There are only a few persistent chemicals that you really need to worry about in the US, everything else breaks down in the pile. I honestly don't know about Malaysia's restricted chemicals.

"As an alternative, I could simply use dried leaves and coffee grounds only (and perhaps some dried chicken/sheep manure), but I'm not sure if the resulting compost would be balanced enough in terms of nutrients."

Sure it will be "balanced". People put too much emphasis on big varieties of materials, IMO. Leaves contain a wide variety of micronutrients that the plant mines. Coffee grounds do too. Manures contain a variety of nutrients consumed by the animal in feed/hay/grass (depending on how they were fed- they eat lots of weird stuff if pastured).

A compost made entirely of leaves, coffee grounds, and manure in reasonable C:N ratio will be second to none in value (IMO). Coffee grounds can also be directly applied to lawns and gardens.

I was reading the other thread and I was going to suggest that you start a compost pile. So I am glad that you posted here.

You could make compost out of just dried leaves and coffee grounds.

One rule of thumb for determining what is good to put in a pile, is that if I am comfortable eating it, then I am comfortable putting it in a pile. Usually the food scraps are washed when they are prepped are for eating, so I rarely find the need to wash them again to put them in my pile.

I guess there are things like corn husks or banana peels that I do not wash before I toss them...but they make up such a small portion of the total scraps that goes into my pile, I don't think they would add enough residue to be a factor.

In reference to your other post, you are creating aerated tea for what purpose? If you are gardening, can I assume that eventually you will be creating your own organic material that could be composted, without need to acquire stuff form outside sources. If you are weeding your garden and harvesting plants from your garden, inevitable you will be growing more green materials that can be composted safely.

If your grocery or eatery has these substances on fruits and veggies, you need to worry about that rather than your compost.

>pablo_nh
Glad to hear that I may choose to leave out vegetable scraps. That will certainly make it a little easier for me to get started. The reason I was afraid to leave them out of the recipe was because I read somewhere that wood-based compost was "nutritionally poor". So I assumed that compost made primarily from dried leaves and coffee grounds would suffer from similar deficiencies (I can't afford to incorporate much manure because it's quite expensive here
and not easily available in bulk).

>joepyeweed
If I were to get "greens" from local eateries, they would be unwashed scraps, which is why I was a bit hesistant to use them without washing beforehand. Now that I know they are not absolutely necessary for good compost, I'll probably leave them out entirely until I start preparing meals at home. As to my purpose for brewing aerated teas, I will post an answer in the other thread since it is more relevant in that discussion :)

Just one other thing: From the little that I understand about composting, microbes use nitrogen and carbon for their biological processes which is why we need both "green" and "brown" materials. But what about other elements in the pile such as P, K, S, etc? How does the decomposition process affect their concentrations? For example, if I were to add sheep manure which is high in potash (K) will I necessarily get high-K compost as well?

You are way over-thinking it. Just do it! Mix whatever you have and let it decompose. All you have to do is monitor the moisture and turn it occasionally. Let nature do its thing; mix the finished product into your beds and make adjustments in future piles from what you learn doing the first one.

hahaa, you're probably right, jannoel! But I just can't help it. I'm a theoretical engineer....it's in my nature :P

Enough cliches I concur what the other posters are saying about compost. In its basic element everything will decompose. Composting is the process of speeding things up or more likely controling the outcome. well anyway your pile can be as basic or complex as you want it to be, if you want to talk theory behind composting, cornell university has some formulas to wrap your head around.

Here is a link that might be useful: when you are done with this ,your compost should be done

oh joy! Something fun to read! Thanks for the link, ixnod.

Actually, I'm in the midst of designing a passive compost pile aeration system using pipes. If it works, I hope to be able to minimize (not eliminate) the need for constant turning. With temperatures and humidity levels as high as they are here, I think it should be possible to obtain good finished compost within a matter of months.

I only turn my pile once (sometimes twice) a year, and that is when I am getting ready to spread it on my garden.

Constant turning is way too much work for us lazy gardeners.

Only turn the pile if you enjoy seeing how stuff decomposes or need the exercise (or if you add lots of lawn clippings).

That's strange....every website on composting that I've read so far made it sound as if turning was crucial to the composting process. Is there really sufficient aeration *without* a need for turning? What about in my climate, where the temperature and humidity are high, hence speeding up the decomposition of the pile?

turning it just makes the process faster.

If you want a hot, fast compost pile, you need to turn it occasionally. If you aren't in a hurry, you can just pile it up and let it rot. It'll still become compost, but it'll take longer.

As far as your climate goes, you will probably have to see what works for you. Trial and error, though there is not much error, because no matter what you do, you will still get compost.

MOst of the "trials" involve getting it to decompose faster or testing the limits of what can be composted.

I tossed two telephone books, dry and unshredded in to my pile a couple months ago. I am doing a trial to see how long it takes until, they are no longer recongnizable.

I should start a pool.

{{gwi:261768}}

Notice the blanket of snow that I use as insulation to keep it warm. :-)

"I should start a pool."

If I were you, I'd wait for some of that snow to melt first. I think it would be to cold to go swimming now.

Yuck, yuck bpgreen! Put me down for 2 years joepyeweed.

turning is not actually crucial so much as it helps aereate the pile. there are some ways to keep the pile aerobic without turning it. ( hands the mike over to pablo_nh and others)

OK, so turning the pile is not *essential* for the production of compost. But what about its role in providing sufficient aeration to minimize the smells of compost materials such as manure, fish, etc? I live in a relatively high-density area, and don't want the neighbours to start complaining.

I have found if you have some sticks and larger stems and apple cores and such in your pile, then that provides some airspace and compost happens even if you don't turn the pile. If your compostables are small like grass clippings then the pile tends to pack down and does not get aerated. Turning is good in my opinion, although I rarely do it, becoz what's at the bottom is usually the good finished compost full of earthworms, and if you want to be able to use it you've got to get to it. If you just keep adding to the top of the pile and never turn it, then you are only seeing the very rough unfinished stuff always on top. My husband turns it for me just a couple times a year. In coastal Louisiana compost finished fast, but up here in northern Mississippi it goes much slower, as it is drier and colder here. Happy composting!

If you don't want to turn (although you should do so once or twice, it's fascinating!), I think the best thing would be to add woodchips (I get them for free from the town's composting centre). These make sure the pile is aerated. You can sift them out later on to get fine dust. Turnign the pile will give the starting composter a good idea of what stuff decomposes quickly/slowly, and of the rich animal life inside the pile that you should keep happy.

I never add any manure or animal remains to my pile (I don't want it to be too rich).

Don't the "no-turners" ever stick their hand/arm into the pile to feel/smell it? :-)

hey joepyeweed - can we get an update on the phone books in your pile? It's only been a couple months, but has there been any action?

I never turn my pile and it is about 6 feet from my and my neighbor's front porches. We never smell it. She didn't even know that I had three piles so close to her house until last year when we were talking about gardening. I am careful to throw brown materials (paper shreddings and leaves) over the top of potentially stinky greens. My browns add enough airspace to my pile. In the autumn, I collect bags of leaves from my neighbors to ensure that I have enough browns for the summer.

The have three piles: one adding, one cooking, and one using pile. Since I don't turn, the top of my cooking pile doesn't get done. I wait until finished compost starts to spill out of the bottom of my cooking pile (I have wire bins). By that time, I've used up all the finshed compost, so I put the unfinished compost in the empty bin and begin my new pile.