Leaves, some dog poo, a few veg. scraps, that's it.

Paper, cardboard, turf chunks, kitchen vegetable waste, coffee grounds, tea bags, leaves. The composition is always changing.

Jon

leaves
veggies
fruit
bread
bluegill
largemouth
old soil
weeds

Horse manure & shavings
weeds
leaves
grass clippings
kitchen vegtable scraps
coffee grounds & filters
earth worms I find else where in the yard
egg shells

I don't think you are supposed to use dog poo. Only vegetarian manure.

If you put weeds in your compost, make sure they do not have matured seeds.
Since my compost is right on the ground I hire a lot of earthworms into it. They are very good workers in compost and speed up the process. But you have to have some leaves/vegies/soil/coffee ground.. for them munch nd lunch(hehe)

I thought animal waste was a no-no as well - parasite issues and such.

I have mostly yard waste, grass clippings, leaves, everything I cut back in the spring and/or fall, etc. During the warm months I also add kitchen scraps - veggie peelings, eggshells, coffee grounds, etc. I should probably do kitchen scraps year round but I know I'm not trudging thru the snow to the back of my yard where the compst is to dump it!

Lisa

As kitchen scrapes go I compost year round and I do make the trip usually twice a week but sometimes more. We have a ncie stainless steel bucket with a lid that just sits beside the sink, when its full and the wife starts yelling I take it out and dump it. I have never had a prblem with smells from the kitchen scapes or the container i keep the in. I use what ever yard triping/cliping I get through the year. Not meat products or watse from meat eater animals. So no dog poo. I use a mulching mower so no grass clipping, though I am going to use my neighbors this year. Sad when you start bumping comost material from neighbors.

All veggie scraps go in. A friend told me not to put in potatoes, even the peel, as they will sprout unless composted for a very long time. We use all the potato so it's rare, unless they have gone bad. Also, paper napkins and leaves, coffee grounds get thrown directly on the lawn.

Straw
leaves
coffee grounds; tea leaves
veg/fruit scraps
egg shells
weeds (immature)
grass clippings

I would stay away from dog and cat waste. Vegetarian manure is OK. I might consider fish scraps in limited amounts since it tends to break down rather quickly. I would probably do it in a separate slow pile as well.
Mine is the usual kitchen scraps, weeds, coffee grounds, eggs shells, tea bags, grass clippings, leaves and silver maple seeds.

All forms of animal waste is safe if the compost has aged and allowed the microbial activity to do it's job. Only fresh waste is not recommended.

Kitchen scraps, weeds, spent garden plants, and yard waste.

I've just gotten my neighbor to agree to dump his lawnmower bag on our side instead by the curb for the town to take away so I now have a source of grass clippings to go with our excess of leaves (our mower mulches the clippings).

Its a very modest, cold pile, but it does the job.

Have you been to the soil/mulch/compost forum? They have an ongoing thread over there called "What did you feed your pile today" or something to that effect. It's a fun read.

No on the dog/cat poop.
Yes on the urine
Double-yes on seafood/fish leavings! It's a super way to heat up a pile and get the action going!

I feed my pile anything that's not plastic.
I avoid office paper, but cardboard, grocery-boxes (like cereal boxes, pasta boxes...all other boxes that food comes in), egg cartons (I use the eggs and return the broken shell to the box and once all used, the whole thing goes in the pile)...obviously all kitchen scraps...and the usual garden/yard cleanup stuff, avoiding sticks over 1/4" thick usually, but sometimes not.

Yes, I've ben to the soil forum many times, but this forum has a different crowd, so I was curious what ya'll had to say on the subject.

Most generic teaching on the subject will warn against feces from carnivores and humans, weed seeds, diseased plants, etc. This is wise for most people, but it doesn't apply to those who really know what they are doing and can ensure proper temps are maintained long enough for a good kill.

Many communities compost sewage sludge and sell it to the public. they can do this without risk of spreading disease by ensuring it stays hot long enough during processing.

I ensure a hot pile by keeping ingredients separate until I build a whole pile with proper proportions all at once. This ensures it gets hot (150+) fast and stays hot for a week or so. When it starts to cool below 130F or so, I turn it and ensure it's properly moistened. I may add greens as I turn it if I can recognize too many browns. I don't really worry if I've added too much N by the time I'm done as it ensures breakdown of the wood materials and I want it to be relatively high in organic N.

After 3-4 turns, most materials are unrecognizable.

The downside is this is MUCH more work than a cold pile.

Coffee grounds/filters
Vegetable scraps
Egg shells
Occasionally brown paper or cardboard
Dryed oak leaves
Weeds
Veggie thinnings
Unusable vegetable harvest (rotten tomatoes, huge zukes and cukes)
Horse manure
Goat manure
Straw

I put in potato peelings and have never had one sprout

Here is my collector system. It's a third-size hotel pan that fits in the top of my recycling can. Holds roughly a week's trimmings and waste and is large enough that I can peel carrots and potatoes directly into it.

The drawer just above it has the knives, peelers & cutting boards that I use for my veggie prep. The sink is just above and to the side of it. So it's convenient to the coffee grounds too.

A lot of the recycling is flat and can slip in the slot along the short side of the pan. But it's not too hard to tip it up for the bulkier stuff.

{{gwi:58157}}

Here are the super cheap enclosures I use. You're looking at 2 of them bolted together. I use 4 such enclosures in various stages of decomposition. I compost passively at this point and one of these puppies is ready with about 1.5 cu yds of compost each Spring.

{{gwi:58157}}

I put everything in it including oleander and the occasional pet poo. I think there are some mice that nest and probably die in it too. And overhead birds and squirrels passing through probably make their deposits. The local raccoon -- a solitary monster -- makes his withdrawals.

No one has died from anything that grew in the garden fortified with my compost yet. ;>

BTW, those trash can liners are nylon ones I made to fit the cans so that I no longer need plastic bags. I made two for each can so that I have a backup when one goes in the laundry with the cleaning cloths. We've been using this system for about a year and I'd never go back to plastic!

steel, you crack me up...you'd give them a run for their money over there...LOL!

Do y'all have trouble with tea bags not breaking down in your compost? My compost will be perfect, black, and beautiful, except for those white bags that appear to be unaffected at all.

donna- check out this blog. Apparently someone else was frustrated enough by it, as well, to go directly to the source and find your answer:

Here is a link that might be useful: Alice's Blog about Composting Tea Bags

Gross story for you

I remember reading a forum on here where a guy had a compost pile going so hot that he used to pick up roadkill and stick the kill into his pile and all that would be left was the skin and bones and he would just pull them out....
He said it made great compost.

I also remember my grandfather telling me that he used to have a outhouse. He said every spring they would move the outhouse and mix the waste into the soil and plant tomato plants into them. He said they were the best tomatos ever. I wanted to throw up hearing him tell the stories LOL!!!!

Brings back memories of the great Bill Pelham. The master composter and dumpster diver who was always looking for the grocery store veggie throwaways and implementing them into the compost or planting and watching them grow. His photos and wealth of knowledge and friendly words were always a highlight to me. As for me anything that rots goes in. I recently moved and am in the process of reinventing the way I do things!!

Carl

In my compost pile:

Kitchen waste (vegetable only)
Weeds (except bermuda)
Some horse manure and bedding
Oak leaves
Shredded egg cartons (the cardboard type)
Potting soil from plants that died from damping off (I figure a trip through the compost will make it okay to add to the garden)
Mice (alive - guess I need to turn the pile more often, eh?)
Some squash or pumpkin-looking things sprouting out of the sides. (yeah, I really need to turn the pile more often!)

I have a very small pile right now. It's only about a foot high and 3x3. I have a separate bin with more oak leaves in it so I can add more as I add greens. We only moved here at the end of last summer and just haven't been generating much waste, I guess. One funny thing is that I have birds hopping over the compost every day to check for new goodies. I tried setting traps for the mice around the goodies in the heap, but I caught two birds instead! :(

poo...shrooms...trash...lol

I hope you threw them into the compost LOL!

I don't buy teabags from companies that bag in plastic. At least, not knowingly. If I get some accidentally, as I have in the past, I painstakingly tear open each teabag and dump the tea into the compost, then toss the little bag in the trash along with all the other non-compostables.

Also, I use loose-leaf tea a lot. Cains and Lipton both come in paper bags, though for Lipton I have to cut out the staple at the top. For Cains the string is simply heat-sealed to the bag and I can just pull it off. Sometimes the heat seal isn't very good and the string falls off the bag before I ever steep it, but that's okay. I can just fish it out.

haha...i was just messin. ;) I don't have a compost pile...lol

I just pruned lots of roses. Today's job is to run the canes through the chipper and let them rot on their own for a while in the pile of browns waiting to be added to the next compost pile.

I just finished using my oldest pile (3' high x 6' diameter) that finished last year. Two other's started last fall are almost finished. I didn't turn them till spring.

I use a lawn sweeper to collect the clippings from my lawn 1-2 days after I cut so they are dry and don't mat together much. I haven't had good luck composting matted grass.