Compost continued...

[Stephanie]

I hadn't been able to get outside into my garden for the last few weekends, so I didn't know what to expect to find in the bin (too dry, not enough decay, etc...). I was pleasantly surpised to see that it was still moist and crumbly. Just about everything in the bin had decayed. I shovelled some in each of my backyard flower beds and scratched it into the surface, mixing it with the mulch.

I started a new batch for the spring with the weeds I pulled and some leaves and pine needles I gathered and added more water. I made brownies for Marty this morning so I added the egg shells and some coffee grinds from this morning's coffee into the pile with newspaper.

I can't wait to see what affects this will have on my garden in the spring!

[DaylilyDawn]

Stephanie, you may need to crush the eggshells very finely or you may find they did not decay.

[Stephanie]

Stephanie, you may need to crush the eggshells very finely or you may find they did not decay.

Thanks for the advice Daylily! I didn't crush them when I first dropped them in, but I'm assuming that when it mixed the compost with my spade that they got crushed then. I'll make sure I do it the next time though.

[coriolis]

At this time of year, pumpkins are GREAT. They provide needed nitrogen. When I was doing mine, the pumpkins (old jack-o-lantern) gave the leaves a real boost. It really heated up.

My composter was made of pieces of old wooden fence. It is open to the ground and open on top.

I had been putting in kitchen scraps and they were great too. I mentioned before that we had rats move in and I discontinued the kitchen scraps.

At this point, I just put in leaves, occasional grass clippings, and trimmings from the shrubbery. I stopped mixing it. Now It's more as a means of disposal than anything else. I put it in and it keeps going down.

Good luck with yours, Stephanie, sounds like you are really doing it right!

[Stephanie]

I added more egg shells today and coffee grinds too and I made sure that I chopped it down really well with the shovel. I added more leaves and pine needles and water. I know that I won't get out during the winter to mix it - it'll probably be frozen most of the time anyway.

It's pretty neat Ed. In the beginning I had more weeds and grass clippings (greens) than leaves (browns) in the pile. Then I read that it should really be at a 3 - 1 (brown vs green) ratio for it to really heat up and decay. I have it in an old rubbermaid trash can that I poked holes on the sides with a screwdriver. There's some holes on the bottom and cracks so critters can crawl in there and do their thing! I originally was keeping the lid off of the can, to catch the rain water, but it didn't heat up and breakdown as quickly. So now I keep the lid on.

The coffee grinds and egg shells will probably be the extent of the food that I'll put into the bin. I like animals but....

[coriolis]

Hmm.. Browns and Greens. All we need are Jones's..

And the pumpkins... They're orange.