Do you compost?

No, no one told me that valuable information. Most were too busy correcting my form.

Thank you.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB
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"MajorOz" wrote

Your concise explanation is very helpful. But, I have been through it in other newsgroups. I still disdain cliques as much as I did in my adolescence, and find them to be made up of the same people, only older. By now, I have pared some of the most obvious fools,argumentative types, lawyers, trolls, snot nosed egotistical rude teens, and overmedicated people with too much time on their hands and a keyboard.

I'll stick around and pop in and out when I have questions, and keep refining my list. Thanks for the help.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

And another overly educated old fart makes the file.

Reply to
SteveB

"Pennyaline" wrote

We have critters where we live. We have squirrels, birds, chipmunks, and even have coyotes come in our yards. We live on the edge of thousands and thousands of acres of wild land. I have seen my neighbor's watermelon patch raided several times. My dogs will even sneak over to the pile if I'm not watching them. Depending on your situation, visitation by critters may or may not be any big deal. They don't bother me, as I figure there will be enough left to rot. They probably come and eat the fresher scraps anyway.

Reply to
SteveB

You filtered yourself?!

Reply to
Not

YOU need to read up on composting. No animal proteins, no animal fats! Compost piles are not garbage heaps, and vice versa.

Reply to
Pennyaline

Yes.

As much as you want to put into it. I turn the pile every few weeks.

How often are you supposed to turn it?

Damp is better.

I do. Try Googling "compost."

Reply to
Manelli Family

Composting does work. We just pile everything in a semi-shady area and keep it moist. Every so often the pile gets turned. When I looks "done" enough, it's hauled in a garden cart to the flower beds or veggie garden. A new pile is started every year with the leaves and dead garden plants from our property.

Reply to
Manelli Family

That kind of thing where I live would have the compost pile full of raccoons and possums.

Reply to
Manelli Family

I wouldn't have thought they would either but the person I know who has told me about the fat, swears that they do eat it and that they also multipy on it. I still can't see it myself, but since I'm not prepared to put a huge commercial fryer load of fat into my compost, I really don't have the experience to dismiss it.

It

I guess adding too much meat could do that but I know that having composted a chook (chicken) certainly didn't spoil the final product. I didn't get any untoward visitors either at that time. I now have had mice move into my closed bins but I've decided that the mice are a good thing to have - they seem to do a great job of turning stuff in my closed bins. In fact, I'm so impressed with the mice activity that I do nothing to stop them.

Reply to
FarmI

There are no Raccoons in my country and the possums in this country are vegetarians. The only meat eaters locally are rats, mice, foxes and my dogs. The latter 2 can't get into my bins, the rats prefer the chook pen and I've decided that the mice are useful. I certainly wouldn't consider mice to be useful if I read and believed the conventional information written on compost, but I've watched what happens with the compost and decided that the mice do very useful work for me. I now consider them almost as useful as earthworms.

Reply to
FarmI

I see you've morphed again so that you can hang on my every word. Well, I'll killfile you once MORE.

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

My point being is that doesn't matter. The ants get it either anyway. No, I don't need to read up. Am familiar.

Reply to
Dioclese

This makes no sense to me at all. Cooked vegetables are no more health risk than uncooked and will break down faster in the compost heap. I cannot see any reason to not use it and so what if it has a dollop of salad dressing on it. What is this concept of "break down cleanly into sweet compost"? It sounds to me like this is just a squeemish reaction. A compost heap is a big pile of stuff that is rancid, rotting, corrupted and not fit for human consumption. We coopt a few zillion microorganisms to do our dirty work for us. Why judge their working environment by whether you would like it.

As for meat, fat etc I can see that there could well be problems, especially in suburban setting, with smell and scavengers. However if your situation is such that these matters can be dealt with I see no reason why you cannot compost such items. Hair, household dust (containing hair and skin) and feathers are grist for the mill so why not a bit more protein from flesh. The bacteria and fungi that do the work will consume the material. I would keep to the idea of a balanced mix however, just as you wouldn't make a heap out of

50% chook manure you wouldn't go out and empty 5 gallons of cooking oil into it either.

As it happens I don't put fat and meat scraps in my heap (ia have an alternate recycler for that). That doesn't stop the mice from living in my all vege heap.

David

Reply to
David Hare-Scott

You are the only one who said "health risk." I'm talking about fats added to compost, and how fats don't break down as quickly as vegetable matter and also go rancid. If you want to dump fats into your own compost heap, go for it.

Perhaps you don't understand the concept of "sweet compost."

The keratin of hair, skin and feathers is not comparable to striated muscle fiber.

Thus, as I stated and as you included in the quotation, animals will raid any garbage pile if they are hungry enough.

Reply to
Pennyaline

I know people who toss meat bones into the compost, including some pretty big ones. They also put really fat vegetable stalks in there. The major issue with those things would be that they're not going to decompose as fast as ***SOME*** (disclaimer - I said ***SOME***) other material, like small vegetable scraps. This means you have to sift or pick out the unfinished stuff before using the compost. No thanks. This weekend, I'll be composting stuff like broccoli stalks, 2" thick, and I'll use a meat cleaver to chop it into smaller pieces. Otherwise (based on experience), those stalks will still be there in May.

Reply to
JoeSpareBedroom

The message from "JoeSpareBedroom" contains these words:

I don't compost bones (I bury them when planting shrubs). The only thing going into my heap today which will still be identifiable next May, is avocado pips and a few small scraps of eggshell. I never sift veg waste or need to bother chopping up large veg waste like brocolli stalks, or pumpkin skins.

Possibly winters in my garden are warmer than yours ( a few short frosts, none colder than -5C) which permits bacterial and worm activity throughout winter. If your winter is comparable, I'd suggest your heap could be a bit dry. I have a lidded compost bin under the kitchen sink, and empty tea and coffee pot dregs as well as veg waste; so the contents are sitting in liquid before they reach the ourdoor heap a few days later. I'm convinced that "brewing effect" gets them off to faster decomposition. The current outdoor heap is uncovered , exposed to lots of rain . When it's full it will be covered.

Janet. (UK)

Reply to
Janet Baraclough

The climate is the difference, then. Your version of winter would cause much laughter here. It sounds like springtime here. Our typical winter...you don't want to know. Believe me.

Reply to
JoeSpareBedroom

The message from "JoeSpareBedroom" contains these words:

Btdtgtts. . One of the reasons we moved here, was to escape cold winters.

Janet. Latitude 55N.

Reply to
Janet Baraclough

To JoeSpareBedroom, do you see how easy that was?

Thank you, Manelli Family..

Gloria

Reply to
Gloria

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