<p>I use compostable bags (from Costco, very inexpensive) as a liner inside my kitchen pail. No meat goes into my backyard bin, but I do add eggshells. </p>
<p>My town has recently started a new garbage service with organic bins (prior to that we just had yard waste collected). The new service encourages residents to add kitchen waste, including meat, to the mix. Friends of mine do this, wrapping the meat in newspaper and taken to the bin every day. The garbage service also suggests adding pizza boxes and other biodegradable food containers to the organic bin. I’m really curious how they get all of this to decompose, but the website doesn’t give details. Between the new organic bin and the usual recycling, my regular trash has been reduced to 1 tall kitchen bag per week.</p>
<p>Here’s more information on vermicomposting (with worms) and regular:</p>
<p>Our version of composting consists of “throwing it over the fence”. We’ve never had problems with dogs or raccoons, and I only throw vegetable matter, so that may be why. I’m waiting for some exotic plant to start growing – maybe a kiwi vine?</p>
<p>I have to agree. The only plants that survived the dry spell this summer were those I planted with mixed-in compost. I use a compost pail lined with a compostable plastic bag. Compost bins outside. When full, I throw in dry leaves and let them rot for a year.</p>
<p>I use a coffee can for scraps in the kitchen and city subsidized composter in the yard. I am not one to turn compost, so it just takes longer. I do water it a couple of times in the summer, or dump the birdbath water in there or leave it open before a thunderstorm.</p>
<pre><code> I compost eggshells but no dairy otherwise and no meat or bones. And no corncobs…they take too long.
Starbucks will give you a big bag of coffee grounds free.
While I like the idea of worm farming in winter and not running through the snow to the composter, I haven’t worm farmed yet. But now I know not to bother them with frequent meals.
</code></pre>
<p>Wow! This is one of my earliest memories as my parents were both into gardening. We had a “compost” bowl permanently on the counter and each evening it was the chore of
myself or my sister to take it out to the big compost box in the corner of the back yard.
We both hated that chore in the winter! The funny part: when I was older, I found out
the compost bowl was actually the top of a double boiler (the bowl that sits on top of the
pot). My mother wasn’t the type to ever use such a device:)</p>
<p>I’ve had a compost box ever since, in all the homes I’ve lived. As others have said, we only add vegetable/fruit scraps. We just put it together with piled logs in the corner
of the yard and my husband turns it every now and again. Being in the Houston area, the heat causes the scraps to compost quickly. I don’t bother keeping a lid on and the bunnies, skunks and squirrels help themselves.</p>
<p>The only thing I don’t throw in is the core/rind from the pineapple I cut up each week.</p>
<p>Thanks for thread. It made me smile and think my my Dad (passed away two years ago).</p>
<p>I’ve always been a casual composter–I keep all fruit/vegetable scraps, egg shells, and coffee grinds in a big metal mixing bowl and take this to a large outside compost pile. I’ve got 4 acres that’s mostly landscaped and there’s every kind of garden stuff that gets put in that pile, which has yielded beautiful black compost. </p>
<p>When the weather gets bad, I get lazy and don’t walk out to the pile because it’s far enough from the house that I would need to put on a coat and boots. This year, I bought a plastic composter for my deck–it’s a big round drum that you can turn. I figured I’d use it through the winter so that I wouldn’t have to walk out to the pile. </p>
<p>I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but I’m not getting compost and it’s been about 4 months. All I have in the drum is nasty garbage. Instructions say to put newspaper and cardboard into the bin, which I’ve done. I’m considering taking some dirt from the big compost pile and putting in the drum, but don’t know if that would work. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>I just got one of those composters that sounds like the one on your deck. I certainly don’t know why yours isn’t composting but my question is: do you need to have worms inside these containers? I feel kind of dumb asking that but I am new to this. We have just had a big pile out back but I, too, hate to walk out there in the winter.</p>
<p>Oh Mauritania, hugs to you. I plant lima beans every year in my garden because my Dad loved them so much…he passed away 5 years ago, but I still plant them and think of him when I do, and when I eat them! He thought my garden was the coolest.</p>
<p>I have never had to add worms, certainly, but I know there are a lot in my compost because I add horse and goat manure periodically.
Last spring I got 5 wheel barrow loads of “soil” out of my winter’s worth of compost…minimal work!</p>
<p>Bromfield, I’d try the dirt in an attempt to add appropriate bacteria. And add some leaves or grass clippings to neutralize the nasty garbage. Any time I get a stink, piling some grass or leaves on top takes care of the smell, though newspaper would do the same thing, or so you’d think. </p>
<p>mauretania, love your memories. I remember my parents and their gardens, and hope my kids carry on the tradition.</p>
<p>I think a small composter would get too hot for worms, but they can live in the big ones because they can tunnel down where it is cooler. I’m talking about earthworm type worms not parasites.</p>