Help me learn to compost!

[McGucks]

Hello all.  I have never composted before and DH and I have decided we want to give it a shot.  We have a small yard and a small garden.  I know we're pretty much shot for this year (?), but here's what we are doing so far:  we have a plastic tub in the kitchen into which we put veg/fruit peelings, coffee grounds, and eggs.  There is a corner of the yard in a fenced-off area with some grass clippings.  Each day, I kind of bury what I have into the clippings or leaves from the yard.

My questions are:

1.  How long does it take for this stuff to decompose?

2.  When do I work it into the soil?

3.  What else should I put in it?

4.  What should I NOT put in it?

5.  Would it be better to put stuff in a 5 gallon plastic bin with holes in the sides or something (to keep in the heat?)

If it matters, I live in southwest VA.  Any help or advice would be appreciated.  Thanks, gardening mamas!

[SweetSilver]

Lazy gardener here.  Pile it up, leave it long enough.  Plant straight in it.  Done!

Alright, we do a bit more than that!  For one, we let the grass clippings fall back onto the lawn.  If piled up on their own they get slimy and....mmmm.....pungent to say the least.  Like dog doo!  You can mix them with "browns" and food waste instead.  That's a little more work.

We have a lazy worm bin for food waste.  We also have chickens, and I have finally gotten over my squeamishness of tossing a cooked chicken carcass in the coop (they love it!)   A really active worm bin will take care of meat and grease-soaked paper and everything you're not supposed to put in the compost because it attracts vermin (it does!)

B. C. (Before Chickens) everything else would go into a wire fence bin.  These need to be wide enough (say, 5') to really get active.  Weeds will grow on the sides, so throw some like creeping buttercup in the center.  Your worst weeds (bindweed, hemlock) do not belong there!  Now we put everything non-toxic into the coop.

Some things we do very differently.  For one, we don't turn our compost.  Yes, we are lazy but there is some theory behind this.  This style is cool and slow, not hot and fast.  It won't kill weed seeds, but that's another thing we do different.  We throw in all weeds, even with seed heads (though actually those go into the coop now).  After all, those seeds will be next year's compost!  We also don't chop things down.  Too.  Much.  Work.

So, our compost isn't all nice and perfect looking, but it works with minimal labor.  The other thing we don't do is turn it in but lay it on top only.  We practice "no till" gardening.  Partly because we're lazy, but there is a theory behind it!

[McGucks]

Thanks for writing back?  A "lazy worm bin"?  Can you explain that a bit?  Also, tell me about the creeping buttercup.  What is it and what is it for?  You know a whole lot more than I about this outside stuff, but I guess I have to start somewhere...

I love your approach and rationale!

[crunchy_mommy]

We basically do what you already do, actually we don't bother burying it every day or anything, just dump it all in the big bin (made from found wood pallets) and add leaves etc. to it whenever we're cleaning up the yard. I'm not sure if this is the 'ideal' method but it works for us, doesn't smell or anything. Although we do use some of the compost in the garden, it's real purpose for us is just reducing our garbage, so we're not on any timeline or trying to reach a certain quality of compost or anything.

We put all food waste (we are vegan so it's all plant-based, not sure what you'd do with dairy/meat/etc.) and also coffee grounds (including the filters), uncoated paper/newsprint pieces, etc. Usually we just throw whole papers into the recycling bin though, I think there would be too much paper otherwise.

[hildare]

do you have any chickens or animals at all?  we compost under the rabbit box, the rabbit poop is the best fertilizer anywhere.  we also dig from under the chicken coop and sometimes shovel cow pies and add that. 

you can put hair and dog hair, etc in there.  it adds something nice.

about the vermiculture, there's a really good and simple book out there called worms eat my garbage.  you should check it out.

[SweetSilver]

Originally Posted by caedenmomma 

Thanks for writing back?  A "lazy worm bin"?  Can you explain that a bit?  Also, tell me about the creeping buttercup.  What is it and what is it for?  

I don't know if you have creeping buttercup in your area.  It's a very persistent weed from Eurasia.  A pp recommended the best book on creating a worm bin, and the proper kind are positively crawling with thousands of worms.  They digest paper, cloth, meat, fat, cellulose sponges, everything!  I know, because I threw in a lot of weird stuff when I maintained this kind of bin.  Now DH does the food compost not destined for the coop.  He uses an old 35 gallon bucket (trash "can".  As a pro gardener, we use a lot of these for yard waste and other things.  Being plastic we try to use them until we can figure out no further use for them.)  This bucket has its bottom cut off and sunk into the garden.  He layers food with organic material.  We've discovered nearly-composted wood chips make the best layering material.  You won't find so many worms in this "system"  because it breaks a lot of rules but it works without stinking up the yard.  But partly that's because a good chunk of food scraps ends up in the coop.  We don't have those really persistent urban raccoons.  Ours are a bit shyer and less troublesome, possibly because free-roaming dogs and coyotes keep them a bit more humble?  But our bin isn't particularly pest-proof, we've just been lucky.

[MariesMama]

I've tried a lot of different composting methods.  Trash can with ventilation holes drilled in it (great for limited space), tumbler (meh), chicken wire bin, pile.  I really like compost piles that are directly on the ground, because the worms and insects can get into it and do their thing as well as the bacterial composting that goes on.  I turn mine occasionally.  In the winter, not so much.  In the spring, when I'm getting started with the gardens but am not able to do much, I'm constantly turning it, screening it, adding, mixing, so that I can put the finished product into the beds or pots.  Now that it's summer, I just leave it and add grass clippings, weeds, and food scraps.  This fall I will be putting the compost, finished or unfinished, directly onto my raised beds and leaving it all winter.  I will probably use snow fencing or plastic edging to raise the sides a couple of feet so that I can really pile it on and let it sink down all winter.  Come spring, I will sift it out and solarize the beds to kill any weed seeds.  Normally I don't do this but we have bindweed here and it's making me crazy.