OT: Does anyone compost at home?

Chubbs

I recently purchased a compost tumbler as part of our premeditated efforts to go green as much as possible. The reality is, my wife is a foody, and I have an Eggin problem. With the amount of cooking we do and the amount of different foods we try to make, we constantly find ourselves with spoiled foods. So, the composting is our effort to use those scraps along with our yard waste to incorporate compost into an herb garden we want to build. Thought I would check with my fellow eggers before I spent time surfing the Internet- I can kill to birds with one stone here! Thoughts, pics, comments welcome. Thanks.

Mighty_Quinn

I do...all compostable kitchen scraps and yard waste...use it all in my garden.

duck_hunter

We have a worm composter in the garage and a tumbler I the yard, the worm take care of some paper with the food scraps, produce about a tray a month of dirt, all of it goes in the garden

Doc_Eggerton

I have an 8 x 8 x 4 compost bin.  Works best if I stir it to reintroduce O2, but works pretty well if you just let it lay.  It needs to get moisture from time to time (my sprinklers hit mine).

We calculated yard clippings one year, and it went something like a reduction of 800 cubic yards down to about 8 cubic yards.

In the past I have composted everything, meat and oils included, even though that is against the common wisdom.  Seemed to work fine, and we had a great crop of the biggest maggots you've ever seen (which helped the breakdown).  In this house we're sticking to no meat products.

If you can get some bedding with horse urine in it, to toss in the bin it really cranks the decomposition up.

In my experience a tumbler is uselessly small, unless you are just composting for the window boxes.

SmokinDAWG82

I compost, I have a 4 by 4 bin made from 4 old pallets, compost all our yard waste and foods, no meat, no dairy

Skiddymarker

Over the past year, we have curb side pick-up of "green cans" on weekly basis. Branches, grass, leaves and all kitchen scraps are OK. Every year each resident can fill a pick up of composted material for gardens and flower beds. 

We still have a closed 1 yard plastic "composter", but it doesn't get fed as much as it used to. 

Chubbs

Doc_Eggerton said:

I have an 8 x 8 x 4 compost bin.  Works best if I stir it to reintroduce O2, but works pretty well if you just let it lay.  It needs to get moisture from time to time (my sprinklers hit mine).

We calculated yard clippings one year, and it went something like a reduction of 800 cubic yards down to about 8 cubic yards.

In the past I have composted everything, meat and oils included, even though that is against the common wisdom.  Seemed to work fine, and we had a great crop of the biggest maggots you've ever seen (which helped the breakdown).  In this house we're sticking to no meat products.

If you can get some bedding with horse urine in it, to toss in the bin it really cranks the decomposition up.

In my experience a tumbler is uselessly small, unless you are just composting for the window boxes.

Yeah, Doc, the idea for us was start small. I got a 75 gallon tumbler, and our herb garden will be fairly small. If we see good results we will probably build something larger down the road. Any other ideas to boost decomposition? I read dog food can heat up the pile to speed up the process. Anyone have any thoughts?

Doc_Eggerton

In my experience mixing to introduce O2 and getting water to it are the most important.  Should not be a problem with a tumbler.

Despite what I said, oils, fats and meats are supposed to retard decomposition.

Horse urine cranks it up.

bboulier

Helps to have 2 boxes, as in Mighty Quinn's picture.  The material composts much faster if you can turn the pile from time to time.  We compost yard waste and kitchen scraps (e.g., carrot and potato peelings).  Don't compost any meat or dairy. Also, I don't compost any of my vegetable garden waste  Too easy to spread disease that way.  Good composting should kill pests and disease, but I'd rather not risk it.

Solson005

Here is our compost setup that we have used for years, I highly recommend having access to the bottom of the pile for rotating or grabbing a small amount for you garden. We mainly just use lawn clippings and kitchen scraps. 

nolenut19

Doc_Eggerton said:

I have an 8 x 8 x 4 compost bin.  Works best if I stir it to reintroduce O2, but works pretty well if you just let it lay.  It needs to get moisture from time to time (my sprinklers hit mine).

We calculated yard clippings one year, and it went something like a reduction of 800 cubic yards down to about 8 cubic yards.

 

if you use a mulching blade and let the grass clippings fall you can reduce you Nitrogen need by 10-15% in your yard.

 

also with a compost pile if you add some nitrogen fertilzer it will compost quicker because it feeds the microbes.  I always save 2 handfuls of fertilzer to throw in with each application.

In the past I have composted everything, meat and oils included, even though that is against the common wisdom.  Seemed to work fine, and we had a great crop of the biggest maggots you've ever seen (which helped the breakdown).  In this house we're sticking to no meat products.

If you can get some bedding with horse urine in it, to toss in the bin it really cranks the decomposition up.

In my experience a tumbler is uselessly small, unless you are just composting for the window boxes.