Compost confessions

[ChuckF]

I know at least some you have compost bins/piles, so spill.

A few months ago I started a compost bin for my roomie and I. Partly because I had been meaning to start one for a long time, and partly because I had a little bit of yard waste after tearing up the fucking English ivy that had been growing out of control for a decade or so. (And I know that shit is going to come back next year. I'll be waiting.)

Anyway, I read about all different kinds of bins, and, being unwilling to pay $100+ a plastic bin for kitchen wastes to rot in, I decided to pay $12 for a 32-gallon trash can with a locking lid and drill it full of holes. And it works fine. I put in the ivy remnants, emptied out some dead plants and dirt into it, and started throwing kitchen waste in there. Every once in a while I turn it on its side and roll it around. I also started reading about composting, and was not surprised to find a huge amount of information online.

Composting, like cooking and homebrewing, seems to be one of those process-intensive things about which it can be very difficult to convey information in abstract writing. There are lots of people who know a lot of stuff, but it's hard to get a straight answer because there is so much information. I read about the greens and the browns. When I noticed some ants in the compost, stealing my nutrients, I threw a little water in there because the internet told me so, and the next day the ants were gone.

This morning I threw some egg shells in and noticed some big fucking black maggots writhing around in some banana peels and avocado shells. :projectilevomit: I guess humans have a built-in revulsion response to maggots, because of filth. Anyway, I referred to the compost corpus online and found that they are in fact soldier fly larvae (http://extension.oregonstate.edu/news/story.php?S_No=802&storyType=garden) and they are really very good for compost. It has been hot and humid here, with regular cloudbursts to keep the compost damp, which is the perfect environment for them.

So my compost is a little too wet (probably needs moar browns, but I'm going to wait until the larvae finish their bidness) and I probably need to turn it more often, but I am doing my best to just relax and let the stuff rot. Turns out rotting plant matter does not care about my emotional state at all.

Also, compost tip: Starbucks will give you free used coffee grounds.

[Deadlokd]

I opened the thread expecting to finally hear where the bodies are buried. :sadcheer:

[livius drusus]

This is why I've been too chickenshit to start my own compost pile. Large black maggots are just not something I'm ever going to be able to cope with easily, despite their circle-of-life usefulness.

[freemonkey]

I pretty much just put my grass clippings and leaves and dead plants in one of two contained piles I have out of the way. I only bother to turn it a few times a year, but there's some nice stuff in there. And worms. Tons of earthworms.

The noxious weeds (like the English ivy) and most kitchen waste would goes in a yard waste recycling bin that is collected every two weeks by Waste Mgmt. because it's something our county offers.

[ChuckF]

I was surprised to find out that my shitty little condo community thing has no facilities at all for yard waste collection. The city has weekly yard waste pickup, but it doesn't serve apartment complexes or anything, so I would have had to haul it to the place myself. That is one of the reasons the ivy wound up going in the compost, even if it is going to take a year to break down.

[lisarea]

We have the exact same model of composter that you do, except I didn't buy a whole new trashcan for it because I'm not a wastrel like you.

I don't even bother to roll it around much anymore. We just put all our stuff in it, then when it's full, some guy rolls it over to the garden area and dumps it there (so the fresher garbage is at the bottom), and it finishes composting there.

[ITSOZAZ]

we just dip a bucket in the latrine.

[Qingdai]

I have two of the black plastic vented bins that the city was selling for cheap years ago. Now people who have given up on compost leave them on corners, so win/win for me.

I also am happy to have the black flies, the maggots are gross, and they leave husks that some people find objectionable. They do cook down the compost like crazy though.
If you keep your compost so that it can keep warm, that keeps it cooking and keeps the smell reduced.

On the farm we used to just nail pallets together and dump everything in there.

I don't turn my compost, as there is a vented door in the bottom of my bin, but I do layer brown (dried grass clippings) over the green or moist compost.

Almost any espresso place is happy to have you take their coffee grounds.

[ChuckF]

I don't turn my compost, as there is a vented door in the bottom of my bin
:aristocrat:

[Dingfod]

What a bunch of shit.

[Clutch Munny]

We have a couple of compost bins hiding beneath vines in the back yard, which have been bulging with undistributed crap for ages now. But the city has implemented a kitchen waste "greenbin" recycling program to go along with the blue box program, so all our slop waste (and paper towels, etc) just goes out to curb once a week. Our own composters are basically forgotten now.

[irukandji]

in spite of fastidiously keeping our kitchen
compost protein free.... the frikkin bears
around here thought our bin was a take
out buffet, in that they took it out 5 times
so i said "fudge this ship" and now we just
heap yard waste in the ravine, or under a
tarp if i want it for gardening..... it works
amazingly well

i just didnt like the idea of feeding bears
in the same yard where my kids played and
drank their froot joos boxes...

[ChuckF]

I'm impressed by and jealous of that level of municipal support for recycling/composting. My town and county are excellent relative to the region, but nothing that cool. They do compost yard waste, and there is a community compost pile in the park down the road, but it seems like it is mainly for use by people who live right next to the park. It's not accessible otherwise. Well, the trail where I run goes right by it, but I think running with a gallon of food scraps would cramp my style a little bit.

I am totally enamored of this black soldier fly larva discovery. What miracle maggots! They can reduce all kinds of food scraps, including meat and dairy, as well as dog poop and other animal wastes, and they can do it in just a few days. Then you can feed them to the chickens because they are mostly protein. I don't think my household produces enough waste to sustain a population of them, but it seems like it would be perfect for a neighborhood compost kind of thing.

[Clutch Munny]

I'm impressed by and jealous of that level of municipal support for recycling/composting.

The downside, of course, is the communist dictatorship.

:shakecanada: