However, if you are adding a soil amendment to your beds in an effort to improve water retention and soil aeration, breaking down slowly is a positive attribute.

Pine also tends to be acidic while composting, although finished compost containing pine shifts back towards neutral. Some plants, like azaleas prefer acidic soil so this isn't always a drawback. I mulch fairly heavily with pine needles mixed with grass clippings and soil under my azaleas (sheet composting) and they seem quite happy about it.

You will want to add a lot of greens if you are composting pine. For example,manure would be a good high nitrogen addition. Know anyone who has bunnies?

Actually the same goes for citrus, it's not bad for the compost but it takes ages to break down. Even if you grind it up in your blender before you toss it in the bin, all those little citrus bits last a long time too. The bugs and worms in the bin don't seem to care for citrus. If I accidentally throw orange peels in the compost bin, DH gets really annoyed since he does the turning and sifting.

Grease and meat products will attract vermin and carniverous animals so you won't want them in the compost. And they smell terrible when they rot, but like everything else, they will break down eventually. From time to time I've had all these things in my bins for one reason or another. I started a bin about 35 years ago and learned mostly from trial and error. When DH came along and he wanted to manage the composting I was happy with that arrangement. Now he does the heavy work and I reap the benefits. When I need compost he shovels it out of a holding barrel into the garden cart and brings it to me. So I usually try real hard not to put anything into it that he doesn't want me to. Cheryl

len

The only things I refuse to compost are cactus pads, because the needles don't degrade and stay in the finished compost.

Citrus composts best when it's at least cut in half. The rinds are slow to rot and the oranges were surviving for several years.

Pine cones will eventually decompose, as will pine needles. shredding them speeds up the decomposition.

And don't tell him that he can't compost meat! Tell him that he can! Tell him you've heard of a man who cooked an entire carcass into ash in six months time in the center of his red-hot! decomposing pile. Appeal to his inner caveman.

Appeal to the little boy in him. Tell him that some people pee ! on their pile of rotting carcasses and vegetables.

Appeal to his innate male desire to hook up electricity or gasoline or blades to any simple. household. project. Tell him you've seen people who turn their pile of decomposing matter with machinery. Tell him that some clever guy on the internet made a mechanized compost sifter. Tell him some guy poured concrete pads for the bins he made to contain his decomposing matter. Men love the idea of pouring concrete.

Flatter him. Tell him that your itty bitty biceps get sore when you try to turn the compost, and while you were out there, you were thinking to yourself "how strong he is" and "He could probably turns this without even breaking a sweat, that's how amazing he is."

Anyway, it's clear to me that you've been going about this the wrong way. Lloyd and jonhuges practically beg their clever wives, now, to let them take the orange peels and eggshells out to the pile.

Can't speak for Jon but as for myself, composting is a stress relief valve, one might say therapeutic. Between working, shopping, cleaning, cooking and all the other household chores, I find composting and farming relaxing. Something I can do in my time and at my pace. Some people golf, some collect stamps or coins, some garden, but whatever hobby one has, it's usually something they are interested in. If others ain't interested in it, the odds of getting them to willingly help out without causing resentment are pretty slim.

Lloyd

P.S. Not a fan of concrete but I'm in awe of those who can build with that stuff!

When he finished and sifted his first batch of compost he was hooked. So then he announces that my bins are too small and that we need more of them. First he just added a third bin and doubled the size of the ones I was using. Then a year later those weren't enough to satisfy his masculine urges and he moved the whole concern out behind the garage where he can have four bins. A year later he added four more. Eight bins kept him busy for several years, but last year he added two more to use as "staging" bins, one for slower stuff and one for the faster stuff.

Two years ago he needed a larger sifter, so I built one from 2x4's and made it taller than our old one. This one can accomodate our largest wheelbarrow, so he just drives the barrow under the sifter and sifts the compost directly into it for fast delivery to me wherever I happen to need it. He can also stand a 45 gallon trash barrel under the sifter if he's going to stow compost for later use.

A couple years ago he broke his right arm and wasn't able to make any compost that summer. He whined like a whipped puppy for three months over that. But he's doing fine this year and he just came home with a bunch of new barrels for compost storage so I guess he's expecting to make a lot. I can't bear to tell him that I don't want to save it because he loves to go out and see that he made 1000 gallons of compost, but I could use every last pinch of it in my flowerbeds the moment it comes out of the sifter.

There are a variety of tactics to get a man motivated to make compost. Like Annpat says, you can appeal to all of the sides of his psyche, there's guilt that works as long as you don't overdo it, reverse psychology works really well on men. They HATE to be told they don't understand the process or the principle well enough to do it right. Enticement works well, 'while you do this, I'm going to go inside and cook you up a big old steak, mash some potatoes, and make a chocolate pie for dessert.' Other forms of enticement work well too, depending on what he likes best, but I won't go into the squishy details, you get the idea.

Cheryl

This whole thing could backfire. I'm seeing the flaws in the theory now.

The rest of it is spot on. :-D

This is the best and funniest post on this whole site =:)

You crack me up! I'm reading this at work (a very somber cubicle environment) and I'm giggling my head off. The cubicle gophers are going to start popping their heads up to see what I'm up to.

M

How to MANage your woman? I'm not sure DH remembers that I am a woman, besides he needs a mommy more than he needs a wife anyway. Cheryl

All kidding aside, Can I put unfinished compost in my veggiebeds? Should I bury it or mix it in?

Thanks!

I found your post quite funny! So, please don't take this the wrong way, but why is North American culture so ingrained with gender roles? This is *not* directed at you, but at society in general. I'm a guy and I see nothing feminine about gardens, pink colored things, or flowery designs. My wife is an expert with drills, electrical stuff and carpentry. Without her, I wouldn't be able to build or repair anything in my life. I'm not ashamed to say it, because I don't measure my masculinity that way. Both my wife and I were lucky in that our parents did not force us into 'typical' hobbies for our genders, which is unfortunately the case for many youngsters.

BTW, I do love thermometers of all kinds.

I take your point, and believe-you-me, if femininity were measured in terms of choice of hobbies or clothing choices or role choices, or physical strength, I would barely pass muster. For Christmas last year, no one batted an eye when I received a router as a gift. (I think it speaks more to common sense, than gender stereotyping, that I am flat out terrified of it.) The year before, my brother gave me a table sander. My mother gave me a CarHart jumpsuit to wear ice skating. I cannot begin to tell you how feminine I look in that, mostly thanks to my white skates.

Because I am strong, and have never not pitched in when something needs to be lifted, it is always assumed that I would help the gathered menfolk whenever a grueling job has to be done. What immediately comes to mind is the twice annual job of putting in and taking out our and my cousin-next-door's docks every year---a job I always dreaded. It always annoyed me to see the other women standing on shore watching us. That was ten years ago, though; because in the end, I was the only person who showed up here to put the dock in, so we hired someone to do it.

I actually think that the U.S. (I can't speak for Canada, although I presume it's the same.) has come a long way in a short time regarding the presumption of gender roles, and I think that women, especially, are abandoning gender stereotypes. A friend of mine, who refused to pump her own gas six years ago, has discovered, after divorce, that she can not only pump her own gas, but also snowblow her own yard with a huge snowblower (she bought one like mine), and together with a female friend, she can chew through sheetrock with a reciprocating saw, narrowly missing electrical wires, knocking out supporting studs, build and install a crawlspace door, and later repair all the damage that said friend created by using an inappropriate saw on sheetrock. (In my defense, she didn't have a better idea.)

I absolutely concede your point regarding the stereotyping that I engaged in. It was based, however, on a trend that I would say undeniably occurs here---and often amuses me. 98% of the time on this forum, when an engine or a motor or ball bearings or an explosive device has been hooked up to a compost pile, it's a man who devised the ingenuity. 100% of the time that an animal weighing over 100 lbs. has been composted here, it was done by a man. Of course, that's only because traditional gender roles exposed them to tools and equipment and methods and machinery (and hobbies) that women have not been privy to.

I'm glad that you mentioned my use of stereotyping, though, because I remember when it would have gone unnoticed.

Curt~

But seriously, anybody know if it's possible to compost sheetrock or use as a soil amendment somehow? Thanks.

My city composting operation (at the landfill) takes in clean drywall scrap, shreds it and mixes it with shredded yard waste to make compost.

The only problem is how to grind it fine enough so you don't have all kinds of ugly white bits in your soil.

Drywall has paper backing but that's compostible. It also has some borax as a binder IIRC. Boron can supposedly inhibit plant growth if too much is present, but I haven't heard of a reasonable amount of sheetrock powder causing problems. I'm sure my city operation is not the only one doing this around the US.

You might want to make a new thread on drywall composting if you want folks to see it.

Anyway why not citrus? Because it takes long to break down?

I have composted animals, but they were fairly small, just mice, chipmunks, moles, voles and possums. (The mole was extremely large for a mole - bigger than the possum.) I had a jack russel that was a great mole catcher. The labrador learned how to catch moles from the Jack Russel and then expanded the practice to other critters. The dogs learn that they get a treat for critters dropped in the compost pile.

As for pine, I compost my christmas tree every year. I cut off the branches and run them through the chipper/shredder. Some parts of the trunk are too big for our shredder, so it gets sawed into pieces, just big enough for our backyard fire pit.

I also compost dog poo.

According to that Wiki article, Chinese drywall gives off sulfur containing gases as a result of a particular bacteria attacking the unusually high levels of pyrite in the formula. Pyrite is nothing but iron sulfide, quite harmless. In an aerobic composting environment, I suspect that particular bacteria would decrease as others compete. Also, any gases that are produced will waft away outdoors. In fact, those bacteria probably already exist in most soils and compost.

I did notice that the Chinese drywall also had more fly ash in it than American drywall. I do have some concerns about metals in fly ash, especially any fly ash from China.

I would think this problem has been cleared up so any new drywall isn't going to have these problems anyway. But I would probably not put Chinese drywall, new or old, in my compost.

As for fiberglass, it's first I've heard of that. There can't be much in there since you don't see it, and it's not a toxic risk. It's tiny glass fibers, which are made from silica and other harmless minerals, and would disappear into the soil.

Of course it's up to everyone to make their own choices. I just try to clarify the facts.