from the bottom, and then move all of the stuff that wasn’t finished right back where it was before.
I think that you have indeed been gifted with a big batch of compost, and you should keep adding to it.
Piling stuff up in a hidden corner of the yard to slowly break down is a perfectly legitimate “lazy” way to compost!
OK time for another Q: I am short on carbon in the summer months, as the leaves aren’t falling off the trees yet. Plenty of nitrogen with the grass clippings swept off the driveway and sidewalks, and the veggie scraps. My son says I should use shredded newspaper. What would I have to do to the local daily to make it acceptable as composting material?
Also, my wife weeds her garden assiduously but is afraid for me to put what she removes into the compost pile for fear it will show up again the next year when I put the compost into the garden or flower beds. What do I do to be sure that I am not putting future weed headaches into the compost pile?
Hello,
I just got a commerical composter and the cheapest I could find in retial store was 100 gallon. I got it last week but I am so nervous about starting. I have few problems:
1. it does not have a base and I have to put it on grass to attract the helper bugs but my husband has problem with that. He thinks we will ruin the patch of grass it sits on!!!!I worry if that thing does not owrk, it will be the case???
2. The capacity is so big and given the season (lack of leaves), I only have been able to pull few weeds to add to the pile. There is no dearth of kitchen waste but I am nervous to add that as it will be all exposed at this time. How high a pile I should have to start with? And does one have to have a full pile to start with or adding to the pile everyday will retard the process?
Please help. I want to stick to the process of doing this.
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Any time that you place something on top of grass that blocks the light, it will indeed kill the grass in that spot. But it will be improving the soil on that spot, so the grass will quickly grow back if you ever move the bin to a different location. Can’t you find a spot near a shrub or in a corner someplace where the grass doesn’t look that great anyway?
You can start small, and continuously add to the pile. Please read about batch composting versus continuous composting here: http://compostinstructions.com/methods-of-composting/
If the bin is covered, it’s okay to put in some kitchen scraps before you have enough leaves to bury them. If it’s uncovered, then you might wait until you get a little bit more material in there first, just to be safe about not attracting pests.
Thank you so much. That helps. So, I should get composter starter and can safely add kitchen scraps to it and keep the contents moist. So, I have more of nitrogen content but need cabon more??? Besides few weeds to pull of the vacant lot next door, what else can I add till leaves fall. Is there a way to capture grass clipings without a bagged mower???
Regards
Can Omega 3 fish oil softgel capsules be added to a compost pile? I have a bottle that I can no longer use and wonder if I can add it to the compost pile without the oil ruining my compost? Thank you for your website.
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I don’t think it will hurt your compost, but it might make it stink for a while. If you aren’t worried about the potential bad smell, then go for it.
Since compost can reach 160 degrees. Is there risk of combustion? I live in the woods and fire is always a problem.
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It is unlikely that you as a home composter will achieve temperatures that high. And if you do, it won’t last for long.
Typically, the only compost piles that have spontaneously combusted have been those that are very, very large piles that were built with a front loader or bulldozer and are bigger than 10 feet by 10 feet by 10 feet.
How can you store compost after it’s finished cooking? Some I put on my garden itself and work in the soil in spring but what if I have extra. What is the best way?
Do I need air circulation? Thanks.
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You can just leave it in a pile, or cover the pile with a tarp.
I usually just let the bin fill up and then leave it sitting there until I’m ready to use it.
Once the compost is finished, you don’t need any more air circulation.