Home Made Compost

hi, trying to think outside the box, so to speak.

Compost,  your thoughts please on this.

Still struggling to find my 5 different compost.  I plan to start my own compost pile but that will be for next year's use.

Not desperate yet, it's only late January.

I was thinking of posting a request on my local neighborhood "facebook" type page
(Not Facebook but like Facebook and very neighborhood oriented.)

What if I can find people who home compost who live close by and ask for a bucket or two of their stuff.  It would all be different.  Would that work?

Just thinking.........

Dani

danieggert wrote:What if I can find people who home compost who live close by and ask for a bucket or two of their stuff.  It would all be different.  Would that work?

Curious what the purpose of this bucket or two of their compost would be? Are you thinking about using them as "compost starter"?  If so, compost starter is not needed since all plant matter already has all of the microbes necessary to start composting.  Or, are you thinking of using it in your garden beds? That would be risky since you would have no idea of its contents, including possible treated grasses, etc..

My first year at SFG.  I will have to buy my compost this year  But I want to start a compost pile for next year.  I googled what I should put in it and most of it made common sense.   But some sites did tell me to compost sticks, twigs, egg cartons and even sawdust.  They did say to layer greens (food  scraps) with dark plant items ,  Basically food scraps  etc.(greens)  topped with leaves, grass, dead plants etc. (dark) and then, mix , mix , mix.

Considering I will be using this to replenish my MM next year, can you recommend anything I should NOT put in my pile? 

Thank you my new friends

Dani

Composting is more an art than a science.  Basically, if it is organic, it can be composted. For a very good reference, suggest you visit your local library to see if they have a copy of The Rodale Book of Composting.

danieggert wrote:hi, trying to think outside the box, so to speak.

Compost,  your thoughts please on this.

Still struggling to find my 5 different compost.  I plan to start my own compost pile but that will be for next year's use.

Not desperate yet, it's only late January.

I was thinking of posting a request on my local neighborhood "facebook" type page
(Not Facebook but like Facebook and very neighborhood oriented.)

What if I can find people who home compost who live close by and ask for a bucket or two of their stuff.  It would all be different.  Would that work?

Just thinking.........

Dani

 Don't sweat the small stuff and get bogged down in witchcraft gardening off the internet forums there is a lot of silly scary stuff being pushed out.

 As we are the " All New Square Foot Gardening " people why not use our well tried and tested recipes ... the thread " composting 101 " is a very good place to investigate , it  used to be a good regular attended thread. 

 If you can get it , have a good read of Mels first square foot gardening book , in it IIRC he does say to use other things if materials are not available but try to keep the balance of brown and green material at the same ratio as this is the the major thing for getting s good compost , getting it to sweat in under a tarp or plastic sheet helps break the nominal  size heap down quicker too. 

  In the Cornell university extension website  reading about The Berkley 18 day hot composting method is very useful here  it entails shifting the made up correctly heap every three days .  Turning the outsides of the heap into the middle of the newly started heap .

They have numerous lists on the website of materials that are all compostable and give an indication of the heap of their brown /green ratios that really all you need .  It boils down then to choosing the percentage numbers to get you final amounts of browns & green for a well balance compost . 
 I've been to sleep for many moons since I read it several times and understood what was being said ,,, unfortunately I had a stroke and three covids so my number memory is not able ton recall the precise numbers , you'll have to read up on that yourself .