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dfcash55

Bones, shells, peach pits, and hard to compost items

dfcash55
9 years ago

I found a great way to use hard to compost items without waiting years for them to break down. I bury anything from the kitchen in my compost bin deep enough to keep the rodents from getting it, including bones, peach pits, mussel shells, coconut shells, etc. I have a plastic bin with doors on the bottom for removal of finished compost. I keep the bin in the middle of the garden and in the spring and fall I let my chickens in the garden to clean up and do some pest control. I open the doors of the bin so the chickens can spread the finished compost for me while they dig through it for bugs.

The problem I was having was that many of the above items would not break down and ended up strewn all over the garden. When I was cleaning up I put the stuff I found in my fire bowl rather than walking it to the trash. The next time the neighbors came over for a backyard fire I left it all in there and burned wood on top of it all. A couple days later when I sprinkled the ash in the garden the larger bones and the mussel shells were still there but they easily fractured and crumbled when stepped on. The chickens ate some of the remnants (I presume for the calcium). I'm so happy that I found an easy way to turn problem compost items into a soil amendment!