The more diverse the mix of materials, the better the mix of nutrients in compost. A compost made of various inputs is likely to have more of a range of nutrients to return to your soil. I like to make the analogy of eating a balanced diet versus a diet with only two or three sources.

I like to think of compostables as being useful for making something good rather than just extra junk in the landfill or ground up by the disposal to go in the sewer. Therefor I compost as much vegetative kitchen waste as possible.

If you have a dedicated compost bucket somewhere in the kitchen it becomes routine to collect and dump in the compost bin daily. Not much effort or time involved but of great benefit to the garden and the environment.

I agree that the more diverse the components the better the compost. Banana peels can add potassium, same with potato peels along with additional phos and iron.

Sure you can make compost with only a few different ingredients but it's quality as a nutrient source will be compromised.

The analogy of eating a balanced diet is a good one. ;)

Dave

If variety is good for homemade compost, how about the store bought kind in bags? Most bags just say ingredients are forest products or sometimes manure and forest products. Doesn't seem much variety to me. How can you tell the good bagged compost from the plain decayed forest compost?

After buying a few bags of compost from big box stores and contacting the company on the label, I've come to the conclusion that the bags I bought aren't very good.

One of them contracted another company to produce the compost and it turned out to be ground up pallets (forest products?) and sludge from a waste treatment plant.

If your buying compost in a bag at WM or places like that, you take your chances. But I've also seen pictures online of folks picking up compost from a municipal processor and there are wafts of steam coming out of the pile. I'd be curious to know how hot that stuff still is.

When someone wants to buy compost from me I can show them what goes into it, how it is processed at high temperatures, cured for an extended period, screened and stored. Nothing to hide here.

Lloyd

I'd like to see a list of common compostables and they benefits they bring to the table, somethn like this:

coffee grounds: nitrogen, etc, etc.
banana peels: etc.

Banana peels. Didn't read the whole thing but it did have some lists.

And this good old link for coffee

While I find it interesting to look at the numbers for the different feedstocks, I remind myself that as a ratio, these particluar items are so miniscule as to be negligible in the big picture.

Leaves and grass are the larger volume feedstocks I use. But I also compost all sorts of plants that are torn out in the fall, I don't even know what most of them are!

Lloyd