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I picked up a compost bin yesterday for $30 at this big chicago recycling event (dropped off some old computer stuff too). Anyway - I'm gonna give this a try - wondering if anyone here has or still does it. Any tips?

I'm told a little lime will help speed up the process.

ha, I do this and I don't have any actual yard to put my pile on. Basically, if you are using the ground, then you really don't have to do much. If you are in the city and doing it indoors or on a patio with no actual ground, then it is a lot harder to do.

Mostly, you want to make sure any food is covered so that it doesn't draw pests. Since you have a bin, you are in good shape in preventing that.

Mostly, you want to keep a balance of nitrogen rich and carbon rich ingredients. You can also do aerobic or anaerobic composting. the latter is the stinky kind, which you may not want to do. aerobic requires turning the pile to get oxygen into the pile.

madlee wrote:ha, I do this and I don't have any actual yard to put my pile on. Basically, if you are using the ground, then you really don't have to do much. If you are in the city and doing it indoors or on a patio with no actual ground, then it is a lot harder to do.

Mostly, you want to make sure any food is covered so that it doesn't draw pests. Since you have a bin, you are in good shape in preventing that.

Mostly, you want to keep a balance of nitrogen rich and carbon rich ingredients. You can also do aerobic or anaerobic composting. the latter is the stinky kind, which you may not want to do. aerobic requires turning the pile to get oxygen into the pile.

I'll be doing it in a yard - on actual ground. Planning on aerobic (turning it, etc). Do you use lime at all?

I don't use lime and the workshop I took they didn't mention it. a quick google seems to recommend not using it.

I'm probably going to buy one of those rotating black bins. seems kind of weird to drop over $100 on it, but f-it. I'm saving the Earth!

Since you are putting it on the ground, you probably won't have to turn it so much.

there's lots of things people are going to tell you about what goes in and what doesn't, but I had good results throwing every damn bit of organic scrap into a ten gallon drum with no bottom, including coffee dregs and beer crimes. after heavy nights of beer abuse - you know, the dregs in the bottle. I also instituted a regime where ALL male guests urinated into the compost - so it had a lot of active chemicals in it. spreading it out over a patch after six months resulted in huge, flavoursome tomato of a few varieties (i'd gotten weird things from a seed bank down south where the hippies grow) , vast amounts of silverbeet, and various other edible plants. It was great.

So yeah, piss in your compost.

barndog wrote:

madlee wrote:ha, I do this and I don't have any actual yard to put my pile on. Basically, if you are using the ground, then you really don't have to do much. If you are in the city and doing it indoors or on a patio with no actual ground, then it is a lot harder to do.

Mostly, you want to make sure any food is covered so that it doesn't draw pests. Since you have a bin, you are in good shape in preventing that.

Mostly, you want to keep a balance of nitrogen rich and carbon rich ingredients. You can also do aerobic or anaerobic composting. the latter is the stinky kind, which you may not want to do. aerobic requires turning the pile to get oxygen into the pile.

I'll be doing it in a yard - on actual ground. Planning on aerobic (turning it, etc). Do you use lime at all?

That's the way to go. I come from three generations of composters, and that's how to go about it. The ground is essential because the kind of compost you want to grow things in is essentially humus, i.e. worm poop.

It's easiest to start your pile in fall with a pile of raked leaves you just jumped in. Wait a few weeks, especially after a good rain, for the worms to have their digestive way with the leaf pile. Then commence your routine of turning the pile over weekly. After you've turned it over the first time, you can add your table scraps. Be sure to bury the scraps deeply enough for the worms to get to them before they decompose, stink and attract pests.

Your compost should look like rich dirt by springtime, when it's time to use it for your garden bed. Accelerating the process is as simple as collecting live worms from a rainy sidewalk and throwing them right on top of the pile. There's enough organic activity happening to keep the worms nice and warm to do their job all through winter.

BE VERY CAREFUL with lime. Check your local soil pH first. Same with urea. When in doubt, leave it out.

Andrew from tasmania wrote:there's lots of things people are going to tell you about what goes in and what doesn't, but I had good results throwing every damn bit of organic scrap into a ten gallon drum with no bottom, including coffee dregs and beer crimes. after heavy nights of beer abuse - you know, the dregs in the bottle. I also instituted a regime where ALL male guests urinated into the compost - so it had a lot of active chemicals in it. spreading it out over a patch after six months resulted in huge, flavoursome tomato of a few varieties (i'd gotten weird things from a seed bank down south where the hippies grow) , vast amounts of silverbeet, and various other edible plants. It was great.

This is what I do. Not the pissing, so much, as I share a garden with several other families, but everything from the kitchen goes in the compost bin, along with all our shredded waste cardboard. It also needs a couple of litres of water every so often to keep it moist.

I haven't got to the stage of using the compost yet, it's been on the go for about 6 months, but I haven't really got anywhere to plant vegetables. That's the next phase of the project.

night_tools wrote:
I haven't got to the stage of using the compost yet, it's been on the go for about 6 months, but I haven't really got anywhere to plant vegetables. That's the next phase of the project.

to be sure that your compost is really humus you can try to grow garden cress. if it grows: good. if it doesn't: give it some more time.

we don't compost cooked vegetables but that's because cooked stuff would attract rats and mice.

I have a compost "heap". I built it using 5' stakes and chicken wire. I put leaves, food scraps and just about anything that can decompose in there. It has become the "world of worms" they process that shit pretty well....I just turn it occasionally with a pitchfork.

Worms rock