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sylviatexas1

March 2011 What Have You Fed Your Compost Today?

sylviatexas1
13 years ago

shavings from eye pencil

week's supply of newspapers, junk mail, & office paper

coffee grounds & filters

teabags

'bout a teaspoon each of mixed vegetables & mashed potatoes

that had gotten coldish & dryish

& what have you fed your compost today?

Comments (50)

  • Lloyd
    13 years ago

    Well, with it being -25C with a -34C windchill right now, I'm gonna hold off going out today for a while.

    My compost must be too wet 'cause it's frozen!

    ;-)

    Lloyd

  • marvinvwinkle
    13 years ago

    Aged cow manure, banana peels, calender pages,sweet potato peels, and coffee grounds. Still no heat. I think I'm cursed.

  • sylviatexas1
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    Oh, Lloyd, I feel for you!

    Here, we can get outside nearly every day;
    when we had 4 days of snow & ice this winter, we all had cabin fever, & the schools all closed down.

    Marvin, just keep on adding materials;
    it may still be too chilly for the micro-herd to come out from under their little quilts & start grazing.

  • heirloomjunkie
    13 years ago

    Rinds of a honeydew melon and a cantalope
    Junk mail
    Loose leaf lavendar from my tea
    Banana peel

    Sylvia, I love the imagery! I can just imagine a sleepy little micro-herd. :D

  • tifbee
    13 years ago

    3 gallons sweet tea from work that went bad
    leaf mold
    shredded paper
    coffee grounds and filter
    fruit salad that was left over at work
    5 gallon bucket of veggie/fruit scraps from juicer
    handful of dried up onion seeds and moldy potatoe seeds
    houseplant prunings
    bucket of rain water

    Mix and enjoy the slow cook=)

  • groomie2
    13 years ago

    7 tubs of horse manure with bedding
    flowers from Valentines Day
    ripped up cookie and taco boxes
    shredded leaves
    banana peels
    UCG
    used napkins and paper towels
    uneaten leftovers from fridge
    and I just realized I forgot to add the shredded paper!

  • lynxe
    13 years ago

    It's been a while since I've visited or posted here, but I'm still composting....today, in addition to the usual kitchen scraps, I dumped yet another ~10 gallon bucket of finely chopped browns from the garden beds -- everything from hosta and daylily scapes, to dried leaves, to asters (yup, including the seed heads, but what are ya gonna do about it other than just plan to turn the pile and weed when necessary). Branches, many many many stems from weeds and plants that I'd left over the winter, dried grasses, vines and stems from tomato, pumpkin and squash plants, all chopped or cut up. Even chopped up stems from brambles and believe it or not, from branches of a honey locust I need to get rid of. I've been meticulously chopping the tips of its evil thorns, a tedious process, but probably necessary. What else am I going to do with those branches? Certainly not leave them for unsuspecting garbage collectors & I don't even want to toss them in the woods since we'd eventually like to get in there & hunt around for more rocks for walls and walkways....

    It doesn't sound like a large amount, but this is, by my calculation, about the 30th gallon I've dumped in the pile. I have A LOT left to get to, and my plan is to soon begin bagging and storing the stuff to use in piles in the summer.

  • lisascenic Urban Gardener, Oakland CA
    13 years ago

    The theater where I work was getting rid of stale ground coffee and I nabbed it for my garden beds. Not strictly compost, but a nice little score.

    Yesterday, it was wood shavings from our scenic construction studio.

  • sunnyside1
    13 years ago

    Gadzillion buckets of dead nettle and henbit, kitchen trimmings and coffee grounds, used paper towels, alfalfa pellets, shredded junk mail, torn up cardboard boxes, and shredded leaves. No heat yet in my SW Missouri bin, but I know that's temporary.
    Sunny

  • compogardenermn
    13 years ago

    Used paper plates
    Veggie/fruit peelings
    Used guinnea pig bedding
    UCG
    Walleye carcasses from latest ice fishing endeavor
    Sauger carcasses from latest ice fishing endeavor
    Jumbo perch carcasses from latest ice fishing endeavor
    Eelpout carcass from latest ice fishing endeavor
    TP roll tubes
    Vacuum cleaner contents

  • sylviatexas1
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    Lynxe, do you have a chipper, or are there enough branches to make it worthwhile to rent a chipper?

    If not, I'd ask someone in the city trash dept.

    I know spring is coming, because the commercial landscapers are ripping up the winter plants & putting them into big plastic bags...
    a number of which eagerly leapt into my car.

  • lynxe
    13 years ago

    No, I don't own a chipper. I know I'm doing things in an incredibly inefficient way, but I don't really want to own a noisy thing like that. I'm hoping this is the only time I'll have so much darn stuff to chop up....that, in the future, I'll take the garden down little by little, or in the fall and let it set in the compost pile over the winter. Things just came up this time, and I let everything slide. I could conceivably rent a chipper -- and that's an excellent idea BTW -- but the city trash idea wouldn't work. Believe it or not, we don't have trash pickup at our house! The road is too narrow, and the trucks refuse to come down it (lazy bums LOL), so we have to drop off trash in bins at another property we own. Now that I've written that out, I realize how ridiculous that sounds.

    Nothing added to the pile today other than kitchen scraps, including coffee grounds and the like.

  • piranhafem
    13 years ago

    I looked into renting a chipper and found it was ridiculously expensive, something like $150 for a day. I hired a couple of guys to come out and do the chipping for me. Later I bought a small electric chipper at Harbor Frieght for about $120. It can only take fairly small branches but after reading a tip on this forum, I removed the plastic safety feed chute and it is MUCH easier to use and I can get it to shred a lot more types of garden waste. It's pretty dangerous so I'm extremely careful, and always wear my safety goggles.

    I even use it to shred used coffee filters. I get lots of UCG w/ filters from a nearby convenience store, and found that the filters just weren't breaking down well unless I shredded them. Doing it by hand was extremely tedious. The chipper clogged with the plastic safety feed chute attached but does a GREAT job with the chute removed.

    Today's offerings to the compost pile included cabbage butts, carrot butts, tops, and peelings, and herb stems, all from my own garden... which is nourished with compost. Ah, the circle of life! :-)

    --Maureen

  • batyabeth
    13 years ago

    Regular kitchen trimmings, incl. nettle tea leavings
    Whatever brown non-euc leaves I can scrape (literally) from anywhere around the house
    Leavings from son's haircut before he headed back to base (I was told that I had done a not so good job and he would ask someone else next time - what's a little bald spot? no one can see it right there on your forehead.)He was very annoyed, but there was a line for the bathroom, so he still kindly went out to the pile, bless 'im.
    This weekend I will probably add all of the plant debris that a three day thunderstorm will have caused: broken flowers, smashed and smooshed and flooded garden trash. At least it's badly needed rain, and will end for the year soon enough.

  • sylviatexas1
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    about those thorn tree cuttings:

    I once had a giant, house-eating, fishhook-thorned Mermaid rose cut down.

    I took 2 guys to lasso it (literally) & drag it to the back.

    Even dead, the thing still towered over the 6' fence.

    The first year, I faithfully added molasses & beer (neighbor worked for a beer company-did you know that beer has an expiration date beyond which it can't be sold?).

    The next year, it was about 2/3 the height of the fence, & now it's gone.

    If you have an out-of-the-way spot, you might just pile that stuff up & pour on the strong greens: molasses, beer, urine, sugary stuff.

  • heirloomjunkie
    13 years ago

    Melons that had gone bad
    banana peels
    lettuce
    box of tea bags that some yucky bugs had gotten into
    unused mint coffee grounds (the pile smells AMAZING)
    potato peels
    Starbucks cardboard coffee ring (they're green now - boo)
    also bought 250 pounds of peat and composted manure that will be added with my compost to ammend the soil

  • DominicB
    13 years ago

    I have two soilsaver bins side by side. One was pretty much finished by the beginning of the winter, so I let it sit. The other I just added to all winter. When I took my first good look at them a couple of weeks ago (dust off the snow and all)the "ready" one was still frozen solid, but the "add to" one was workable, so there was definitely some microbial activity going on there. BTW, this is NY.

    Just today I added the kitchen scraps, coffee ground from the lunchroom at work, and a few inches of shredded leaves.

    Oh, and of course I never miss the opportunity to pee in it when I have a chance - a little nitrogen boost and a little heat boost to get things going.

  • groomie2
    13 years ago

    more horse manure,
    ancient candycanes
    old chocolate sauce
    shredded leaves
    shredded paper
    UCG
    used napkins and paper towels
    last of the Valentines Day flowers

  • curt_grow
    13 years ago

    Two gallons of kitchen scraps from the unheated back porch
    Twin Cities; ME too, a bunch of fish scrap from ice fishing, jumbo perch
    Lloyd; I think my compost is too wet, it seems to be frozen? OH well it will be compost by fall anyways.

  • Lloyd
    13 years ago

    Ya, try and cut back on the water there curt. We have 'warmed up' to +2!! woohoo! But blizzard warning issued for tonight. d'oh!! Must be March in Manitoba!

    I hate all you people that can work on their compost and stuff right now. ;-)

    Lloyd

  • gemini_jim
    13 years ago

    The usual: coffee grounds, tea bags, nana peels, apple cores, egg shells, veggie prep leftovers, leftover toddler chow (scrambled eggs, pbj, pasta), paper towels, sour milk, rinsings from kefir production, pee, and straw. Yesterday I tarped the pile against the 2" of rain. Things are starting to heat up nicely; must be spring!

  • Lloyd
    13 years ago

    woot!! Dumped a couple of months worth of kitchen stuff into tumblers, dug the snow out around motor/belt and let 'er rip. Clunk, clunk, clunk as the frozen chunks rotated in the drums. Didn't really accomplish much but it felt good!

    Blizzard warning still in effect for tonight. :-(

    Lloyd

  • dogwind
    13 years ago

    egg shells, fruit and vege scraps, tea bags, coffee grounds, a pizza box

  • lynxe
    13 years ago

    Over the last few days, I've pulled from the grass and added to the pile about 7 gallons of barren strawberry (Waldsteinia). The same bucket I used to collect it is now almost full and contains nearly 10 gallons of chopped up leaves, stems, dried grasses, dead daylily foliage, and etc. But the best is yet to come -- last night, we went up the river to try a real (20 oz.!) pint of freshly made Irish stout on tap at an British-style pub in the area. Never mind the wonderful beer and live Celtic music, excellent as they both were -- I came home with a 60-pound bag of spent grains! Does life get any better than that?

  • sylviatexas1
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    "a 60-pound bag of spent grains"

    I am way bad jealous!

  • Lloyd
    13 years ago

    It's just not fair!! sob

    Lloyd

  • heirloomjunkie
    13 years ago

    I went to Starbucks today to get coffee grounds. They never have any, and I finally found out why. Some guy is hitting all of them early in the morning. He keeps a big garbage can in his car and dumps them in as he goes. I can't figure out whether to love or hate this guy. :P

  • diane_nj 6b/7a
    13 years ago

    Coffee grounds, bananas, apples, orange peels, egg shells, onion skins, broccoli ends, limes, paper towels, packing paper from recent purchases, paper bags, spinach, lettuce (I think that's what it was).

  • lynxe
    13 years ago

    I went to a daylily club luncheon yesterday and came home with the parts of my meal I don't eat (white pasta and the chocolate cake). Those are going in the pile today. Along with more of what's been going in it these days -- chopped up dead stuff from the garden, including lots more daylily foliage from last season, plus however much barren strawberry I can get out of the lawn.

    Don't be jealous, Sylvia, you're in Texas! I'll be weeding in chilly weather, not the most pleasant of tasks. Oh and Lloyd, you stop yer whinging right now....I've seen pics of your compost piles!

    ...which reminds me, more of those spent grains are getting mixed in as well. (grin)

  • cal_dreamer
    13 years ago

    Lots of shredded paper and lots of roughly chopped grapefruit rinds. (Stripped the tree and made fresh juice!)

  • gardenz4evr
    13 years ago

    Sad news here, my wife went on strike and is tossing our "greens" in the trash when I'm not looking. But, when she wants her roses planted, Ah! there will be my arm-twisting. In the meantime, I try to put out coffee grounds and banana peels and so on.

    She also didn't have any complaints when she needed worms for the science project my kids had to do for school!!!

    BTW, we didn't disect, for all my worm-loving friends. We just exposed them to light and then covered them up again to see their reaction to light and dark.

    Kevin
    Mid-atlantic region

  • ALJO
    13 years ago

    I'm so excited - I'm new to composting and just got my first compost bin going (our yard is in a state of major construction so I needed something portable & my other family members are afraid of a "stinky" pile - So I got a tumbler at Costco).

    Feed it leaves & coffee grounds :)

  • sylviatexas1
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    Welcome, ALJO!

    It *is* exciting, isn't it, to take "trash", dead trash at that, & turn it towards new life?

  • batyabeth
    13 years ago

    Scored four large bags of shredded office paper yesterday, from work. Will be nice to finally have some browns that aren't leaves that I scrape up one by one to put on top of the veggies, etc that go on the pile nearly every day. Will be sure not to make a matted layer! Rain is here again, full Spring is after the rains stop this weekend, and now the real work starts.....can't wait.

  • ALJO
    13 years ago

    Yes - It is exciting!

    Added burnt popcorn & ground up egg shells (I would have left them intact if not for this thread :)

    Now I'm waiting for the grass to grow so I can add that... Never thought I'd be looking forward to mowing

  • heirloomjunkie
    13 years ago

    Kevin, I feel so ridiculous, but i actually gasped at your post, like "oh no! she's in trouble!" :)

    I added fuzzy strawberries, two huge sweet potatoes I can't even remember buying, egg shells, broccoli stems, junk mail, take out bags, and some potato peels.

    Kim

  • juntawillow - Z5 Chi
    13 years ago

    ALJO - We just bought our first composter from Costco too! What a deal... 80 gallon Lifetime tumbler for $99 bucks! Its almost double that on their website! Can't wait to start my first attempt at composting this year!

    Great post, everyone!

  • ms.maroon
    13 years ago

    Hi, everybody!
    It's my first time posting on gardenweb, although I've been using it as a reference garden "book" for quite a while. :)

    Today I finally filled up to the top my winter compost bin. It was a very nutritious load of scups, I rearly treat my worms such a rich meal.
    Consisting: kitchen waste-potatoes, cucumber, carrot pealings. Some old dried rose hips, apricot nuts with thier broken shells. A pumpkin plus some old goat dung on top.

    I have a question and if it's not for this topic, could you redirect me to the right one?
    I'm a SFG fan and would like to make some new beds this spring. I'm planing on using the "raw" compost on the bottom of the beds following the Lasagnia method.
    Anyone done similar experiments before?

  • lynxe
    13 years ago

    So far today, nothing too exciting: the contents of our kitchen compost container, contents of the coffee pot, water used to rinse/wash kitchen dishes.

  • sylviatexas1
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    Welcome, Ms Maroon!

    You're off to a great start:

    "A pumpkin plus some old goat dung on top."

    Now, I ask the congregation, is it time for a new "You Might Be a Compost Wacko" thread?

    Bwaaaa haaaaa haaaaa!

  • dorothyroeder
    13 years ago

    I always cut up my excess Kumbucha "mushroom" and add it with the other garbage. I am hoping it adds some helpful bugs.

  • nutsaboutflowers
    13 years ago

    I put more coffee grounds in an ice cream bucket on the kitchen counter. It's purely dried coffee grounds.

    I'm in the same boat as Lloyd, except I can't even get to my compost because it's 50 feet away through 3 feet of snow !
    Frozen solid is an understatement.

    You people are so fortunate =:)

  • luckygal
    13 years ago

    quote "...unused mint coffee grounds (the pile smells AMAZING)"

    Yum! My winter compost bin only smells like fermenting fruit and veggies. Time to go to the mill and get some find wood shavings so I can mix it up and get it heating altho there is probably still a lump of ice in the middle. Snow is going fairly quickly tho so it won't be long.

    Additions are the usual - fruit and veggie trimmings, teabags, paper towels, egg shells - nothing very exotic but it all adds up.

  • shermthewerm
    13 years ago

    Chicken manure & shavings, icky lettuce, potato peels, asparagus ends, dryer lint, tea bags, coffee grounds w/filter, cardboard from Friday night's pizza, empty flour bag, tp roll...I think that's it for today.

  • amyamybobamy
    13 years ago

    Guavas, eggshells, and pounds and pounds of olives that fell from the neighbor's tree.

  • tifbee
    13 years ago

    Some leftover birthday cake, coffee grounds and filters, juicer veggie/fruit scraps, banana peels, and apple cores. Added some oak leaves and shredded paper, and mixed. We've had 2 days of rain so didn't add any water to the mix.

  • heirloomjunkie
    13 years ago

    A banana peel I rescued from the garbage, leaves and twigs that wouldn't fit last fall, some pink lettuce (ew), coffee grounds, sweet potatoes.

    Oh! and my boyfriend bought a big bag of potatoes forever ago, and forgot they existed. I pulled them out yesterday, and they are basically plants. :) Eyes everywhere. Can I compost these? I have seed potatoes on the way, so I have no room to plant them.

    Kim

  • sylviatexas1
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    "A banana peel I rescued from the garbage"

    Woo-Hoo!

    Rescuing putrescibles from teh garbage wins you the Compost Wacko Prize of the day!

    You can put the taters into the compost;
    they may compost, & they may grow...

  • luckygal
    13 years ago

    I added 2 avocado peels and pits (along with everything else) and I'm going to be watching them to see how long they take to break down. Possibly a few years. Might even have to go back to sifting my 'post to keep track of them. Maybe this composting thing is tipping me over the edge. Or not. I'm sure there are wackier things done in the name of composting.

  • heirloomjunkie
    13 years ago

    Thanks, Sylvia!

    And Luckygal, my pile never seems to get crazy hot, so I sift and pass the ceremonial sock from old to new pile every spring. :) Kind of gross now that I think about it...

    Kim