A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2005 What did you feed your compost today?

I thought this might be a fun way of sharing our compost additions, and it'll also help newbies to composting learn what the possibilites are for composting

Today, my compost was fed:

coffee grounds
coffee filter
left over coffee
empty toilet paper roll
paper towels
shredded label paper
jalapeno doritos (I didn't like em!)
sugar cookies (chocolate and strawberry)
sugar puffs cereal
cocoa puffs cereal
sour cream & onion chips
shredded cardboard
shredded newspaper (black print only)
shredded bills and other junk mail (no envelope windows though or any colored paper or ink)
dog hair dust bunny (monster)
flat soda
cool aid
finished boquet of cut glads I brought in

So what did you feed YOUR compost today?

Just watch the salty stuff...
*salt and plants don't get along*

But boy, they sure ate good today...


Mine had cucumber peelin's..
Acorn skins,
A bundle of corn husks from my neighbor.

Wow Mary! What a great idea!

After reading your whole list, here's what I HAVEN'T been adding.... up until now that is. lol

cookies <--- like we have leftover cookies. lol
cereal
chips & nachos
shredded cardboard
shredded bills <--- how about the unopened ones?
dust bunnies
dog hair <--- how about the dog? just kidding
flat soda <--- I throw out a ton of that!
toilet paper rolls

Today I did toss in:

uneaten watermelon cut up
moldy strawberries & blueberries <--- they found me actually :rolleyes:
potato and carrot peels
corn cobs cut up small
juice
dryer lint <--- pretty much cotton loads
coffee & grounds <--- daily

Compost No 2.... Here I Come!

Hmm...weezie...never thought about that. Thanks! I don't put much of that stuff in, so I guess it's okay. Not like I would ever, ever have a full bag to put in - they just don't survive that long around here

Suz - the only reason I open some of my bills is to scavenge for compostables Seriously, that's why I open my junk mail and (yeah, some bills too!) - to take out the glossy stuff, colored print, and clear envelope windows.

Don't tempt me!

You're gonna get baby watermelons. I did too. Longy had a great idea though - I picked up the seedlings that were sprouting in the pile, and planted em nearby. Figure if they grow, great, if I can eat em, even better - if I can't do anything but compost em, I'll still be happy! So, keep it in mind for when ya start seeing seedlings sprouting - that's what they'll be more than likely

oh yeah, you'll get everything sprouting in there sometimes..
Corn *uncooked of course*
potato eyes
zuke's, cuke's, and anything with a seed.
pumpkins, watermelons, squash..

but you have to catch them early to replant.
and you have to get them hardened off just like a baby seed you've started..
Remember they were inside that nice warm bed,
with lot's of moisture and good, loose soil to put their roots down into...
and they've had very limited sun too...
and wind, so they don't have their stablizer roots going yet either...

Should i be feeding my compost every day? I thought that i was to stir it up a couple times a week???? Do i just through the scraps in on top?? or do i mix it up? Can you really add cereal and milk to the pile? Is their ever to much of kitchen scraps to give your pile?? Pasta wow can i rinse it if their is butter or sauce on it first be for throwing it in? i can pour in coffee with or with out creamer and sugar??? wow i have so many questions. ok i have to stop i wont remember it all. lol Danielle

It's cool because next to my bin, I have this little area that's shaded by the bin in the morning, and a big tree in the afternoon so it's shaded except for some filtered sun in the afternoon - checked my transplants today and they're lookin good I have some taters that are ready for composting and will watch for some sprouts there too I'm so addicted to this stuff!

Yay! I these questions!

Only if ya have stuff to feed it. I hadn't fed mine in a few days - today was the 'clean out the pantry and get rid of the stale stuff day, which is why I had so much going in.

Yep, you can mix it just a few times a week - you don't have to add to it when you mix...but I usually mix when I add, if that makes sense.

What I usually do is move a bit of the top aside with the pitchfork, and pour my stuff in that area, and then cover it back up with what I moved aside - just to keep the 4 legged critters from coming to get it

Sure! You want to be careful with adding too much oil/fat/dairy though. They will attract flies, 4 legged critters and may also stink. I'm not real fussy about making sure I don't put any oil/fat/dairy in...I just don't go overboard with it. For example, I would have no problem putting in a full bowl of cereal into a my pile that is about 3' high. In relation, it's a small amount of milk to be going into the pile.

Yes and no. Keep your ratio at 75% brown to 25% green (or close to it as ya can) and you're good.

See bowl of milk answer above Also, leave your sauce on - that's ok to add

Yep, again see bowl of milk answer, above. You don't have to be crazy careful about not adding a drop of milk, but you don't want to overdo it either.

Thank you Mary, That was a fast answer lol. i recycle so this is even better.I wont have much trash, yea!!!!! Oh you guy's are great thank you all so much. I know i will have more ??'s soon lol Danielle

Glad I can help Danielle!
You'd be surprised how much trash you cut down on with composting. We cut down a BIG chunk of our trash weekly. So, not only are we helping the environment by composting, and making our plants & flowers happy, but we're saving money, because we have to pay for trash pickup!

We'll be here when you're ready with more questions

Wow, my compost was a very happy pile today. Steaming like fageddaboudit! Think it was the jalapeno nachos? Today my pile got:

watermelon rinds (cut up into about 1" cubes or so)
watermelon juice (with seeds - yes I know I'll get seedlings popping up!)
Paper towels used to wipe up juice from cutting watermelon
Woohoo!
Can't wait to see what yard waste I can put in today ... beautiful day, and I'm headin out!

Took me a little while to figure that one out, with the help of a little online surfing. lol. I had the accents all in the wrong places! You New Yawkas!

Today's Menu:

A Bucket of apple peels (I baked a bunch of pies)
More corn on the cob
potatoes
Brocolli
Coffee (of course!)
Dryer lint and softeners
Lemons
Parsley
Orange Juice

But I don't think I can add the dog hair. I have a long-haired Schitzu and wet dog hair is a little gross in a clump I think. lol

~Suzy~

Well, mine got:
cut up cannas
about 50 empty Texas Star hibiscus seed pods
a few dead seedlings
rotten tomatoes
coffee filter and grinds
flour
LOTS of angel trumpet (Datura metel) old blooms - this plant is huge and very productive!

I have 2 bins made of chicken wire, both need turning desperately.
Barb

A NY transplant living in S. Illinois - talk about confusing! Faggeddaboudit, y'all!

yesterday I fed it
a ton of shredded paper
a bit o' cardboard

(It had flies/gnats and needed browns badly! I could tell it was a tad bit too wet (and it was a bit stinky!))

Today:

cherry koolaid
potato peels

Oh! and hair - Helen got a haircut It should heat up real good now - you know those redheads. Oy!

As for the dog hair (or people hair for that matter) - I have a 'long term' pile that I put stuff like that in. By long term I mean anything I don't expect to break down for a year or more. If you can make one of those kinds of piles, that'd be a good place for the hair. Eggshells might go here too - they take a longer time to break down especially if they're not crushed real good.

Man the bugs are bad here this year. We've had flies out the yin-yang - and I so hate flies. Anyway, my compost heap was fortunate enough that a dag nab fly got caught inside the box of my favoritist cake in the whole wide world - Course I had only had 2 pieces of it before it got in there. (And we can't get it here - it was Priority Mailed to me by my sister in NY!) So, the rest went to the compost heap. Fooey!

Turned the compost pile today and sifted it. Got 1.6 cubic feet of finished compost that went on the second tier of the garden and then stared mixing in the left over grass clippings from last week. My best guess is that that will finish off most of the left over compost from this week and next week I'll be starting with pretty much all new grass and leaves.

And grass leaves and coffee grounds are all i've been putting in it unless one of the indoor plants loses a leaf due to natural causes lol.

Best layed plans of mice and men. The landlord brought me more fresh green and found space in the compost bin so he dumped it all in there lol. So this morning after watering the new beds and the miniature rose it was time to correct the ratios in my bin. So the reserve pile got a hole in its center and at least half the new load of green got dumped in there. And then half a parking lot fallen leaves got added and then more of the green got spread out over the top of that and then the hole thing got turned. So I guess I can't really call it a reserve pile now. Since it has everything in it to make it a working hot compost pile including almost the optimal demensions lol. The I went to work mixing the rest of the new green into the partially decomposted bin. And when I got near the middle of the bin the heat was very noticable even with it being another hot day outside. So I guess I'm probably going to have some of the compost pellets come sunday to use with the leaves I'll sweep up from the lot this week. Which should make the composting next week go almost as fast as this weeks did. Anyway I just had to share my good news about the compost lol. I love my compost.

Hoops ya got a sifter? I'm mega jealous!
Where ya hiding your not-so-reserve reserve pile?

Today I turned the pile - man it stunk and had flies galore. I know that should mean I needed to add browns - but it was dry and I needed to add water...so Helen watered as I turned (with her nose tucked in her shirt ) I'm wondering why it smells like that now - it definitely had plenty of browns. I know the sassafrass leaves that get chomped up with the grass clippings have a strong smell to them to begin with - and, well, you know how stinky grass can get...so I'm thinking it was the mingling of these smells. hopefully in a few more days it'll start smelling sweet. But I guess I'm getting off topic!

Today my compost bin got fed
EEK Moldy bread
3 cut up rotten potatoes
And a good drink of water!

Mary,
I'd lay off the cereal with milk,
etc..type stuff..and the stuff with the salt..

Get some soil, maybe one you had planted up
this year, and the plants "heading south for the winter" already, dump it in..
Dirt really helps the process...

And find a can of beer..
Gets all that stuff cookin' again....

I don't put very much cereal with milk in at all - I think this heap just got a half cup of milk or so, and just once. And just that one little bit of chips, not even half a bag I don't think. I stick mostly to the grass/leaves/coffee and kool aid

I've got another almost but not quite finished compost pile that I can take to add to this heap with -- I'm just afraid it's getting too packed down. I had a bunch of paper in this heap too - which I'm thinking may be is why it was stinky too - may be the bleach or whatever they use because I put a LOT of it in - may be almost a full garbage bag full of it. It was like 70% or 80% recycled paper - I dunno if that makes it better or worse for having added it? It's definitely hot on the inside - it wasnt steaming that I could see - but the heat was blasting me as I turned it tonight.

May be I oughta split the pile in half and add a little compost to each half so it's not so heavy, but a bit browner? Whaddya think?

You know where the nasty neighbor was growing the berry cane and strawberries? In amongst the poison oak, mimosa and other weeds and agressive plants, well there was this accident with the brush killer stuff. The mimosa survived unfortunately but every thing else pretty much bit the dust so I just kind of put it over there.

No I'm still sifting the hard way. Kind of raking the compost back and forth until the finished stuff crumbles and the bigger bits and pieces get scraped to the sides. Then I shovel the center part into the pail and it heads for the garden. And the unfinished compost gets mixed in with the new stuff and then dumped back into the bin. Sticks first so that I have air comming up from the bottom.

I wonder why yours is that smelly. That sounds odd. I get the grass amonia smell when the landlord brings the grass clippings and I don't have enough brown in reserve to mix with it but I haven't gotten anything worse. And the newspaper experiment didn't decompose very fast but it didn't produce any smell at all. Acting pretty much the way leaves do except for the amount of time and a tendency to clump which was unfortunate.

From what I think I saw today I should pull 3 to 4 cubic feet out of the bin on sunday. And I am having such a hard time waiting. Which is really silly because the bulbs and seeds haven't even arrived yet. And I still have to mix the compost that I put on the bulb bed in with the existing clay. But that's off topic.

So I'll move over to another room for that stuff.

Woohoo it is a sauna in there. Have I mentioned that I am having a hard time waiting until Sunday to turn the compost again? I am. I saw this little clump of grass by the bin so I just had to open it up to put the grass in there and it was like a sauna. The lid of the bin was completely covered in condensation. That is so cool. Just thought I would share that.

Yaknow, when you compost right on the ground, it's kinda hard to know when you've gotten to the bottom. When I was scooping my first pile...I finally stopped to take a breather, and saw that I was digging a hole!

I added a bit of spoiled mushy salad in a bag today. Hey, next year I wont have to buy salad in a bag -- I'll have salad in my yard 'least I hope so.

Turned my pile today too, and it was steamin like blazes. Helped that it was a bit on the cooler side - probably in the 80s so it was really steaming good

As hard as that clay/hardpack is I think I'll probably know when I hit bottom. But I'll keep your caution in mind. That would be so funny. I can picture it as a future Lady Huh episode. Can you see it as she breaks through in China lol. Sorry my mind keeps going in the strangest directionns.

Hey guys! My compost is all done & "I'm lovin' it" as Kramer says! Was it you, Weezie, who said how much you love compost? I admit that I thought it was a little over the top, but I wouldn't go any other way. When you think about it, it's just such a natural progression. I'm going to copy some of your lists because there are a few things I didn't think about.

Just started fall planting today. I think my bones are lookin forward to winter!