And yes, all that chopping is extra work, but I enjoy it and it keeps my hands in shape. LOL. My favorite things to toss into the compost pile? Crushed eggshells and shrimp shells. Also, find a shepherd or cheese-maker within a convenient driving distance who is willing to donate goat or sheep manure. Those two resources are among the few animal manures that can be used fresh, but they will compost easily. When I called a farmer who made goat cheese to ask for manure the first thing she said was “how fast can you get here?”
Thanks @mathmom!
Where do you get the worms @LakeWashington ? I’ve had a compost bin (about the size of a very large plastic trash container) for nearly 2 years. Layer vegetable waste w/ coffee grounds, and dried leaves. Mix occasionally. Nothing has happened!
^Where do you keep it? Nothing happened in two years! I have two compost bins that I alternate. I collect waste for year and leave untouched while filling up the other one. After a year it’s good to go. I don’t add anything. The only thing that’s not fully broken down in a yaer is the compostable plastic bags.
My town is doing curbside composting as a pilot right now, and I love it. They distributed small kitchen bins, compostable plastic bags to line the bins, and larger bins to store outside, put the bags of compost in, and leave out on the street. It gets picked up on the same day as garbage and recycling. My landlords also compost but are a bit more careful about what can go into it - they like to keep it pretty close to uncooked vegetable scraps basically - so it’s nice that I can now compost almost everything. My parents have the informal style heap (literally a pile of compost with chicken wire around it), but that’s on property basically surrounded by woods.
What’s really impressive to me, is the extent that even small-scale composting reduces trash. Between recycling and composting, I could get away with only taking out the trash twice a week.
Our city also has curbside composting, at an extra charge. I love seeing people participate.
Re: buying worms. There are several places that sell “garden worms” online. Typically a bag of hundreds of worms is relatively cheap, packaged and mailed in a fashion to keep them safe and alive for delivery. I didn’t need hundreds of them so I went to the nearest fishing tackle and bait shop, where in-season worms are kept in the refrigerator. Onr season I bought worms from the fishing gear section at the Sports Authority mega store; Six bucks for a cup of 30 worms. Just make sure they are red worms, often called ‘red wigglers.’ By they way, they will reproduce like crazy under the right conditions in your garden.
By the way Katliamom, I watched a video in which a home gardener made useable compost in 14 days! He compiled the usual stuff in a pile on the ground…grass clippings, kitchen peelings, leaves etc. He piled the stuff in layers and used a liquid concoction of cola-soda, beer and ammonia to spray each layer. With turning the stuff breaks down almost miraculously fast, according to the video. His name is Reagan71.
Thanks, Lake, I’ll look into it.
Because you’ve always wanted to know: but were afraid to ask.
https://www.wormwoman.com/acatalog/Wormwoman_catalog_Worms_Eat_My_Garbage_3.html
I have a passive composter, but Seattle also picks up food/yard waste weekly, and fines you if your food is in the garbage. Then they sell it back to you in the form of Cedar Grove soils, which I never buy, cause it’s weedy.
@iglooo, in a container on the west side of our house, (open on the ground). Water occasionally as well. Gave up after 18months, but will try adding the worms next.
Here’s some easy compost problem solvers:
I don’t put weeds in the compost. They say composting kills weeds. Not in my experience. I emptied my compost bin yesterday. It produced nice black dirt.
To kill weed seeds, your compost pile needs to reach very high temperatures, which is pretty much impossible for home composting. Even commercial composters don’t get rid of all weed seeds!