Hi All,
Before planting, I dig radish and carrots greens from store bought organic produce. Now that my little garden is in full swing, I am not going to be digging anything under.
Is there any reason I can not just save these green in a brown paper bag until after the growing season, then dig them under? Seems like a waste to throw them away.
Many thanks,
-T
Good gosh! Google "How to start a comp-ost pile".
anything that won't regrow is good worm food. left on the surface in your sunshine it will dry out and then could be dug in later. no need to save in a paper bag.
i put almost everything through the worm bins. some things are better off being dehydrated first (carrot tops, brocolli stems, beet tops, onion bottoms, potato peels) everything else the worms eventually turn into primo fertilizer...
songbird
Good Gosh! I don't want to start a compost pile. I just want to dig organics under at the end of the season.
I buy my organic compost and spread liberally!
Every open space in my tiny garden is covered in purslane. Big huge yummy branches too. Makes great salads! I raid it every weekend to make salar fixings that can be thrown together at a moments notice during the week. I think of it as my home made Fast Food. I make a great Primal Ranch dressing and a great Primal Blue Cheese dressing. I eat very well. I use Purslane instead of lettuce. Was more nutrition and very low carb
My concern about throwing it on top is that it would be a hiding place for squash bug eggs and powder mold spores.
One of the vitamin vendors my wife orders from takes compostable brown paper (I asked) and puts it through a shredder, but doesn't tear it off the paper at the end. They use it for padding. I dig it under. The Zuke I have living on top of it seems to be enjoying it! Dug under carrot tops with it too.
...
i doubt it would make that much difference for either of those.
unbleached paper (otherwise called craft paper) is pretty good mulch material as it is pretty close to wood itself. about the only papers i don't recycle here through the worm bins are newspapers (i don't like how they smell when they get wet) and anything that looks to be plastic coated. eventually the fungi and worms will break it down, even the white stuff.
by far the stuff that the worms like the best when it comes to paper is shredded cardboard.
when it comes to veggie and fruit scraps they seem to really like melon rinds.
songbird
We compost newspapers regularly bird. I run them through the paper shredder so they compost faster. The paper is no longer made with dangerous chemicals and the ink is made of burned pine resin and soy oil. Even the comic pages are now made with clay colors versus the old dangerous colors.
Had a client some years ago that was a paper mill plus made the soy/resin ink, Arizona Chemicals if I remember correctly. I haven't worried about the chemicals in paper since then. Been using them for at least twenty years with no problems whatsoever. If you're worried query your local newspaper as to chemicals.
George
George Shirley wrote: ...
George, i'm not worried too much about the inks or the paper i just dislike the way it smells when it gets wet. instead i keep it for the times when i'm smothering weeds with cardboard and put the newspapers in another layer down before the cardboard. at least then i don't have to smell it. :)
songbird
Hi Songbird,
The shredded packing material sounds a lot like your shredded card board.
Thank you for helping me with this!
-T
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