In an effort to keep things out of the landfill and improve my garden at the same time, I was wondering....
What do you put into your compost pile?
I do the usual suspects (fruit and veg waste, trimmings from the garden, egg shells) but one other thing I do is put my junk mail/paper. With mail I make sure than anything plastic is removed first, run it through the shredder, and then onto the pile.
So, what do you compost?
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We do the same as you......apart from the junk mail, what a good idea, thank you! We also throw in teabags and coffee grounds.
We've been using our shredded junk mail as firelighters under the kindling in the sitting room fireplace, following a tip from a friend. As we won't be having a fire in summer (well, hopefully not, as it's going to be a gloriously hot one!! *Sue says with confidence and crossed fingers*), the compost heap is a very good use of it still.
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Interesting.... I've never thought too much about it, now you've made me think.
Junk mail is firelighting in winter, composting in summer.
Same goes for cardboard, and newspapers if I have any.
Kitchen waste and a little thin card and paper goes in one wormery, dog poo in another wormery.
Sand from bird cages goes in the compost bins.
Garden waste and duck bedding goes in the compost.
Vacuum cleaner dust and dog hair goes into compost or wormery.
Bindweed and other perenial weeds go into the comfrey bin to stew.
Larger prunings are saved for the open fire, twigs are saved for firelighting.
Wood ash goes in the compost.
Egg shells are dried and crushed and added into the compost.
Think thats it...
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maggenpie said:
Egg shells are dried and crushed and added into the compost.
I crush egg shells, but keep them to use as barriers around lettuce and other especially vulnerable things when I plant them out. Keeps the slugs and snails away!
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Same as Ruth really. Must sort out a wormery though for the winter months as you need snow shoes to get to our compost pile at the moment. Found out here in Latvia they use the bread baskets in their basements and apparently the worms do not escape.
I try and recyle as much as I can, a lot of our junk mail and newspapers get made in to paper logs during the summer months for use on the fires during winter.
We have a compost mini bin in the kitchen and all fruit and veg peelings and offcuts either go in there, or to the hens. Tea bags, coffee grounds, used kitchen roll, egg shells (although occasionally I roast the egg shells, grind them up and feed them back to the hens as a source of calcium.) If you find they are not composting easily, try crushing them in you hand before you put them in the bin.
All garden waste is either composted or prunings saved for firewood, staight tree pruning (such as apple shoots) are chipped and then used a s mulches.
Grass clipping obviously all go on the compost bin and the dyson contents, however just a note on vaccuum cleaner dust, you are only supposed to use it if you have natural fibre carpets, if they are synthetic, then there are none-degradable fibres which will never compost, so I'm told.
Wood fire ash gets either chucked in the compost, or spread around the fields to improve the soil. but Ruth, you're amazing. The dog poo sounds a good idea, but I've just bought one of those dog poo bin things (well, got it free off freecycle) , you bury it in the ground and it uses enzymes to break down the poo, bit like a septic tank, still need to install it yet.
Short answer---- if the chickens or my neighbors pig don't eat it, it goes in the compost.
Longer answer---- food waste (including small amounts of animal fat and or meat, if your compost pile is large enough), grass and weeds, brush, shredded paper, everything that comes out of the chicken house on cleaning day, fallen leaves....... Just try to balance greens and browns. Rabbit poo can go directly on the garden, chicken poo is too "hot" and has to be composted.
Heather E said:
It doesn't matter how much I compost eggshells they still turn up all eggshelly! Not disintegrated at all, no matter how long I leave them. How do you guys do it?
I always crush the shells before putting them in the compost but I keep getting lots of un-composted shell coming back out too. I think it might be some shells being a bit more robust than others. F'rinstance, quail shells don't break down as quickly as chicken eggs.
Apart from that, we also put shredded paper, kitchen scraps, garden waste, animal bedding (mainly from the hamsters) and also hair from when I have my hair cut. I always put a few handfuls of shredded paper in the bottom of the small kitchen bin to stop 'wet' things like veg peelings or teabags from sticking to the bin.
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eggshells are kept in a big tub and when it's full, i oven-bake them till they're dried-out and then ground-up with my pestle and mortar to be used as a slug barrier for my tender seedlings in Spring.
now that i've recently acquired an allotment (hurrah!!!) i can transfer the plastic dalek composter contents to the plot and then that'll free up space in my tiny back garden.
other things, ppl not mentioned about are human hair and nail clippings. also, my OH used to pee in a bucket in the growing season as a compost acceleratorand it had to be first pee in the morning too!
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