Composting

[Mike5150]

Hi there. First a quick suggestion It might be nice to have a forum dedicated to composting techniques and questions.

I started a compost pile this year for the first time. I've done some reading up on it, but I do have a few questions and I figured that this would be a good place to ask since I'm sure some of you have compost piles of your own.
1) I understand that you should have about 4 parts brown to 1 part green. Unfortunately most of what I have is green. This fall I plan on saving a bunch of plastic bags full of mulched leaves, but that does not help me for this year. I read that dumping your paper shredder into the compost pile is a good source of brown, but then I also read that the inks could be toxic to plants. Does anyone have experience with this? I get a bunch of credit card offers that I would LOVE to put to good use.
2) I also read that dried grass is a good source of brown...could I make a pile of grass every other week, and throw a tarp over it to keep the rain off and use that as my brown?
3) I also read that sawdust is an excellent source of Brown, but to be careful because it's easy to overload the pile with too much sawdust. Right now I plan on going out to the garage and cutting up a bunch of scrap 2x4's I have lying around, but I'm not sure how much saw dust to use. My bin right now is pretty small, it's about a foot and a half wide, 3 feet long, and filled about a foot and a half tall. It is over 3/4 full with grass clippings, a little under 1/4 leaves from last fall that I was able to scavenge from my yard, and the rest is kitchen scraps. I was thinking of trying to fill a 5 gallon bucket about half way with saw dust and mixing that in, but I don't want to overload the pile either.

Thanks alot for any advice you can give me!
Mike

 

[Mike5150]

I forgot to ask how important sun is to composting. I have a spot in my yard that is mostly shaded, but I would like to put a second (bigger) pile there. For some reason I seem to remember one of the websites saying something about a sunny area, but cannot find it now. Also, I've heard different things for composting things like weeds and veggies that contain seeds. Will these survive the composting process to grow in places I don't want them?

 

[sunflower3]

Mike you might look under Organic Gardening there are posts there about composting that might help you out.
I use my shreded paper in my compost pile, the inks on the majority of newsprint and inkjets are veg based and not a problem - the glossy surface stuff is a clay coating.

 

[sunflower3]

too much sun will dry the pile out and you will have to water it, some seeds will survive and come up the next year, i have had tomatoe and squashes do that.

 

[Crabbergirl]

Welcome and Thanks Mike. There is a long running compost thread under "Organic Gardening" you will find several there. Also they are kind of throughout the site as many miss it under the Organic topic. I use both the brown and green grass in my piles. It will quickly turn brown so no need to stock pile it unless you just want to. I also use the grass as weed control with newspaper right in the garden a little diffent than lasagana gardening but along the same idea. I actually have neighbors bringing me their clippings as well as I hijack them from beside the raod. You can never have enough grass.
On saw dust, you want to make sure that it is never treated wood that you use. If you are going to all the trouble to make compost you will be working in reverse if you use treated wood dust. I like to get stall muck from local horse farms, that is a really great source as you have the addition of urine and manure. The amount added is directly porportionate to the type of soil and content already in your pile. The dust will hold water and you don't want it too wet. You might also consider adding either sand or dirt to help boost your process and add needed drainage. I always add a thin layer as I add clippings. This really helps make the correct moisture. Sun is an absolute requirement for a healthy pile. If you do not have sun or only partial sun a black tarp to cove it to help build and hold in heat. The entire process of composting is realted to heat. I have seen piles steam in summer and some even smoke. A professor at the Univ. of Florida told me if durning the process you can place you hand in the middle of the pile without getting too hot then you are doing something wrong. Water as mention above is important. Too much ,not good ,too dry, not good. I usually water my pile 1-2 times a week. No formula here , if it;'s dry water it , if not don't.