Brown Beetles in Compost: Experiment in the Making

[River]

I started a new garden and I figured it would be a good idea to build up some compost piles.
I did the usual mixing grass cuttings with shredded leaves. Although I left one of my piles
strictly with just coffee grinds & shredded leaves. I have no idea if this is a good idea for composting
but I have access to lots of coffee grinds at work, and the local coffee house where I buy my green beans.

One thing I did notice that there is a huge amount of what appears to be a small brown beetle. I keep my piles
covered this time of the year because of the forest around me, and the pine trees are dropping lots of straw.
Plus it helps to hold the moisture better. So once a week when I add new grinds & leaves I see them when I pull
the cover back. I am guessing based on what I have read its a good thing?

The question is, will it be a good compost over time. Does anyone know the answer.

[tomc]

Compost is never adequate to a new gardens needs. Everything have added to your pile will in time become lovely compost.

Pile it on. Its usually year three or four before my need fully catches up to my wants for compost.

[rainbowgardener]

coffee grounds + fall leaves is your basic "green" (nitrogen rich) + "brown" (carbon rich) formula and should compost down just fine. As far as the finished compost as a soil amendment, it is a little less than ideal, because of the lack of diversity. When you throw in lots of different kitchen scraps, weeds from the garden, and variety of ingredients, then you know that your finished product will contain all of the different minerals and trace nutrients your garden needs. With such limited sources, it is still possible that your finished compost will be missing some nutrient. But that is a quibble. It should break down just fine and have all of the good qualities of compost for holding moisture in your soil, providing healthy life to your soil, etc.

Not sure what kind of little beetles you have without a picture, but presumably if there are a bunch of them in your compost pile, they are there because they are detritivores and part of the process of breaking your raw materials down into compost.

[rot]

..
One of my experiments was a bin that was 50 percent coffee grounds. Turned into a black gooey mess. It took me months of hard turning each week and adding browns to turn that thing into compost.
..

[rainbowgardener]

Yeah, I should have said, coffee grounds are an intense and concentrated "green" and tend to pack down. So you would need LOTS of browns to go with them - probably at least twice as much leaves as coffee grounds, by volume.

[River]

Yeah, I should have said, coffee grounds are an intense and concentrated "green" and tend to pack down. So you would need LOTS of browns to go with them - probably at least twice as much leaves as coffee grounds, by volume.

That is what I am doing