I had chopped up quiet a few leaves form the yard this weekend and added to the pile with some nice green winter grass and oranges-----

Went home at lunch and added more UCG's,banana peels,apple cores and celary sticks------and what a surprise to feel the heat coming from about 5 inches under the top of the pile ----pile is about 3x3x4--- be still my heart---- this means its cookin even more down below !!!!

I guess every pile and composter is different so there is no pat answer to "when is the best time to turn "----I am finding out that patience is indeed a virtue --( there you go momma ) and the best way to figure out what is best for you is to just do it ----then see what happens ---

My wife and kids think I'm whacked but they have allways suspected there was a coupla loose bolts in there somewhere----they are now just more visable ----

The chickens get mine all winter, mostly cause I feel sorry for them not having free range in the winter.

A first for me-- I let several fish fillets get old in the fridge, what a waste, so I buried them deep in my compost pile.

another bagfull of UCG--peanut shells and a bannana peel---not a wholelot but could feel the heat all the way up on the top surface.....

i love this stuff...... it was in the teens this am... not rare for b'ham this time of year but i guesss ole man winter is not going away quietly...

R

So far this month just snow, but there is a bag of UCG and veggie wastes and shreded paper waiting to get out there.

dirt!

waved down a dump truck filled with soil & asked him where he was going with it, & he said to the dump.

well well well...

Being a kind person, I generously helped him out;
let him drop it off at home without charging him a fee!

It's just old Texas black gumbo clay, but it's rich in minerals (got earthworms in it already!), & once it's mixed with organic materials, it makes good soil!

I scraped up the melted ice - dog poo - leafy crust - winter glop off the back patio and tossed it into the compost bin.

i did a search for this and did not get a complete answer ---has anyone ever composted pond algea??? I was on a walk yesterday and came across a lot of pond algae at one of our spillways ----it would be easy to get to and looks so green ---anyone ever tried it ????

JB

Joebob, algae should compost beautifully as a green. Just mix with enough browns and make sure it's covered or it I suspect it will begin to stink terrible.

Nothing today so far, but over the past couple of days:

- kitchen bucket with UCG's, banana peels, veggie scraps
- buckets of mushy stachys that I trimmed after our second thaw of the winter over the weekend after about 6 weeks of solid snow cover (unusual here in the land of freeze/thaw!) plus a few random weeds

6 tea bags, three apple cores
quite alot of papertowels

1/2 a can of grapefruit juice my daughter HAD to have
then wouldn't drink

1/2 eaten bologna sandwich

many banana peels (a family favorite)

tops of strawberries, and grape stems

soggy bowl of cereal (yuck)

and the crumbs from a bag of cheese nips

tesa

We got our compost drunk tonight. We found some really old opened wine and disposed of it in the pile. Bet there's a party going on out there. And just for the heck of it, I put some crackers in there. I'm sure that went well with the wine.

Yesterday: two more paper grocery bags containing variations on the usual:

shredded paper; toilet paper and paper towel rolls; paper cups/plates/etc. and a cookie from art openings; paper candy wrappers and paper straw wrappers plus a broken chopstick, from visit to candy store & a Japanese restaurant, also, blobs of wasabi and a banana leaf; four pieces of bread, from a restaurant + contents of compost bucket, emptied several times and mixed into the paper bags = coffee grounds from our French press, apple cores, pineapple top and core, skins and pits from oranges and from two lemons (I ate the lemons LOL), celery tops, stems from Swiss chard, kale, beets and spinach, skins from the beets, several banana peels, tops and leaves from strawberries + several small paper bags of biodegradable cat litter plus urine.

Today: contents of compost bucket. Same as yesterday, but without the pineapple and with: crushed egg shells, shrimp shells, ends of lettuces, etc.

Later today, I'll be adding: defrosted contents of small paper bag in freezer, including skins of two trout, some more shrimp shells, ends of cheese....storing smelly stuff in the freezer until ready to be added to the pile works very well here.

Also later today: bag of forgotten cabbage slaw, a gourd rotting on the patio that a bird or animal dropped there.

From now til eternity: I have far more Starbucks bags than I'd realized. Til the snow melted, I'd lost track of rather a lot of them....At last count, I have 40 bags!

lynxe, you little overachiever, you!

Just reading your post makes me want to make a fruit salad!

but, well, okay, today I fed my compost...

used coffee grounds & teabags
orange peel
water that had been swished around in an empty cat food can to get all the yucky stuff out
cranberry/orange something or other left over from...Christmas? Thanksgiving?
damp newspaper that had been used to clean mirrors

Kitchen waste and pine shavings.

Kitchen waste and pine shavings.

Kitchen waste and pine shavings.

That's what our urban compost bin, outside of a theatrical scenic studio gets fed every day.

I read those "helpful hints for urban composters" and crack up when I get the the part that says "make friends with a landscaping company and ask them for all their lawn trimmings." Are you freaking kidding me? Where do people meet these landscapers? At the grass-clippers' bar?

Lisa, if you find that grass-clippers bar, please let me know where it is!

I never have made arrangements with landscapers, but when I have run across them working on the landscaping & beds at banks, strip shopping centers, etc, I've always gotten bags of grass clippings or whatever they were pulling out (tropicals in the autumn, begonias & such in spring/summer).

Today, courtesy of Ma Nature our compost got a fresh layer of snow. Later today it will get the contents of our kitchen compost bin (4L icecream bucket) which so far has only a couple of eggshells in it but will have more after lunch and dinner.

Yesterday I had great fun ripping up the cardboard roll from a paper towel roll. We don't use a lot of those so I don't have that pleasure too often.

Our compost is a big frozen lump and getting bigger every day with our usual kitchen scraps altho we don't have as many as some seem to. I am sooo looking forward to messing about with it when it thaws.

I just threw in about 20 frozen bricks of kitchen scraps. I use the 2 liter milk carton to collect and when they are full, I mostly put them in the veranda where they freeze solid.

Nice sunny day today so I took them over to the tumblers and cut the milk cartons open and threw the bricks in. What a PITA cutting the cartons and peeling the cardboard off! Was nice being outside but it was a tad chilly even in the sun!

Lloyd

P.S. I am insanely jealous of all those that can play in their compost during the winter!

I started a new batch today. Two old bales of straw I found, two big bags shreaded paper from work, lots of UCGs, and multiple wheelbarrow loads of mule manure from the pasture. Man I'm tired tonight. But all my little winter sown plants are gonna love it.

My compost piles felt like they were dining among royalty today. I've been kind of ignoring them for the last few weeks while I have been recovering from a fall, but today they both got a good "meal".

about a weeks worth of tea bags and UCGs
one gallon jar full of "soupy" kitchen stuff like little bits of leftover salads, soups, etc, with bits of paper towels to keep it from being too "soupy"
a big tub of sweet n low packets
tons of kitchen scraps (grape stems and seeds, banana peels, apple cores, potato peels, garlic skins, onion skins and peels, poblano pepper skins and "innards", green pepper "innards", tomato end pieces, lime rinds, etc)
a big big bunch of shredded paper and ripped up cardboard
**liquid gold**

Once again, I could really tell that the pile that was getting the liquid gold was going down a lot faster than the other pile, so my experiment is showing some results:)

Sassy

Today's menu included:

broccoli trimmings
banana peels
a wee bit of leftover rice
the last two months Church newsletters, shredded
assorted grocery and drug store receipts, shredded
shavings from sharpening older GD's colored pencils
baby GD's fingernail clippings
and of course, my nightly watering with "liquid gold"

Sassy

kitchen scraps
egg shells, and an old hardboiled egg and a cracked egg
rancid cashew nuts
leftover yogurt + milk that I had combined & put in the fridge overnight (let's see if that lactobacilli thing really works)
shredded brown paper
The other day I threw in a little pumpkin from halloween that was hiding beside the garage. It was squishy from freezing & defrosting, and I threw it in whole (I was too lazy to smash it up). And I cleaned out the pantry and discovered a box of expired flavored oatmeal. Made the bin smell good when I threw that in.

You know, my plastic bin is getting heavier but the volume seems stuck at half-way. I guess the stuff is sinking -- that's a good thing, right?

Hey lisascenic----try noticing the landscapers at work ---this time of the year they are cutting nice green wintergrass in my neck ---

Stop the car/truck/bike and ask for their already bagged grass clippings --- they will be happy to give away and not have to load up and haul themselves---trust me

Take home or back to the office and feed da beast ----

The greens will already be cookin' in the bag ---nice and warm

some may think it a bit off---- but you should be used to dancing like nobody's watchin' right ???

JB

sylviatexas --

cranberry/orange something or other left over from...Christmas? Thanksgiving?

Gotta love it!

I added eggshells, dryer lint, and broccoli stems

Today my piles got:

3 banana peels
apple core
bunch of edamame shells
kleenexes and paper towels
ucg and tea bags
some shredded junk mail
some taco shells past their exp date

Sassy

It was cold and rainy here today, so I didn't make a visit to the compost. I know, bad compost mommy:( I'll make up for it when the weather is better though:)

Sassy

Some newspaper in the bottom of the kitchen bin so it comes out easily, 2 empty TT rolls nicely ripped into small pieces, a coffee filter w/UCG, a couple of tea bags, 2 red pepper cores, onion peels, brown rice from the bottom of the pan that was kind of stuck on.

Also have started a pile of UCG (from the coffee shop) in the snow with tarp under and over. Collecting a lot now so have to manage this til the snow goes. Can only put so much in the compost bin and not walking out in 3 feet of snow to get to the lasagna bed and other piles which are covered in snow anyhow. Might do that later and spread some on the snow, might help it melt faster.

Ajpa, sinking is good! :-)

shreaded paper from work, filters with UCGs, potato peelings, mule poop(fresh!),sunflower seed shells, junk mail,banana peel and orange peels,and lots of espresso UCGs.

My CP is still like a frozen Mt. Fuji ... and the snow has been so deep and so persistent this year that I'm still collecting kitchen scraps since December in my garage. I've got 6 5-gallon containers w/lids. If this winter keeps up, I'm going to have to move the car out of the garage and start building a bin... *sigh*
Kris (dormant, but not yet dead) ;-)

Hi All! I am new to this forum, but have been lurking for a very long time.Ijust started my CP in the fall and it has really grown.Things are breaking down slowly but we are getting there.Things that have gone to the CP are a few old apples,potatoe peels,egg shells some old strawberrys and a few alvacado peels.Oh yea dont forget the yellow gold!!!

Rigo

Hi, Rigo!

Remember your carbons:
newspaper
cardboard
office paper
autumn leaves

Today I fed my compost pile...
uh, really, not much, just some wood shavings, a banana peel, a few teabags, & coffee grounds & filters.

but it adds up!

Oh Yea! I have added some paper, lots of leaves cardbord and all the other goodies.

Rigo

Today my compost pile received:
Strawberry tops, avacado peels, chopped up orange and grapefruit peels, dryer lint, coffee grounds and filter, old wilty lettuce, cut-up TP tube, dead leaves from live plants, two handsful of henbit from the lawn, used facial tissue, an entire outdated white pages phonebook torn up, and as always the rest of the morning coffee.
Sunny

Today my piles got

a buncha tea bags
contents of kitchen tub (broccoli, potato, tomato, onion, garlic, lettuce and cabbage scraps)
a buncha shredded junk mail
a sip of liquid gold

Sassy

Cleaned out the garage this weekend: 72 cans of flat Coke, plus old grape juice and old V8, from some long-forgotten plan to stock up for an earthquake. Hopefully all that sugar will feed the bacteria!

Topped off all the bins with stored fall leaves, a volunteer winter tomato and some pulled nasturtiums from garden cleanup.

Last but not least: RAIN!

72 cans of flat Coke???

I am so jealous!

haven't fed the pile yet today, but I did stop on the way to work & stuff my little car with about 8 bags of autumn leaves.

nothing!!!!
it's under snow again.
but have been adding paper plates kitchen scraps ect. to "holding container"
I can add creepy jello right?
if not... too late.
I really wish I found this site before I started composting leaves.
Que?
shred them ...?
oh well

tea bags
coffee filters
avacado peels
apple cores
spinach stems
asparagus ends
mango peel
onion peels
kale stems

banana peels
apple cores
grape stems
potato peels
lettuce outer leaves/core
wilted cilantro
a few spinach leaves
cabbage outer leaves/cores
onion and garlic peels
leftover rice and beans
two out of date containers of yogurt (in this house, how'd that happen??)
tp/pt rolls
shredded junk mail
a ton more Kleenexes (girls still have runny noses)

Sassy

Compostable brown grocery bag full of:

rotten apple
lots of banana peels
cauliflower leaves and stems
leek tops
tangerine peels
grody potatoes
garlic shoot roots
butternut squash peel

Tomorrow one bin will get some pee-soaked shredded junk mail and another topping of rotting leaves. They all settle down so fast it's amazing.

Also picked up two bags of other people's leaves today but I'm out of room in the bins so they're going in the leaf-mold pile by the brush pile where the sprinklers get them nice and damp and melt down. They will go on top of a pile of herbaceous plant cuttings from the front yard.

Yay compost!

Anybody going to start a new thread for March?

Sassy

I nominate Sassy. all those in favor raise your hands...

1,2,3,4,5,..100,101,102.

All those opposed, raise your hands...

1,2,3.

Motion carried, Sassy to start the new thread for March.

Will do!

Sassy