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Sun, Sep 23, 12 at 12:57
| Any suggestions for additional sources of carbon materials for a fall compost pile? I'll be buying some hay/straw locally and will have access to leaves (very limited) which I can shred. (Do dried clumps of grass provide nitrogen or carbon?) Have reviewed various sites about carbon materials and haven't come up with anything that I can readily get my hands on. What do you use?
gary |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| grass is both nitrogen and carbon. Dried up grass i believe is carbon. green grass just cut is nitrogen. what i use is newspaper. i often get them for free seems like no one wants them old trash paper like envelopes from junk mail/junk mail just remove the plastic. that is always free. saw dust- people say don't use a certain kind others say they used it and it did not matter. if your in doubt leave it out. saw dust is free and by the shet load as well. just go to like homedepot and ask. wood chips- try google up in your area your state might give them away for free mines do but it's only on a certain day. cardboard- throw in the glossy shet it won't decompose just remove it when harvesting. go to recycle bins usually schools have them and dumpster dive they often fill it up with cardboard and yes it is free it's just going to get recycled anyways |
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| Whether grass clippings would be considered a Carbon source or a Nitrogen source depends on how it is cured, just like hay. Materials with a C:N ratio less than 30:1 are Nitrogen sources while those with a C:N ratio greater than 30:1 are Carbon sources. Some sources list fresh grass clippings as having a C:N ratio of between 15 to 20 to 1 and dried clippings just a bit higher at about 35:1. |
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| Straw, cereal boxes, used tissues, paper towels, toilet paper rolls, junk mail. Take a look at your garbage and I bet you find all the browns you need! |
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| I agree with sandy16. I use leaves that the nice people bag up & leave on the curb for me. I also have ten acres of grass & pine needles to harvest, but I have to stop & get the bagged leaves too. They are just sitting there waiting for me. |
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- Posted by Vimaladevi none (My Page) on Tue, Sep 25, 12 at 0:11
| Pine pellets (feed stores sold as animal bedding) and PROPERLY PREPARED* coffee grounds (free @ Starbucks) can be used in unlimited quantity primarily as a carbon source. |
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| .. Coffee grounds are green as far as I'm concerned. Dried grass clippings off the lawn are still green too as far as I'm concerned. Grasses don't become a brown until you get into stalks and hay. Here's a handy dandy table. Compare grass clippings with sawdust. Grass clippings will be the green extreme and saw dust the other. Based on those two values, you can extrapolate whatever else you got lying around that's on the list. http://compost.css.cornell.edu/OnFarmHandbook/apa.taba1.html two cents |
Here is a link that might be useful: C/N Ratios, Cornell
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| Thanks for all the suggestions. Vimaladevi: What are "properly prepared" coffee grounds? kimmsr: Based on your response, I went looking at web sites re C:N ratio. Found a wealth of information; didn't realize how important it is to try to maintain that ratio within a cetain range. Gives me a target to shoot for! Much obliged. gary |
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- Posted by tishtoshnm 6/NM (My Page) on Wed, Sep 26, 12 at 1:02
| terratoma, How important it is really just depends on how quickly you want your pile to cook. I often throw things in as they become available and eventually it all rots but I do not take compost temperatures, I do not go out looking for steam, etc. My piles are not micromanaged but eventually, they cook down. |
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- Posted by Vimaladevi 9 (My Page) on Wed, Sep 26, 12 at 13:23
| sunlight + minerals + microbes = all biochemicals on earth. This is the basis for the creation of all lifeforms on this planet. "Composting" is you playing God on a microcosmic scale. You are harnessing all the elements and forces of Nature in one tiny pile to create The Formless Onelife (a.k.a soil) which gives birth to the myriad lifeforms on this planet. "Properly preparing" anything for creating this mysterious substance we call "soil" always stems from the above understanding. When i pick up coffee grounds (stored sunlight energy) from a cafe it is usually too wet. I add untreated sawdust or pine pellets to absorb excess moisture. This enhances water holding capacity and opens the coffee grounds to oxygen creating a more favorable physical environment for the activity of microorganisms (each being a doorway for the Lifeforce energy to enter our world). The final and usually missing component are the critical building blocks of all matter in the universe - MINERALS! If you are not adding mineral sources to the soil generating process you will not be able to perfect yourself biochemically/genetically. The goal of all life on earth is to access and be infused with solubilized mineral elements (at least 60, probably all 92+ naturally occuring elements in the universe). I then innoculate this mix with fresh worm castings and/or soil to "seed" with microbes. I place this mixture in plastic cement mixing tubs and cover with Tyvek sheets (to reduce moisture loss). As the microbiology releases the stored energy from the coffee grounds to digest the the minerals in the various rock powders (Azomite, Agrowinn, Gaia Green Glacial Rock Dust, etc...) it will heat up quite a bit from the intense microbiological explosion. The intense energy being released is what powers the alchemical resurection of dead organic and inorganic matter into a living, breathing entity that gives birth to all life on earth. I turn the material by hand 2 to 3 times during this transformation process which will usually last 10 to 14 days at which point the material should have cooled to or below ambient temperatures. At this point your coffee grounds have been "properly prepared". Now you know not to ask me any more questions ( : |
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Wed, Sep 26, 12 at 18:51
| I will limit my comments on this alchemical treatise to one: the observation that compost itself, and the organic matter that goes into it, already have a quantity of minerals in them, since, as you say, they are required building blocks of life. I was surprised, in fact, to find last year that my own homemade compost, into which I had deliberately introduced little if any soil or other inorganic minerals, was 52% 'ash' or mineral matter (dry wt. basis). Furthermore, one's garden soil is loaded with minerals. I do not think the addition of rock dust to the compost pile is quite as necessary as you suggest. |
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- Posted by Vimaladevi none (My Page) on Thu, Sep 27, 12 at 15:22
| I agree completely. Your ability to accomplish a finished compost with a complete mineral biochemistry without purchased inputs is the ideal. For those who do not have access to raw organic materials that have been produced in soils known to contain a full complement of minerals and trace elements then it would be advantageous to invest what little money required to insure these basic building blocks are indeed present. |
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| .. I'm not playing God. Composting is just making a big ol messy stomach not unlike the one in my belly, or yours, to digest stuff. Nothing is really quite as simple as I just made out but then, there ain't much that requires a whole lotta mystery either. Properly prepared coffee grounds can be nothing more than spilling them on the ground and covering with grass clippings. Try it. I'm not asking any questions. to sense |
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| Vimaladevi, this is downright poetic. The cycle of life continues whether we contribute or not. Beautifully described. To get to the reason I'm here is to find many sources of carbon. Found I did. Thank you! |
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- Posted by dianne0712 7b (My Page) on Fri, Sep 28, 12 at 14:06
| You know, I've been reading the gardenweb forum and other sites for a while and I still haven't come up with an answer for me because I have the same problem as the OP but with a few twists. I can't get my compost going properly. I have green because of kitchen waste and some yard waste. I throw in shrub trimmings and dead plants, but never weeds which I have a lot of, so maybe 1/2 bucket per week in those things, but I have 2 apple trees which drop apples continuously so they all go in the compost because otherwise the wasps are crazy. No grass clippings because of weeds. Ican't use fallen leaves or anything else raked up because we have a huge butternut and so does our neighbour so all the leaves, trimmings, nuts and shells are toxic, apparently even when composted and they are everywhere. There is no way to seperate them out. This year I saw someone mention grabbing leaves from a neighbour after they put them out for the pick up. Brilliant! Then I remembered that for the last 2 years our whole city has been badly infested with blackspot. Every tree. So, no joy there. We don't get the paper and the flyers are covered with coloured ink. The neighbours who do get the paper tie them in bundles or bag them along with unsuitable material and I don't think they'd appreciate me undoing all their hard work. Also, around here people tend to put the stuff out just before the 7 am truck arrival as it's a bylaw violation to put them out before 6:30. The truck is very prompt. What's a broke girl to do? |
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Fri, Sep 28, 12 at 18:08
| Are you really sure that butternut leaves are both allelopathic AND the toxin does not break down in compost? I believe butternut is related to hickory and/or walnut, in which case it could have juglone like walnut does, but it's been the consensus here that most of that is in the roots, not in the leaves, and it will break down in compost. I would check it out before assuming butternut leaves shouldn't be composted. |
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| I'm back to let everyone know I took the advice and put cardboard and paper with some urine in my compost bin and 24h later it was heating up nicely. I'm always scrounging around for leaves and other dry materials. I just didn't expect paper and cardboard to be so good in compost. There's always stuff like that available at my house. |
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| It's amazing how much paper and cardboard we have around the house. Once I really started looking for carbon, I found more thanI could use. I use the printed flyers as well. From my research, the ink is soy based and the glossy ones have a clay and wax coating which takes longer but will break down. |
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