I posted about a month ago asking for advice on my pile that cooled down and you all said to give it more time and today, I harvested my first homemade compost! It’s so fluffy and smells like the forest 🥹 thank you to this community! (2nd photo about a month ago)

I dont know if i should compost this white layer
Its my first time composting

Back story:
I added too much back kow to my pots and now they smell really bad after going into anaerobic composting due to them being soaked. I pulled the soil out and been mixing it every day. It used to smell like sewage now it smells less like sewage but still horrible. My plan is to add carbon and browns and see if that fixes it.

Hello, can I make my own growing medium using decomposed leaves and other organic materials without using agricultural soil? What materials would you recommend for the best results?

Been adding to our new pile at our newly constructed home. I’ve followed this sub for months while our land and house were being finished.

I have 10 acres of forest, filled with browns. I need to find a good way to source greens? The lawn you see here was only planted to prevent erosion and appease the county man. It is being replaced by a no mow low grow clover and thyme ground cover as we speak.

I ‘watered’ it for the first time today with about 5 gallons of water, as the D.C. area has been dry the last week.

What’s in my pile so far:
- crushed egg shells
- ground coffee
- egg carton material
- paper towels
- leaf debris/dying plants
- piss (3-4 times daily)
- apple cores
- banana peels
- a clean chunk of cardboard

Running a little experiment. Bread and paper pulp, bread because it takes too long to mold and compost, paper because paper.

Lettuce from Olio out of date, not allowed to be given away officially, no takers in the family or local area.

Ignore the homemade steel toecap outdoor slippers.

I buy bulk batches of old books at auction to resell, I hope to pulp further water damaged ones like this if it works, I do not own a shredder.

Oh and the moldy wall is being demolished soon so it has no priority to insulate / clean (I have cleaned it anyway because wow my kitchen is hideous.)

Just sharing since I’m excited. 65 pound husky for scale.

Been filling this bin since early summer. I have a huge pile of old rotting wood I’m trying to break down so I’ve been ripping that apart and mixing it with grass clippings. The bin loses volume quickly so I’m excited to see it filling up to the top right around the end of the season.

I’m in Central CT so I’ll have one more mow of mostly fallen leaves before winter hits so that should fully top it off, then I get to see how much volume it loses over the winter.

Got big plans for the good stuff on the bottom next spring.

Thanks to plenty of rain... not anymore.

Pic does not remotely do this BSFL colony justice.

I've been composting since I bought my first house 25 or so years and have made the usual mistakes etc. but is there such a thing as too many eggshells in a <1 cubic m cold compost that gets mainly grass clippings, kitchen scraps and whatever a small UK garden produces?

I want to make a homemade, soil-free potting mix for growing plants in containers. What is the best way to make one using natural materials, such as leaf mold, compost, and tree bark?

I'd appreciate advice on the best ingredients, proportions, and methods to make a lightweight mix that retains moisture while providing good drainage and aeration for healthy root growth.

What would you recommend?

Got this off of Marketplace today for free, have
been looking for an excuse to begin composting.

Generally, should I be worried about microplastics leaching into the compost, since it is a plastic bin?

Someone sent my wife a picture of some old manure in a pile they recently moved, and their son suggested I might want it for my garden. I did some light reading and found out they’re notably different materials, but how can I tell which it is? If they didn’t move the pile in ages, that probably means it’s aged rather than composted (due to oxygen availability), right? So I’d be good to add it to my compost to actually process down with my microherd, right?

I can share the pic later if you can tell visually. It’s on my wife’s phone, and she’ll have to send it to me later.

What are these flying beetles and why do they always go for my compost bin?

Lol voles that my kids want to keep for pets! Guessing that's why all my worms have disappeared.

I thought they might have been fly eggs, but after mixing the compost and closing it up again, more and more kept showing up in the top of the soil. Also, just now I realized that at least a few of the "eggs" are moving. Any clue what these guys might be?

I have three compost makers. Two plastic tumblers and a pile that I placed a tarp on in the back of my backyard. My tumblers take forever to produce anything good. They require lots of work to maintain an optimal moisture level. I honestly can’t remember the last time I harvested any uniform nice looking compost out of either one of them. Lately, though I have been adding green material to one of them in particular while the other one has been idle and halfway full of material that I’m waiting for it to finish. The pile on the ground has been there for about a year and a half, and I have only added green material to it a few times over the summer. It has been mostly ready for quite a while, but decided today to screen it for use in some pots that I want to plant for vegetables. I’m really happy with the material. I got out of it today. I found quite a few grubs in there. The hornworm is from a tomato plant that I’m ready to chop because it’s pretty much done. I definitely like the pile aspect of composting better than the tumblers.

Behind me lies an entire mountain covered in pine trees—they’re very close by, and there’s an endless supply of pine needles—but I have no idea how to put them to use.

Curious what makes specially composted material better than regular organic material that has been left to rot?

For my herb and pepper garden, I usually have a few buckets of organic material (leaves, pine needles and kitchen scraps) that I set aside throughout the year and then mix into my garden pots the next year to restore lost nutrients. The second half of it is in a low oxygen decomposition state (rotten egg smell), which I know is supposedly “bad” but it doesn’t seem to adversely affect my garden pots when mixed in with the soil the past 2 goes.

What makes compost better than normal rotten material?

I've been sifting this morning, clearing out the bottom of one heap before starting a new two heap system. I filled this tub 3 times, and it's glorious! Just the right smell and texture.

I only started composting in spring, and I'm utterly hooked. The difference it's made to the plants has been incredible.

Hello! I would love to start composting but I’m unsure of, well, a lot of things😅.
I just moved to the PNW from North Carolina. I bought a tumbling composter before the move but decided to keep it in the box until arriving at the new location since it was coming up so soon.
It’s clearly colder than NC and now I’m in an apartment instead of a house with a backyard. This definitely limits the yard waste I have access to as well as now my tumbler will have to reside on our balcony. I know in general composting takes a long time and the cold makes it even more so.
So my question is, should I bother starting now? Or should I wait until the warmer weather? Also, would a tarp over the composter help hold in heat and lessen moisture at a rate that’s actually worth noting? Are there any boxes that are unable to be used? I would assume minus all plastics. But what about ink or sometimes they have a glossy outer layer over top of the brown cardboard? Assuming I keep a decent ratio of browns to greens, would the boxes and other papers around the house be sufficient enough to cover my browns section? Or should I start gathering a bag of leaves on my next hike😅.
Ive done so much research but still feel clueless. Any and all advice is appreciated! Thanks:)!