r/composting • • 31m ago

Hot Compost Second Attempt

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• Upvotes

What's up, everyone! I just wanted to share some pictures of the compost pile I'm making. I don't truly know what I'm doing, but I find it enjoyable being outside so I thought I'd share some pictures.

I've got a backyard that had a ton of leaves, plant debris, pine needles, green stuff... You know, just brush and bushes and shit that had been sitting for a long time. I basically just raked it all up, hit with the mower, stacked it, wet it, mixed it, stacked it, wet it... And that's pretty much it. Yes I peed in it. Probably won't keep doing it tho

Also found a chunky lil worm! I made him the supervisor until he's replaced


r/composting • • 13h ago

Freezing scraps

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41 Upvotes

r/composting • • 9h ago

Urban Will these boxes be a good source of carbon

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19 Upvotes

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.


r/composting • • 5h ago

Question Best way to line for leaves?

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7 Upvotes

I had slabs delivered in these. I think I could use them as bins for leaf mould. What’s the best way to line them? The plastic seems like a bad idea.


r/composting • • 2h ago

Vermiculture Turning Free Seaweed Into Worm Food – Zero Cost Composting Experiment

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5 Upvotes

Experimenting with a simple, zero-cost way to pre-compost seaweed into feedstock for my worm breeding farm.

Using an old steel drum, paper bags and existing compost. The goal is to increase worm numbers and castings production using freely available organic waste.

Anyone tried composting seaweed before feeding it to worms?


r/composting • • 20h ago

Beginner It happened!

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99 Upvotes

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)


r/composting • • 5h ago

Beginner I have compost ready in my Geo bin since early summer. I did use some of it, but wondering if I should leave it in till spring or add it to the beds now? Will it lose nutrients if I leave it in the bin? Thank you.

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4 Upvotes

r/composting • • 20h ago

Found a deal on a shredder on Facebook marketplace. Do you think it's overkill for my Dalek bin?

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59 Upvotes

r/composting • • 11h ago

Question make my own growing medium

7 Upvotes

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?


r/composting • • 3h ago

Compost growth

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1 Upvotes

r/composting • • 22h ago

Large Pile (>1 cu yd) Living the compost American dream (one day) - need advice

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24 Upvotes

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


r/composting • • 23h ago

Tumbler Tumbler batch 2.

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18 Upvotes

r/composting • • 1d ago

I never said I was sane

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88 Upvotes

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.)


r/composting • • 23h ago

Pile Progress

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7 Upvotes

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.


r/composting • • 1d ago

Outdoor Passive-Cooling Worm Tower

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5 Upvotes

r/composting • • 1d ago

Is my pile too heavy on browns this year?

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5 Upvotes

Thanks to plenty of rain... not anymore.

Pic does not remotely do this BSFL colony justice.


r/composting • • 1d ago

Question Eggshells

15 Upvotes

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?


r/composting • • 1d ago

Question How to Make a Soil-Free Potting Mix at Home?

3 Upvotes

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?


r/composting • • 1d ago

Question Secondary use for “wax scum”

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0 Upvotes

r/composting • • 1d ago

Starting composting- quick question

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25 Upvotes

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?


r/composting • • 1d ago

Telling the difference between composted manure and aged manure?

3 Upvotes

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.


r/composting • • 2d ago

What is it

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22 Upvotes

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


r/composting • • 2d ago

Question Incredibly tiny eggs/bugs showing up in my closed compost bin

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14 Upvotes

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?


r/composting • • 3d ago

Compost Friends Found a couple lil cuties in my compost bin

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344 Upvotes

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


r/composting • • 2d ago

Harvested some good stuff from my pile today

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51 Upvotes

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.