One Person, Garden Compost

[Ridgerunner]

Is it true that shredded paper counts as 'brown' in the compost bin?

Yes.

 

[Marie2020]

i don't keep chickens so i don't know the state of that. to me all chickens are a risk of salmonella or other diseases so i'd want either to isolate their poo/etc. completely for several years (bury it under a garden where it won't be disturbed) or it would have to be hot composted which is unlikely to be accomplished in a small home garden compost bin.

and by burying i also mean that i would layer it with other things like garden soil and whatever carbon materials i had (like leaves). might also add some wood ashes if i had them so that eventually those too would get mixed into the gardens (when i came back through that area in the rotation of my use of that space).

Thanks

 

[ducks4you]

Is it true that shredded paper counts as 'brown' in the compost bin?

YES!

 

[canesisters]

we go through a TON of paper here at work. I actually spend about an hour a week printing out invoices, noting the accounting codes on them and then scanning them into the share-drive file... and then tossing the printed copy. It's a STUPID process but it's what they want me to do. That's gonna generate at least storage tote of shreds each month.

So.. 1 person + 1 cow + 1acre + 1 office job = how much compost??

 

[flowerbug]

we go through a TON of paper here at work. I actually spend about an hour a week printing out invoices, noting the accounting codes on them and then scanning them into the share-drive file... and then tossing the printed copy. It's a STUPID process but it's what they want me to do. That's gonna generate at least storage tote of shreds each month.

So.. 1 person + 1 cow + 1acre + 1 office job = how much compost??

whatever you do those window envelopes with the plastic in them? those are not compostable even if they say they can be recycled.

plain office paper is fine, craft paper and things that are more unrefined are better. it's just the shiny stuff and plastic coatings or a lot of color inks you don't want in your paper shreddings.

i also used to shred cardstock and food boxes but i got away from that after having a few of those that had plastic coating or a layer of plastic in between the layers of cardboard. what a mess it has been to pick that out of the gardens. now those all go to the recycling people to figure out.

 

[digitS']

So.. 1 person + 1 cow + 1acre + 1 office job = how much compost??

Wow. I found some info on cow manure just about 3 seconds after opening my Organic Gardening encyclopedia! Anyway, I don't really know about what it means for the gardener

The info: One 1,000 pound cow generates 19,000 pounds of solid waste annually. !

Something that we need to think about with compost is that it's on its way to being composed only of its simplest minerals, what doesn't evaporate. If left isolated from plants and animals that would "carry off" some of it - it would amount to the tiniest amount of powder. Perhaps nutrient rich powder but not compost as we think of it.

On the other end of the scale is the organic material that will take those eons to decompose and become available as beneficial to plants. Maybe there are some standards out there but it sure isn't as simple as measuring N-P-K.

The Art of Composting .

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

OK, plastics won't decompose. They do burn. Where I have put down cardboard with plastic, I find the pieces later on. Then I put them in my pocket to toss in the trash.
(Don't we often find the plastic plant ID's in our gardens, that were in the pot when we sleepy planted and forgot about?)
If you are busy--who ISN'T?!?!?--don't be too careful.
Best to avoid any cardboard with slick printing on it.
SO MANY shipping cardboard boxes don't have that, like the ones that our coffee beans are shipped in.
I think as you spreading from your garbage bags of shredded paper, you'll be able to spot and remove any plastics.

 

[flowerbug]

OK, plastics won't decompose. They do burn.

the typical home owner does not get a hot enough or complete enough burn so that what they end up doing is generating dioxins and other strange compounds when they burn plastics.

the big municiple garbage incinerators do get hot enough.

Where I have put down cardboard with plastic, I find the pieces later on. Then I put them in my pocket to toss in the trash.

yes, pieces of tape, sometimes other things, but generally if they are laying around the sun gets to them and starts breaking them down, but it doesn't break them down all the way so you end up with a lot of smaller pieces of plastic.

(Don't we often find the plastic plant ID's in our gardens, that were in the pot when we sleepy planted and forgot about?)
If you are busy--who ISN'T?!?!?--don't be too careful.
Best to avoid any cardboard with slick printing on it.

yes. that's what i do now. shiny is an automatic no for shredding or using cardboard layers for smothering weeds. just too much easier cardboard available and much more edible to worms.

SO MANY shipping cardboard boxes don't have that, like the ones that our coffee beans are shipped in.
I think as you spreading from your garbage bags of shredded paper, you'll be able to spot and remove any plastics.

after it has been shredded it's a pain in the butt to deal with. best to catch it before shredding.

 

[AMKuska]

The only food waste we have in our house ever is if I'm feeling lazy and intentionally throw something in the trash instead of diverting it, or bones after they've been used for stock. I tried making bone meal one time and it was soooo stinky and gross my husband and I agreed to never do it again.

Meat scraps go to the dogs, vegetable scraps go to the chickens. If they've had too much, it's rotting, or it is an inappropriate food item for animals, it goes in the composter. We have two giant rotating composters. One is aging while the other fills.

It makes one feed bag full of compost per cycle, and each cycle is complete about every 6 months. I can't say if it's enough fertilizer yet as this will be my first year using it, but I doubt it.

 

[flowerbug]

The only food waste we have in our house ever is if I'm feeling lazy and intentionally throw something in the trash instead of diverting it, or bones after they've been used for stock. I tried making bone meal one time and it was soooo stinky and gross my husband and I agreed to never do it again.

Meat scraps go to the dogs, vegetable scraps go to the chickens. If they've had too much, it's rotting, or it is an inappropriate food item for animals, it goes in the composter. We have two giant rotating composters. One is aging while the other fills.

It makes one feed bag full of compost per cycle, and each cycle is complete about every 6 months. I can't say if it's enough fertilizer yet as this will be my first year using it, but I doubt it.

i put all the bones through the worm farm and eventually they make it outside to the gardens where they get buried. once in a while when digging i'll resurface one and i might take a few pokes at it with the shovel to help break it up faster but otherwise i just bury it again and let the soil community work at it.

in the worm buckets i sometimes find the centipedes curled up in pockets in the bone so i figure that is what they help break down in nature.

in a hot compost pile i think bones can be somewhat digested pretty quickly too, but i rarely work at building a hot compost pile here any more.