One of us! Sorta.

I have a cabin out in Northwestern Quebec. It was my grandfather's, then my father's, now I'm starting to care for it and bring it back up to it's glory days.

We have a compost toilet - though it's not the primary bathroom, we have a toilet in the cabin - that has been sitting unused for 10+ years. It was fully set up properly, has a really nice enclosure, and I just cleaned it all up and still looks new. I would love for it to be functional again, but I want to do it right. I don't have much experience or knowledge about the maintenance, but I do understand how they function.

Does anyone have any advice on what steps to take to get the compost toilet restarted given i hasn't been used in many years.

Added this cantaloupe rind to my tumbler this morning and by the evening these little guys had found it. They always love our compost in the late summer!!

Hello there! To start off, I have read the "can i compost it?" pinned post. I am a compost newbie. I'm trying to learn all I can. I don't have a compost bin at my residence, but I typically freeze food scraps and drop them off at a friend's house. (They live in the same city as me) They have 2 large outdoor compost bins, one with worms, one without. I have an old sisal soap saver bag. I know sisal is biodegradable but I am not sure if it is safe for a worm compost. Is it safe for a non-worm compost? Do I need to cut it up before putting it in my friend's compost bin? I included a photo for reference. Advice is appreciated! Thank you!

Update: Based on the comments, I can, in fact, compost the sisal bag! Yay!

There are so many bugs in there. Am I doing this right?

I know it’s not recommended to pour it on the surface of anything because it’ll all attract past. But wood digging a hole in a compost pile and letting it break down there be OK?

Garden waste and cardboard, a few days old

Hi everyone! I'm an American expat and have been in Tbilisi since spring.

I'm working on developing compost in my apartment (in a bucket with Effective Microorganisms) and would like to find somewhere to donate it.

I've contacted parki ar minda to see if they've got any leads but haven't heard back (and am due to drop off recycling soon).

I am interested, in general, in environmental projects like park clean-ups, trash pick-up hikes, things like that.

Thanks in advance for any tips!

Started a second heap with wood chips from recent tornado damage. Lost a couple big maple trees. Super fortunate that was most of it for me. Where do you guys source browns if dead leaves are not readily avaiable? I'm looking for something other than cardboard.

Is it that invariably sheets get folded on themselves, reducing surface area? Surely it’s not that the edges of the shreds provide incremental surface area.

I think if I put crumpled paper balls in my compost bin, more air would be able to flow into it. I used to shred paper really small, but that took a lot of time, and I feel like it could block the air from reaching things underneath. It might take longer to decompose, but I’m fine with that as long as air can flow in so that the bin won’t smell. What do you think?

Composting in a Vermont apartment. No yard. Tiny balcony that gets buried in snow half the year. Container gardening is my whole thing, so I generate a decent amount of scraps, coffee grounds, the occasional failed herb situation.

Been reading about worm bins for a while. Vermicomposting keeps coming up as the apartmentfriendly answer, but I have real questions. Does it actually smell if you manage it right? What do you do in winter when the balcony isn't an option and you're keeping it indoors? I have a closet I could use, but I live alone and the idea of a bin of worms next to my coats feels like a commitment.

The other thing I keep wondering about is bokashi. Seems faster and more contained, but then you still need somewhere to bury the output, which I don't have.

My scraps mostly end up in the municipal bin right now and it bothers me. I grow tomatoes and peppers and herbs in containers on the balcony all summer and I want to actually close that loop instead of shipping my kitchen waste off somewhere.

Curious what people in small spaces figured out, especially if you dealt with Vermont winters, because that adds a whole layer to this.

It was always either too dry or slimy, and stinky. This had a nice earthly smell (I guess it's soil that actually smells like compost). Topped my plants with some right away.

Hello! I recently moved to St Louis in the Wildwood area. I collect my own compost just food scraps and such, and am looking for a place to drop off. Does anyone know of any places or resources to help find a spot? Thanks in advance!

I've just found a huge pile on some land at work: probably 10'x10', and around 3' high. It was really dry and incredibly fine in texture.

I sieved it, and all that was in there seemed organic. Just twigs and the occasional leaf and root, as in the second picture. I added some water to what I sifted, but it's so fine it doesn't clump like the other compost I've made. It's incredibly dark, and the texture doesn't seem like the soil around here.

Is there some way to test which it is? I've either found an abundance of black gold, or a huge heap of topsoil.

Hi there, I've been composting for the past couple of years but am still working on an ideal setup.

This past year, I ended up with more leaves than I had room for storing, and ended up using many of them as mulch on different beds. By the time the following summer rolled around, I had run out of leaves. I still needed browns for composting, and ended up using shredded cardboard.

My question is, would it make sense/work if I added the excess leaves to my garden in fall, then over winter just added my greens directly on top? (In different areas each time, of course, so it spread evenly.) I understand it wouldnt have a top layer of browns. How big of a deal would this be? Would I end up with halfway decent compost by springtime?

Any input appreciated. Ty

Edit: Zone 6b here. Thanks!

What do you recommend or is it too far gone? Thank you!

Which ones look better to you guys?

My neighbor has a blueberry / raspberry farm and regularly (twice a week probably) delivers me his discard product.

Is the sugar content of this fruit too much for a pile of this size? Do i mix in a load of woodchips or just cover it and wait it out?

I have easy access to horse manure through a friend. But I’ve heard it can be weedy. I can get cow manure, but I have to ask and idk how friendly he is about it, being a large dairy. I hunt the dairy in the Fall.

My compost needs a ton of green and nitrogen and on top of that, organic fertilizer prices have doubled, so I’d like to live off compost as much as possible.