What do y'all put in your compost. Our pile is fairly far from the house, and we don't have a garbage disposal, so I put most everything in there--all organics (veggie cuttings, scrapings from the plates, oils, meat trimmings, etc]. But I've heard that one should stick to vegetable material. Is this so? Why?
Andrew
Fito
I think it's because meat scraps, bones, etc. will encourage animals to feed from the compost (rats, mice, whatever).
I don't put meat or oils in the compost for this reason - also ours is pretty close to the house and I don't want the smell of rotting meat.
Pat
I had problems with neighborhood cats and things. But I understand that if you BURY the stuff deep inside the pile, it's not that much of a problem. Also, I read in "let it rot", the master work on composting, that things with oils and fats sort of act like a varnish or waterproofing layer, and that slows down the bacteria from breaking things down. If you're going to use meat products, try to keep from using a lot of stuff with fat. I suppose drained meats, or low fat meats and bones, if you bury them deeply would be ok. Still, I'd add at least a couple of weeks to the composting process, just to make sure that the bacteria has "eaten" up the meats and oils and stuff. They can do it, it just takes a little bit more time.
A local dairy farmer sells compost and manure. Guess where his dead cows go!
Pat Meadows wrote in article ...
Before the day is long gone, you'll get a lot of different answers. Mine is that, if you have the carbon to go with it and a deep enough pit, you can compost an elephant.
The answer to your question changes dramatically based on what sort of compost process you have in mind. If you are going to be attentive and ensure a "hot process" pile, you can chuck just about anything that comes to hand into the pile. Vermin and pets are not an issue with a pile that is cooking along at 135 degrees or better or that is enclosed in a composter such as the rotating models now available. Nor are they a problem with pit composting or any of a half-dozen variants on the theme of composting. On the other hand, builders of 'slow process' compost piles need to show greater restraint and avoid not only meat scraps but also pet and human manures of all sorts.
Here's a link to a pretty exhaustive treatment of the topic.
But I've heard that one should stick to vegetable material. Is this
Hmmm, I'm in the market to try one this fall myself and from what I've read elsewhere one should turn the compose fairly often. How does one do that if you make a round wire affair as suggested in this FAQ?
Normally people don't have their compost 'cooking' enough to bury meat and bone scraps in without risking serious odor or vermin problems.
If I have a hot batch that is really cooking I can throw in shrimp peelings, fish bones, dead birds and mice and other stuff that is usually 'not allowed' in the compost guides. Once we even splurged on lobsters for the family and buried the leftovers in the middle of a really hot batch. No smell, and the shells all broke down. The only thing we recognized when sifting the compost later were the tips of the biggest claws.
I can email some information on hot, batch composting (written originally by an professional compost man) to those who are interested.
Pull up the wire circle - pull it off the compost. Or un-hitch it so it's not a circle anymore.
Move the wire circle to a new spot. Fork the compost into the new spot.
We use a wire fencing circle for compost too, but we just leave it, all this forking business is too much work - it will slowly decompose all by itself. Slowly.
Pat
Not in the manure/bedding, unless he wants a lot of trouble from (at least!) the local health department.
Yep, we do the same. Our piles are slower but have always performed well over the years.
After living in Italy for several years where they routinely use human manure for fertilizing and seeing several Americans struck with Hepatitis I am totally against using dog or human manure anywhere near my edible plants!
Have also read in several places that cooked meat, bones, and human/pet manure should not be included in compost materials.
Lee
JMTCW
I put nothing I wouldn't eat in my pile, that includes ALL animal products. For some of us organic meat is an oxymoron.... I don't mean to demean anyone that eats or uses animal products, just happen to believe in "Diet for a Small Planet".
I knew that . Is there a better structure in general that would do a faster or better job than wire?
Well, now there's an interesting concept. I don't use any animal products in my compost. I just use grass trimmings, leaves and rotting hay. Not exactly tasty stuff but it serves the purpose for me. My plants also seem to like it.
the only grass I have to compost is wheat grass and I juice it. I let the leaves create a natural mulch under the parent tree and I've no hay. :>)
I think it would be nice to have a compost heap made out of pallets (or other wood).
I have usually seen them in the shape of a letter 'E' - so that there are two compartments and you fork the compost from one compartment to another.
This requires that you buy or find pallets or wood, however, and do some basic carpentry.
I'll probably stick with the wire fencing, at least for now. We have too many other projects with higher priority than making a better compost container, unfortunately.
Pat
Oooooohhhhh, don't put any more oil, fat or meat trimmings into the compost pile. It attracts animals (mice, rats, racoons etc...) and doesn't break down. The rest of your kitchen scraps are okay to place in the compost: eggshells, coffee grinds, tea bags, vegetable and fruit trimmings. Other items that can be added to the compost are black/white newspaper (none of those color advestising pages), grass clippings, pine needles, non-diseased yard trimmings.
I avoid putting weeds or rotten vegetables such as tomatoes in my compost after learning the hard way. My compost doesn't get hot enough to kill off the weed seeds so now I have tomatoes and purslane growing wherever I put the compost in my garden - I just love weeding (she said sarcastically). I've also added small amounts of bone meal and blood meal to my compost piles to help speed up the composting process. We also have a guinea pig so the used bedding gets placed into the compost pile. We used to compost our rabbit droppings too but we gave the rabbit back to the pet store because my kids weren't taking very good care of it.
Of course, I'm no expert. These are just some tips that seem to work for me.
I've used pallets for years. I use those metal fence posts that cost about $3 at the hardware store to support them. Pallets can be found most anywhere, so the entire set-up costs me no more than about $15.
Basically I stand a pallet on its end, and put the post down the middle. The pallets aren't tied together in any way so there's no need for anything other than a hammer, the pallets, and the posts. Takes about fifteen minutes to put it all together.
Andrew
Also paper towels, paper napkins, and dryer lint. My compost gets pretty hot, so I'm not al that worried about the other stuff.
Andrew
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