What to use for browns in compost....hay?

Right now with 2.5 acres I have plenty of leaves to add to my compost, but soon once I start cutting grass they will all be gone..

Just wondering if hay will be good to break down and compost. I would make sure it is dried out then start chopping it up with my lawn mower and use for it the browns in my compost.

Seems like it should work.

Scottie

Hawgwild wrote:Just wondering if hay will be good to break down and compost. I would make sure it is dried out then start chopping it up with my lawn mower and use for it the browns in my compost.

Two things to be aware of: 1. Hay is generally full of weed seeds, and many of them will survive composting unless the compost pile gets very warm; and 2. Even dried, hay is still a green, not a brown.

Other than that, it can be composted.

Hay like alfalfa or oat is a green. It is nutritional for animals. Remember the old saying, "Hay is for horses?"

Straw is a brown. Think bedding straw. Horses will not eat bedding straw unless they are starving to death, literally. Some folks (like me) use E-Z Straw as a mulch. New bedding straw from a bale of straw, can be mowed for a compost pile. Used bedding straw with some manure and urine or birthing fluids, can be added as is.

Hay will definitely have seeds and should be hot composted. Straw should not have viable seeds like wheat or oats, but may have weed seeds from the field. Hot composting, even for a couple or 3 turning, should take care of those.

I may use the stuff as a last resort...spread it out and let it dry out a good bit, then run my mower over it and pick it up with a sweeper I pull behind my mower...

I'm bagging some leaves but that will only last a few months after my current compost is done..

I will have 3 separate bins soon.. 2 for compost and one to put the finished compost in.

Thanks,
Scottie

Leaves, dry grass, hay, wood chips, wood sawdust, rotten pine straw.
I have a very large pile of rotten pine limbs from the timber I cut off my land, so I could plant fruit trees.
Peanut shell, pecan shell, grape hulls, rice hulls, seaweed, waste tea or coffee, coffee chaff.
Dry animal manure mixed with straw, shredded pinecones, soybean mill.
 paper & paper boxes shredded, used worm medium.

Tractor supply has the EZ Straw so will pick up a bail or 2 this week and start adding some to my compost piles a little at a time.. Gonna need it for mulch this summer too. Got plenty of leaves right now for a couple of large compost piles and picking up bags of leaves in town when I find them.

Getting plenty of junk mail too so running most of that through a shredder also.

Just trying to make all the compost I can now as I will be adding 3 more 4X4 foot SFG's  added to the 2 SFG's I have now. This will be my last year with a traditional row garden. Will have 2 - 50' rows and that tiller is getting a little more hard to handle than I want to fool with now. Will grass that area in end of summer and add the 3 new SFG's there.

Scottie