"this shirt had a lot of stains/small holes"

We can see that...

I opened the thread thinking one of you compost wackos had put a pic of yourself wearing the beautiful outfit you wear when turning the compost ;-)

How about a fashion show of clothes that have been through the compost? That would be fun.

The polyester (or other synthetics) survives so you get a 'ghost garment'. I use a lot of rags so that's where old shirts go at our house. I just wish I could find someone to give usable denim scrap to. I've seen rugs woven out of it.

grubby_me, LOL!

I like the idea of composting organic fibers, I never thought of that. I use un-donateable things (things too far gone to be worn) as rags, except for underwear. I have collected some ripped shirts and cut into 1 inch strips for a rag rug, don't have enough yet, so the pile gets higher! I collect denim for projects. The cutest one I've completed is to cut up jeans into "roads" and paint little yellow stripes down the middle; got the idea off Pinterest. Easy to carry with you in a bag if you have small kids who love cars, very light and portable.

Maybe if the garments were cut into small strips - time consuming, but would aid in the breakdown - and left in there for a year, there would be better results.

Was that a whole shirt (I understand it had holes) you buried for a couple months, or what? If it was a whole shirt, that's impressive!

it was a whole shirt....the black spots on top are some kind of mold or fungus...I guess that was what was breaking it down.