Compost questions

[Sally PB]

I don't produce enough green/nitrogen waste, so I end up getting free used grounds from a local coffee shop each year. I've heard that Starbucks will have bagged grounds available, but I use a local Panera and bring them a bucket and bags to make it easy for them to collect. I even tell them to throw the filters in there along with the grounds as the paper will compost and I want to make it as easy as possible for them

There are two Starbucks that can be "on my way" and I have gotten a lot of bagged grounds from them.

Kudos to you and Panera! If there were one near me, I'd ask them. I asked a local Biggby if they saved grounds. Nope. What if I brought them a bucket...? Nope.

 

[Cammo77]

Compost, compost, how do I love thee?

SO DANG MUCH!!!

Ok, got that out of my system.

Brown/green: What they're talking about is stuff that has a lot of carbon (brown), like fallen leaves, dried grass, shavings from the coop, wood chips.

The green is stuff that is high in nitrogen, like fresh (green) grass clippings. Chicken manure, even though brown in color, is VERY high in nitrogen, as are most manures.

If you have all carbon, it will take a very long time to break down. If you have all nitrogen, it will stink. That's why the mix is important. The oft-mentioned ratios are 25 or 30 to 1, carbon to nitrogen. In other words, it doesn't take too much manure to help dried leaves break down.

If you build a pile of vegetative stuff, it will eventually break down. Think of the fallen trees and leaves on a forest floor. But for a garden, you need the compost to stay in its pile, and so that's why they sell compost bins.

You don't need to buy a bin. You can make a pile, put some welded wire fence around it, and that can be a compost bin.

You will hear the phrases "hot composting" and "cold composting." The stuff on the forest floor? That's cold composting. It sits there, various "things" from the dirt get in there (bugs, worms, fungi, a word that starts with "M" that I can't think of or spell*), and they break down the stuff in the pile, or on the forest floor. It been going on since there were forest floors. It takes a long time for fallen leaves to turn into dirt. Years.

Hot composting is the same only different, as we used to say where I used to work. If the mix of nitrogen and carbon are right, the pile is damp, and some air gets mixed in, the pile will heat up, literally. To 150F, sometimes. The stuff in the pile breaks down faster, and you can have usable compost in 3 weeks.

https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/2010/05/08/hot-compost-composting-in-18-days/
This site will tell you all about making compost, fast. Caveat: It's more manual labor. I do this in the spring with the kitchen scraps I've been dumping in my compost bin all winter, along with the poop I collect out of the chicken coop.

*Ah! Here's the word: mycorrhiza. Fungi in the ground that do amazing things with and for plants.

Pretty much any reasonably fresh, softish vegetable matter can be used in compost. The things I would avoid are poison ivy (for obvious reasons), whole wood (takes too long to break down, though wood shavings are okay).
I don't use meat either. It will compost okay, but tends to attract meat eaters that I don't want anywhere near my chickens.
Ignore the green/brown distinction. I find it more confusing than helpful. Chicken poo and coffee grounds are considered "green" due to the higher nitrogen content.


This is one of the major ways I've cut down on trash. Garden waste, kitchen scraps, etc. are now considered to have some value rather than be thrown into a landfill somewhere.


That can be a very good resource. I don't produce enough green/nitrogen waste, so I end up getting free used grounds from a local coffee shop each year. I've heard that Starbucks will have bagged grounds available, but I use a local Panera and bring them a bucket and bags to make it easy for them to collect. I even tell them to throw the filters in there along with the grounds as the paper will compost and I want to make it as easy as possible for them.


Yes. You can get into it as deep as you want. I use two simple systems. (1) Use deep litter (fall leaves) with my chickens that I scoop out twice/year and use to top off my raised beds and even sell some to my neighbor. (2) Have cold compost bins (I'm lazy) that I fill once/year with garden waste, some leaves and coffee grounds. This latter compost I generally use around my berry bushes and fruit trees. Both work well.

I could probably optimize the latter compost system by injecting mycorrhizal fungi, making compost tea, following exact nitrogen/carbon mixtures, hot composting, etc., but I've found that these two lazy systems work quite well without the extra effort.

Lazy or smart? I started following a group on FB with regard to Johnson-Su bioreactor composting...those guys are dedicated I'm with you though, whatever is easiest.

Personally I compost with worms in an old bathtub, which not by design ended up with a population of Black Soldier fly as well. I've also built a small dedicated BSF farm to hopefully get some treats for the chooks. I have an area set up in the chicken run that I throw some scraps and weeds etc with a bit of sugar cane mulch for the girls to scratch through. I then shift it in to another "bay" and turn it all over and the girls scratch through that too. I also make worm casting tea (plus use castings directly) and Comfrey tea as well to use as a foliar fertiliser. I normally add mycorrhizal fungi when I plant seedlings with some biochar as well. My goal is to build massive amounts of soil biodiversity and then hopefully the plants will thrive and look after themselves.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I know some people add eggshells to compost, do they have to be super small? Or can I just throw chunks in and know they might take longer to compost? Do they have to be clean or can they have some poop? I throw duck eggs to my birds a lot because they're too dirty to eat, and the hens don't eat the shells as much.

 

[TooCheep]

I know some people add eggshells to compost, do they have to be super small? Or can I just throw chunks in and know they might take longer to compost? Do they have to be clean or can they have some poop? I throw duck eggs to my birds a lot because they're too dirty to eat, and the hens don't eat the shells as much.

Poop doesn't matter. It'll compost.

Small, actually finely ground is best. It is used by worms as grit. Larger will take longer to break down, but it will.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Poop doesn't matter. It'll compost.

Small, actually finely ground is best. It is used by worms as grit. Larger will take longer to break down, but it will.

Okay. No worms in my set up

 

[rosemarythyme]

I know some people add eggshells to compost, do they have to be super small? Or can I just throw chunks in and know they might take longer to compost? Do they have to be clean or can they have some poop? I throw duck eggs to my birds a lot because they're too dirty to eat, and the hens don't eat the shells as much.

I crush up shells a bit before throwing into compost as they do take longer to break down, and crushing them beforehand helps with that. You may find bits of them in the finished compost, but that's fine.

Poop is 100% fine, most of us deliberately compost chicken poop and pretty sure duck poop is the same.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

What about onion scraps and tomato bits? Or are they too acidic?

 

[TooCheep]

They are perfectly fine.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

They are perfectly fine.

Awesome. I started work again today, which means starting tomorrow, I'll have pretty much all the plant scraps I could want and didn't want to bring anything that would go bad

 

[Sally PB]

Excellent!