A few lbs of beets and radishes and about 8-10 lbs of squash we could not get around to eating or giving away fast enough.

I'm trying for a wheelbarrow load of weeds and grass with soil attached every day but sometimes it's more and sometimes (when I get a life outside the garden) it's less! Have now covered the growing pile of weeds/grass/soil with a dark tarp as the grass was growing quite happily and I want it to DIE!

Also the usual stuff from the kitchen. Last month I threw out half a squash that got old and something keeps digging it out of the compost pile and nibbling a bit. I keep burying it but apparently it's still tasty to some critter, probably one of my friendly neighborhood marmots. Who I now dislike less since I've seen them gobbling dandelion flowers.

I now have 3 compost piles.

The usual suspects, plus

Peelings and stuff from three apple pies

Couple of pounds of carrot whatever you call it - the stuff that's left in the juicing machine - from my neighborhood cafe

ripped up egg cartons

Beet juice from boiling beets

Weeds, tho not many.

Aster stems that i cut back in a futile attempt to keep them from getting too big by fall.

A mouse nest that I swept out from behind the fridge on the patio.

A wheelbarrow full of pulled weeds.

20 lbs Coffee grounds
20 lbs Neighbors lawn waste
5 lbs old leaves
10lbs Salmon skins and bones
A weeks worth of NY Times

A bunch of buckwheat I happily scythed yesterday morning, as well as the usual slop (kitchen scraps/tea bags, etc.)

Spent daylilies
Watermelon rinds
grape vines
banana peels
some bone meal

Dragonfruit rinds!

-Paul

Here is a link that might be useful: What's a dragonfruit?

Last thing I put on was a bag of fava pods and this morning's coffee grounds.

Chopped up corn stocks, banana peels, coffee grounds, tea bags, and some apple skins. Tonight our potato skins are going in there too.

Paul, those things are gorgeous;
how beautiful your compost must be today!

Yesterday I fed my compost
banana peels
coffee grounds/filters/cold coffee
tea bags
icky old cut flowers & the water in the vase
torn-up junk mail & newspaper
weeds
truly huge tough yellow squash-
I didn't see them til they were too big & pithy;
when I found them, I sliced them lengthwise & set them out so the birds could get the seeds.
The birds were not interested.

Grass clippings from my front yard
Banana peels
Cantaloupe rinds & guts
Shredded paper and paper board
Daffodil tops
Spent peony blooms ravaged by 97F heat and 30mph "breeze"
Spent Iris blooms (see above)
Pail of tree leaves downed by thunderstorm
4 boxes of used snotty Kleenex from recent summer cold virus

A large tree fell near my property after standing dead for several seasons, and I took my machete to the bark and removed large strips. I think it may have been a hickory (70% sure this is the type of tree that drops seed helicopters with little barbs that suck to step on). I took the bark sections to my bin and started slicing off bits of the wood. Since it has been long dead, the inner bark has a spongy feel to it, and was moist (we are needing rain badly here).

The chips are just sitting on top right now, helping insulate. My small kitchen thermometer reads a steady 120F so I didn't want to disturb it until it cools a bit.

These got mixed with the usual kitchen scraps - veggie and fruit peelings, UCG, eggshells, paper)

cleaned the office kitchen!

pithy cantaloupe
moldy salsa
1 lone dried-out flour tortilla
a tupperware container full of icky sandwich garnishes-onion, lettuce, tomato, some other things

MerryStem, thank you for the link to dragonfruit. I have never had them but will buy at an Asian market next trip - sound delicious.

There are so many fruits and vegetables at the Asian grocers that I don't recognize. Think I should buy at least one new item each trip - and write down the name so I'll remember what I got.

Rosie

Tortoise poop and cage litter
Rabbit poop and cage litter
Dog manure
2 bags of leaf mould
chopped palm fronds
old banana leaves
Human urine
Grass clippings

shredded newspaper
tea bags
dryer lint
grapes
grass clippings
watermelon rinds
orange peels
weeds
a little dirt
spent daylilies

I'm so glad this thread was started. I had no idea that some of this stuff was acceptable. A flour tortilla? Does that mean old bread in general is fine?

Other things that probably would not have occurred to me ...

Egg cartons (obviously NOT the styrofoam ones)
Office papers
old salsa ?? (This would NEVER have occurred to me.)
used Kleenex (Who knew?)
salmon skin and bones (why is this different from the meat and just meat in general?)

Thanks for the education!

Robin in NC

While doing a bit of garage sale-ing today I saw a grocery bag full of grass clippings next to the garbage can. I asked if I could have it. Turns out she had cleaned off their mulching mower when she realized that it was starting to smell from the stuck on bits. It's just the perfect amount for my balcony composter. If she was quicker thinking & realized how much I wanted it she could've charged me for it. Lol. I think she thought I was nuts, but it was free. My composter's never had grass before! :)

Robin, old bread is fine as long as we don't mention it in Annpat's vicinity or she'll sic those horrid planaria on us again. Hope she's not reading this thread as I cleaned the frig and frig-freezer and threw out lots of frozen bread crusts as well as about 3 gallons of other 'stuff' that didn't look very appealing. Plus the usual fresh eggshells, teabags, orange peels.

& meat, bones, fat, etc are entirely compostable;
anything that once was alive & now is dead can be composted.

Fall leaves that were still sitting on top of the open pile (that now has pumpkin or squash of some kind growing in it!)
Apple cores
nectarine pit
UCG from couple day's pots
used tea bags from iced tea
strawberry hulls and a few mushy berries
soggy pasta left sitting in the water during dinner (but poured the water into the pan I nuked the meatballs and sauce in)
cucumber peel from 1/2 cuke used tonight

I've got a couple pounds of rancid whole wheat flour - can this be added? A little bit at a time, or stir in to it doesn't clump? I never put fats (not even buttered noodles) into the compost, so not sure about whole wheat flour. Plus we have bears (I sifted out 12 gallons of finished compost from the bin yesterday since a bear had torn it up overnight anyway). Thanks

The bokashi bucket got: shrimp shells, too far gone cantaloupe, mango pit & peel, eggshells, coffee grounds & filter, some used paper towels, and some other stuff from plate scrapings and food prep. (I just started a DIY bokashi project)

The compost bin got: dog hair, vacuum dust, yard rakings of flowers & leaves.

coffee, filters, tea bags, banana peels, rice, leftover pizza crusts, paper towels, grass clippings, shredded paper, weeds without seeds, vegetative leftovers from dinner.

Fruit peeling, grounds,egg shells, more leaves, grass clippings & raspberry canes.

What a great nitrogen additive. It really does the job. Makes a great fertilizer for the lawn as well.

yep, sure you can use flour!

As you said, probably a good idea to add it gradually (sift it in...) unless you want it to turn into paste.

My compost got a grocery bag full of huge old tough squash & a little bit of hair clippings as well as its usual coffee grounds & filters etc.

I fed my compost pile a massive summer squash that had some bug issues and four bags of coffee grounds from Starbucks.

I keep waiting for some squash seeds to come up but I guess the molds and fungus's eat everything.

Yesterday, I put in 4-5 large cardboard boxes (ripped & soaked) into my compost tumbler...

We are vegetarians so we only put in fruit & veggies & coffee grinds... When I dug up a little, I saw a ton of tiny white worms (no more than 1-2 cm long) in the bin. Is my composter doing ok?