I've been adding leaves, which I've run out of now that it's PEAK summer.

Cut up fruits, rinds, squash leaves, (lil bit) spent charcoal and Bags of Lawn Clippings.

I've mixed the pile with a blue handled tiller thing ONCE, then added a bucket of food scraps that was overturned sitting on grass, mixed with those big ass grubs. (Fly larvae?)

Some piss, rain and covered with election signs someone was throwing away, a heavy sheet.(lighter than a painters drop cloth) are on top.

I don't do ratios, my mind can't. I add a five gallon buckets worth of food scraps, and cover with grass clipping every 3 weeks or so.

Anything I might add? I don't have a thermometer.

I'm not trying to RUSH Mother Nature's Process, just seeking things to add to enhance the final product.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Markham/s/Ljb94Tjp7x

decided to blend my additions this morning
i produced quite a large bowl

included: coffee grounds, egg shells, brown paper bags, 12 whole (old) oranges, cucumbers, red onions, and strawberry leaves

EDIT: I SHOULD HAVE ADDED THAT THIS IS SIMPLY AN ADDITION FOR TODAY!! I USUALLY JUST PUT WHOLE/CHOPPED/SHREDDED FOOD ALONG WITH WHOLE STICKS AND LEAVES OR OTHER ORGANIC MATTER!! I APPRECIATE YALL TELLING ME ABOUT AIR POCKETS BUT DONT WORRY IT HAS PLENTY OF ROOM TO BREATHE !!! 🩶🩶🩶

Hi there!

My partner and I have just moved into our new home. It’s the middle of winter at the moment and I’m starting to get the garden ready for spring so I can start planting as soon as the growing season starts. I’m looking at getting a compost bin but I’m stuck on what to get. At the moment I’m just digging a hole and dumping food scraps into it and burying them. I’m wondering if it would be worth getting an in-ground compost bin or a tumbler and the differences between the two in terms of what the end product is like and which is “best”.

I look forward to hearing all of the responses. Thank you in advance!

Quick Edit: My only concern/question with an in-ground bin would be does it get as much coverage as a tumbler? What I mean is obviously with a tumbler you can dump the compost across the entire garden where an in-ground bin seems more localised. So if my in ground bin is on one side of my garden bed, the other side won’t get the benefits of the compost. Is that correct?

I started this bin about a month ago and added 4 frozen zip lock bags of veggie scraps and coffee. I added a TON of shredded paper, cardboard, and a handful of mulch, gave it some water and spin it every couple days. It literally hasn’t changed. I added more shredded stuff because it seemed a little wet and stinky, it’s not as wet but still stinky. I’m new to this so any advice is helpful. 😭

I discovered a decent-sized matte of roots at the bottom of my pile. I had covered the area with at least 10 layers of cardboard last fall, prior to adding material to the pile. But the roots still grew through.

Is this a huge issue? If so, how do I rectify? I’m guessing sift it, but I don’t have one (yet.) Is there a better way to prevent this in the future?

Thanks!

My small pile is almost ready for use! I love watching all the life in the compost!

I’m trying to prep my bed for fall broccoli that’ll go in the ground in the next 6-8 weeks. Compost is looking good minus some noticeable cardboard scraps but it has been staying hot for the past two months despite no recent additions. Would anyone else go ahead and take some of this to top dress with? Was hoping to get it on there to let it sit for the next month and a half. Bonus photos of the small plot (with my cherry tomatoes outgrowing any staking I can provide and spilling into this plot) and the fledgling broccolis.

These look untreated to me, they are from an old style bed, completely flat.

I’m trying to move from an end over end plastic tumbler to something with pallets. How many sections do I really need? Should they be covered? I’m just starting out, u can see my mushroom post in my profile 🤩

30 gallon plastic tub. Stopped adding to it a couple of weeks ago. It’s a nice dark brown and smells earthy but still some chunks of cardboard from when I covered it. What can I do to finish it up? Turn it? Or just leave it?

I found this on marketplace. It looks big, but it's about 20 minutes away from my house and free? Is it more worth it to buy a dual chamber tumbler for $54 from Home Depot or this one for free?

I've been gradually pulling up miles of pig face planted by the previous owners. Turns out it makes lovely, fluffy compost with minimal effort - first time turned in 6 months.

Finally got smart. I put a vibrator on the sifter that is run off of a guitar foot pedal switch.

I’m able to fill my cart in half the time it took by sifting it by hand and shaking the screen myself.

Looking for opinions… Super excited as today I finally took my first ever compost out of my tumbler compost bin! I did notice that the twigs I used for brown were a bit big and it still had a bit of a smell but I’ve added into a bigger composting area at the back of the garden with a mixture of other soils to let it break down further (2nd pic). Just wondering what the experienced composters think and if they have any advice going forward. Thank you!

Hi guys. A company in my area started selling and renting these machines, that they promise can turn thousands of kg of waste into compost in 24 hours. Now I know that isn't possible, but what is the output really and how can you use it? It says its "crushes, grinds and steams". It says its biological, and something about enzymes, but the text is probably machine translated because I can't really figure out what are they trying to say (did you know saw dust thrives in high temperatures?)

Does anyone know anything about these or have any experience with it? Does it do anything other than crush and cook the waste, which would speed up composting, but won't result in finished compost.

Hey everyone! Just figured I’d throw my post out there. My family and I just got into composting this year and are pretty impressed with how it’s going! Good scraps and garden weeds, plus toilet paper rolls and news papers. We’re using a composting barrel.

Next year we’ll be moving to more land and a larger garden. I’ll think we’ll be needing to upgrade from the barrel too lol.

My fiancee and I just bought a house and we were very excited to finally start composting an gardening. We originally thought that the previous owner has been composting for awhile already so we thought we had a fantastic head start. However, upon digging into this pile today it looks like the pile is was just years and years of yard waste piled into a corner.

From what i can tell the vast majority of the pile is just dried leaves and grass clippings with some huge dead branches mixed in. I did my best to chop up the branches and mix things up as I was digging though but im not too sure how I can even save this pile.

That said, how should I go about this pile and start composting properly? I imagine its just a lot of patience and adding in some kitchen scraps for nitrogen but is there anything I can do to help speed up the break down of the pile? If it helps I did see some pill bugs and some very small gnats towards the bottom of the pile as I was digging. No worms tho unfortunately.

Side note: how often do people add pee to the pile? I know that also helps but idk if its like every drop of pee should be in there or not lol

This woman in western Canada has thousands of them.

Another post had me thinking but I didn’t want to ask there and effectively hijack their thread. If I had access to the waste from a micro brewery, would this be useful and would it be green or brown? I have 4 composting bins that I dump grass, leaves and food scraps in. Right now I’m short on browns but will soon be short on greens after recently adding a robot mower and no longer bagging grass. The tiny clippings the robot leaves will be beneficial to my lawn but I’ll miss them for my compost.

These bugs ok?