Professor dirt, I just ran across this when looking up ratios for newspaper to grass clippings and I am very intrigued. One question: when you say you oriented the channels in the cardboard "north to south" did you mean vertically? Otherwise, I don't visualize how anything would flow into them. With the openings on top I could see how the UCGs and other good stuff would work their way down in to the channels, and between the layers of cardboard.

hepatica (usually found on the vegetable and ws forums)

* Posted by ryanzone7 professor dirt (My Page) on

Sun, Mar 15, 09 at 8:36

I don't worry too much about the C/N ratio,(anymore) at least not as much on a small scale, I have composted cardboard all by it self and I have composted cardboard with coffee grounds as my nitrogen source and each seemed to take almost the same amount of time, I noticed that worms loved the little channels in corrugated cardboard so I set up my favorite compost bin: five pallets, one for a "breathable" base and four for the sides, then I loaded the bin with the card board making sure the corrugations were oriented north to south for drainage, this was really cool because the cardboard was a solid but porous mass that I could stand on without it denting under my weight (185 pounds) I topped it all off with approximately 20 gallons of used coffee grounds and watered the whole shabang until everything was uniformly moist, finally I added one five gallon bucket of "finished" compost that was peppered with worms and worm eggs. this was in August or September. My idea was that the corrugated air channels would act as convection vents for air to flow through as well as lil nesting spots for the worms to "live" in.

I didn't turn or fluff or aerate this mass at all, I just watered from time to time, Around May or June I took one of the side pallets down and was disapointed when I saw the outermost sheet of cardboard was still intact, then I peeled that away and I saw black gold! I took my shovel and "cut" out a chunk, it had the consistency of peat, but as I tossed it onto my wife's garden it burst apart like brownie crumbs. The only evidence that was ever cardboard were a few "glue snakes" and some staples which were easy to spot and pick out.

Don't worry too much about the C/N ratio, because IT ALL LEADS BACK TO COMPOST!

IALBTC