Composting

[GuitarStv]

Super-dumb-composting-questions-I-should-probably-google-but-I'm-too-lazy-right-now-and-y'all-probably-know-and-are-willing-to-answer:

I've been sorta trying to compost for a few years now by dumping all of my grass clippings and branches from a bush I didn't want on the ground in a pile in the corner of my yard.  It's not composting - it isn't hot, and it isn't turning into anything looking like compost or soil.  The grass clippings turn brown eventually, but that's about it.

What am I doing wrong?

Do I need to add liquid?  Turn it?  Buy some worms?

I thought compost just magically happened if you just started a pile, but there must be more to it than that.

Another question:  I have a Mexican fireplace on my patio that I occasionally burn stuff in and am left with wood ash waste I guess.  Can I / should I put the ash waste in the compost pile, or throw it away, or spread it on my lawn, or ... ?

Thanks!

A pile of pure grass clippings has a tendency to mat together and this really slows down the composting process.  Anything you can do to air it out and break up the matted grass will help.  I would recommend turning the whole pile while adding any available materials that are high in nitrogen: fruit and vegetable scraps, manure, urine etc.  If the pile does not feel damp to the touch then it needs more liquid.  Adding a few shovelfuls of soil will help the composting process too.  Ash is fine to put in compost as long as it is a small quantity in comparison to the whole pile.

You also indicated that you're putting branches into the compost.  Branches and large woody things will take ages to decompose away.

[Leisured]

The bigger the compost pile, the better. I have pushed my arm into a compost heap in warm weather, when things are happening, and you can feel the increase in heat the further in you push your arm. A big pile gets hot enough, in summer, to kill weed seeds, so when you use the matured compost later, no weeds spring up. I have seen commercial compost heaps the size of a large house, and I understand such large compost piles have several species of bacteria, with differing preferences for heat. Cool loving bacteria near the outside, heat loving bacteria further in.

I understand a ratio of two parts carbon matter, like dead leaves, to one part nitrogenous, like grass clippings, is the recommended ratio. Also no meat, bones, citrus peel, garlic or onions, so as to get the right bacteria.

Urine is sterile, unless you have a bladder infection, so urine, (but not the other stuff), should be all right. The difficulty is the need for a separate receptacle for urine in the toilet. Or, if you garden a lot, use the compost heap as a pissoir, as the French say, perhaps with a modesty screen.

[GuitarStv]

https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/gory-details/urine-not-sterile-and-neither-rest-you

:P

[shelivesthedream]

"One crucial economic problem for hygiene in preindustrial Europe was that human waste had little or no market value, because it was not socially acceptable to use it as the valuable fertilizer it was for farm and garden purposes. As Alan Macfarlane notes, 'where in Japan, night soil could be used in lieu of rent, in England one had to pay to have it taken away.'"
- Clark, A Farewell To Alms

You'd think the peasants in Japan would all be really into bean cuisine.

I read a fascinating book recently about how public hygiene changed in Victorian Britain and one of the major things was how at the beginning of Victoria's reign, it was possible to make a fortune with a dust cart/night soil business because you would be paid a small amount by the householders to take the rubbish away and then paid a huge amount when you had sorted it and sold it on as scrap wood, actual dust (for brickmaking), fertiliser for fields... You name it, it was sold. The capital's rubbish was a gold mine for the man with the right powers of organisation and access to manpower (or womanpower - sorting the 'dust' was a popular job for women). However, as London expanded and agriculture changed, the cost of transporting the stuff from London into the countryside became prohibitive and the price you got for it fell, so dustmen went out of business and the local councils (vestries and such) had to step in. Lots of late Victorians tried to make 'dust' pay again through various elaborate schemes (huge pipelines piping the fertiliser out to the countryside and suchlike) but none of them could be made to pay back their construction and running costs.

[secondcor521]

Super-dumb-composting-questions-I-should-probably-google-but-I'm-too-lazy-right-now-and-y'all-probably-know-and-are-willing-to-answer:

I've been sorta trying to compost for a few years now by dumping all of my grass clippings and branches from a bush I didn't want on the ground in a pile in the corner of my yard.  It's not composting - it isn't hot, and it isn't turning into anything looking like compost or soil.  The grass clippings turn brown eventually, but that's about it.

What am I doing wrong?

Do I need to add liquid?  Turn it?  Buy some worms?

I thought compost just magically happened if you just started a pile, but there must be more to it than that.

Another question:  I have a Mexican fireplace on my patio that I occasionally burn stuff in and am left with wood ash waste I guess.  Can I / should I put the ash waste in the compost pile, or throw it away, or spread it on my lawn, or ... ?

Thanks!

A pile of pure grass clippings has a tendency to mat together and this really slows down the composting process.  Anything you can do to air it out and break up the matted grass will help.  I would recommend turning the whole pile while adding any available materials that are high in nitrogen: fruit and vegetable scraps, manure, urine etc.  If the pile does not feel damp to the touch then it needs more liquid.  Adding a few shovelfuls of soil will help the composting process too.  Ash is fine to put in compost as long as it is a small quantity in comparison to the whole pile.

You also indicated that you're putting branches into the compost.  Branches and large woody things will take ages to decompose away.

Thank you both!  A lot of the branchy stuff is really tiny twigs, but some of it may be up to 1" in diameter, so I'll pull those out or maybe use them to get air into the pile or maybe burn them.  I'll also try to get the pile wetter.

[kite]

I have a Green Johanna hot composter.  We put all food scraps, lawn clippings, leaves and shredded paper into it.  A hot composter can take bones, meat and small amounts of fat in addition to all the usual. In 3 years, it has proved thus far to be rodent proof. 
We get about a cubic yard per year to add to our garden.  But the main motivation for me is laziness.  I can forget to put out the garbage for months because we have so little of it.  What we do have is odor free since it is primarily plastic bags or wrappers.  Without even trying all that hard, I'm approaching Bea Johnson's level of near zero waste. 
Food scraps go in a stainless bowl on the counter.  They are topped off each day with our used coffee grounds so there is no odor.  I'm walking past the bin anyway on the trip to get fresh herbs out of the garden every day. 
Our town has curbside recycling for glass, cans & paper.  They've also added curbside pickup of organics for composting for a $17 monthly fee.  The stuff is picked up in a separate diesel truck and driven over 100 miles for hot composting.  I think this is something we should do in our own back yards and not truck from acre sized lots in suburbia to another state.  I'm not opposed to it for institutional waste or apartments and urban dwellers, but suburban households with the lot sizes we have can handle it without truck fumes. 

[LindseyC]

We get free curbside compost bins in my city and composting is mandatory unless you do it in your yard. I got a free heavy duty plastic bin with lid from a former job (size of a normal recycling bin and same durable plastic) which I made into a compost bin by drilling holes in it on all sides.

I throw in all my vegetable scraps (minus meat) and some yard waste as well. I have a clover lawn so no lawn cuttings but I also put in shredded white paper, egg cartons, coffee grounds and tea bags.

I do minimal work on my bin, turn it once in awhile and if there has been no rain, spray a bit of water in it. It produces a fair amount which I add to my gardens, or potted outdoor plants.

One thing that most people don't do is collect the compost tea, that's any liquid that seeps out of your bin and is full of nutrients. I tend to move my bin around to different areas in my lawn which is struggling a bit and the tea always perks up my clover.

Like others using a composter and also recycling, means I have very low waste, usually a half a bag every two weeks, max.

[horsepoor]

Super-dumb-composting-questions-I-should-probably-google-but-I'm-too-lazy-right-now-and-y'all-probably-know-and-are-willing-to-answer:

I've been sorta trying to compost for a few years now by dumping all of my grass clippings and branches from a bush I didn't want on the ground in a pile in the corner of my yard.  It's not composting - it isn't hot, and it isn't turning into anything looking like compost or soil.  The grass clippings turn brown eventually, but that's about it.

What am I doing wrong?

Do I need to add liquid?  Turn it?  Buy some worms?

I thought compost just magically happened if you just started a pile, but there must be more to it than that.

Another question:  I have a Mexican fireplace on my patio that I occasionally burn stuff in and am left with wood ash waste I guess.  Can I / should I put the ash waste in the compost pile, or throw it away, or spread it on my lawn, or ... ?

Thanks!

I'm also in Boise.  You need to water that pile, and maybe add a nitrogen source (herbivore poo or more greens).  Don't add the wood ash because it t will raise soil ph, and we already have alkaline soils.  If it's a good mix of greens and Browns, turning it will speed up the process, but I just let most of my piles compost I place, then flip them once a year and sieve the finished compost that has formed at the bottom and spread it on the garden.

[Goldielocks]

People keep posting about "less waste going to the landfill" but unless you're worried about number of trucks or whatever, why should I care about sending compostable waste to the landfill?  I mean, it can compost in my yard, or at the dump, who cares which?  The stuff to worry about sending to the landfill isn't the compostable stuff, it's the plastics and styrofoam and such. 

What am I missing?

This is not exactly true.  The stuff will compost at the dump for sure.  But it gets buried and mixed in with all the stuff that doesn't.  The result is a methane/h2s mixture that releases into the atmosphere.  This is a nasty green house gas.

I work for a gas company.  They are "tapping" into the methane from the landfill, hoping that this will be usable to burn in the various systems that supply to.  It is not, however.  Sweet natural gas that is burnt in furnaces is around 90%-99% methane, to give you a nice clean burn in your furnace, or whatever.  The "gas" that is produced in a dump is about 70% at best.  This is not usable in the system.  so they are stuck with what to do with the gas coming off of the dump. 

I have heard stories of explosions in dumps caused by the sudden release of the methane, but not sure of the validity of that.

The major dump near my home now captures the methane, and burns it for electricity.  Prior to power grid connectivity, they used the heat to generate steam for a local industry.   So, yes, it does work very well for electricity and for fueling trucks and other uses, too, but needs to be cleaned and compressed, which costs capital and needs volume.


i have a lazy approach to composting --   

The small kitchen scraps to the in-sink disposal, larger trimmings to the guinea pigs food dish, and large items like pumpkins and such to garden pile sitting in the back corner.   

All garden trimmings (a lot!) go to the garden pile, except for the most obvious weeds which get trashed, and woody branches that go to the green waste via our hauling (and paying) at the dump.   I don't actually use the free city compost pickup as it is too much bother for a pretty small amount.

The garden pile is over 6 years old now, and 1m x 2m x 2.5m and has hit a steady state -- it never seems to grow, and shrinks as it decomposes, and I have never pulled from it, only added massive amounts of garden stuff (no grass).   I have turned it once, after 2 years, and sometimes water it in the dry summer a few times.

[jengod]

I compost for a zillion reasons but one concrete benefit is that we haven't taken our green bin out for pickup in over two years. "Nothing organic leaves the property, nothing toxic enters the property." The only biodegradable green waste that doesn't get composted onsite is bougainvillea and raspberry bramble prunings. They seem to never break down and they have brutal thorns that will find anyone walking barefoot in the yard. I just throw them in the black bin out of spite.

Two resources to recommend:
* http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/soil >> these folks will cheerfully troubleshoot any and all compost issues you may encounter
* Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web << this book explains what's going on in your pile and what it does for your garden (and the planet!)

[jacksonvasey]

I added on a second bin this year, with a built-in privacy screen so I can piss into it and people walking by on the street can't see what I'm up to.  Wasn't a problem until last year when I built a new bin in a new spot that was visible from the street.

I originally started composting because I had opted out of garbage pickup service, so getting rid of rotting stuff in the garbage made it a lot easier to go to the dump every couple weeks.  I've gotten more into it over the years, and now I do it so I can have the compost for my garden.