Well, I really like being able to add kitchen junk to the compost, old spent plants, old dirt, oak leaves (usually shredded by leaf vac), I make a habit of adding comfrey leaves, when I remember.
I don't have a lot of grass, it usually gets weed-whacked and left.

My favorite is paper.

In the form of shredded junk mail/bills, used paper towels and paper plates, used Kleenex, paper labels off the cans I recycle and shredded newspaper and cardboard containers.

I have reduced my solid waste by at least half by composting paper.

I shred and bag it all winter to use each growing season in my pile.

My favorite thing to put in is dryer lint. It's such an odd little waste product, it tickles me to compost it.

All paper/paperboard and cardboard. I think we actually take the can out for the trash collectos perhaps 1 or 2 times a month where most other people around here seem to do it 1 or 2 times a week.

I'm pretty gleeful about anything yucky!!!!! The worms or the compost will love it!!!!!

I've come to think that the absolute best thing to heat up compost is urine. A bucket of urine saturated sawdust/shredded paper/weeds/leaves/etc is a great thing to dump into a big hole in the center of your compost pile then cover over and stick in the compost Thermometer.

Here is a link that might be useful: Thermometers

Hmmmm dryer lint? I've heard that it might be a no-no unless you dry exclusively natural fibers (like cotton). Polyester doesn't break down nicely and just work to clog the would-be air spaces. I know they say to be especially careful with your washer wastewater output filtering if you've got a septic system, since the polyester will clog the leachfield dirt pores and pipes.

Is this a fallacy?

If you are really feeling like a purist, then perhaps dryer lint would be a no-no. IMO, a little dryer lint mixed into your compost isn't likely to hurt anything unless you are running a laundry mat. I also dump the canister vac into the compost bucket too. Perhaps there are some non compostable fibers in there but in the big picture it is something pretty minor to mix into your soil.

Cool, I guess small fiber amounts aren't anything to get into a twist over for composting...I'll still filter my washing machine output well though, I don't want to kill my septic, and it ain't hard anyway.

Yeah, I like dumping my vacuum contents outside for composting, especially since it's mostly dog hair and dead skin cells (read: organic material :) ).

How can you pick a favorite to toss in that pile of goodies for the magical process of compostdom? I just added the mushy summer dahlias, fresh cut grass, a Norfolk pine, a couple of bags of leaves, pumpkin innards - the pumpkins in a few days - and the year 1931 of a deceased relative's saved paper trail.

Hi all...dead bodies...love to put them dead bodies in my compost pile. Dead crab and lobster bodies that is...picked up from a local seafood store. Also use deer parts from a local butcher that dresses deer durin' hunting season. Franklin

Since I have learned so much lately my most recent favorite things are coffee grounds, shredded paper, ripped up egg cartons (the cardboard type), pumpkins, squashes and straw. Plus some fresh sawdust.

My favorite is the tops/bottoms/peels from dinner veggies - eg onions, carrots, celery, peppers, broccoli - it makes me feel like I'm creating something beautiful w/both parts of the wonderful veggie - the part in the saute pan, and the part in the compost.

Raking leaves this weekend? Many of your will be doing this annual chore. Instead of throwing the leaves in bags, or in the woods why not use them in your garden? Leaves are a wonderful source of organic matter. They help build the soils ability to hold moisture and they can even help to keep weeds down. Rake the leaves and then go over them with a mower two or even three times to shred them. I even let a bit of grass get mixed in to provide more nutrients. Next pile the leaves in your beds to a depth of 2-3". Wet them down lightly and they will not blow away. By next July they will turn into wonderful dark leaf matter. The look is different and takes some getting use to, however it is a great way to help the environment and you will use less water next year.

Here is a link that might be useful: organic leaf cleanup video

About the dryer lint, I don't think polyester sheds much. It's polyproplene plastic spun into one big long eenie string. Cotton fibers are naturally short and twisted to make a thread and those fibers just do want to wiggle out. I fear my personal lint has more than it's fair share of cat hair in it as well.

I avoid polyester like the plague, just because it's so fantastically uncomfortable to wear. I sweat often.

brichards, what a great video. I'm going out today to try and do it before the rains come.

The fastest finishing compost I've encountered is a mixture of grass clippings and course sawdust. The amount was equal weights of each to make up a cubic yard of material. It got really hot and was turned every two days. Within a month it was no longer heating, had reduced considerably in size and also it's components were unrecognizable. That's the fastest I've seen around here.

Favorite things are kitchen and garden waste from other people! I've heard someone else in town has a community composting drop-off where people drop off 5-gallon buckets and take an empty one, but I've been composting kitchen waste from only 2 households besides my own. One of them posted a notice on freecycle -- I pick up a grocery bag full of organically grown compostables every week. The other one is a neighbor who's still amused at how delighted I am when moldy veg matter comes out of the refrigerator.

I also get garden waste regularly from one other person at the community garden, and occasionally from a few others.

As for heating up the pile, my favorites are coffee grounds and urine. My bins are in a public place, so I try to be discreet about adding the containers of collected urine. As long as it's diluted a bit and not more than a day or two old, it doesn't smell.

Another favorite way to make compost is to add thick layers of leaf/twig/chipped wood mulch to my garden paths before the rainy season. A new layer of mulch ensures that the paths drain well and don't get muddy, and it takes only a week or so for a heaping layer to be mashed down. A year or so later, with no work, I can sift out the woody matter and have great compost. I tried this with horse manure (mostly wood shavings), which takes longer to break down and still has clumps of wood shavings.

I occasionally use the path mulch as a "brown" if I don't have any other browns, and if I need to mulch plants I use the partly broken-down mulch from the paths instead of freshly chipped wood. Sometimes I even use path mulch as a potting medium, if I'm potting something that's fairly vigorous and I don't have anything else on hand.

I love composting seaweed. It breaks down fast and provides all sorts of nifty trace minerals. It's also kind of fun to add something to your soil that didn't come from some other piece of land; the sea constantly gets enriched with land nutrients but it's a rarer thing to add back to the land from the sea (I know, salmon swimming upstream enrich their ecosystems with sea-derived nutrients, etc.) Here in WA we have the long "tubes" of kelp that are fun to chop into tiny rings so that they'll fit into buckets. I do, however, seem to provoke some oddly fearful looks when I trudge onto the beach during tourist season and proceed to pull out a big knife and hack away at the seaweed.