moldy ingredients.... good or bad?

[blenderbender]

My method of composting during the winter (freezing & below temps) is to run all my kitchen scraps through my vita-mix blender to moderately reduce particle size, which I'm assuming will accelerate the process, and also reduce volume. I then let it sit in a colander to drain off much of the water that I needed to use to blend the material. That water gets tossed around in the garden area. The blended veggie matter typically sits around for a couple days in the colander while it's draining before I add it to my outdoor compost tumbler with dry shredded leaves and/or shredded paper & cardboard. Often it will start to mold before it heads outside. My question is..... Is this mold conducive to good compost or not so much?

[applestar]

Haha in MY kitchen, moldy vegs and fruits GO STRAIGHT INTO THE COMPOST PILE. (Hurrying across the yard, moldy material held as far away as possible -- Eew eew yuck! TOSS)

I don't see why you are not mixing the blended water in with the dry matter to balance the moisture levels -- what are you using to moisten the compost pile? You'll have more active enzymes in the freshly blended stuff too. (I applaud your dedication, my stuff just mostly go in whole, including the brown paper grocery bag used to collect kitchen scraps and paper pulp egg cartons that I use in the bottom to aerate and absorb excess liquid. Yes my compost pile is SLOW COOKING)

[blenderbender]

After draining the blended material, it is still not dry by any stretch. There is plenty of moisture left and often my shredded leaves are at least damp so I'm more concerned with too much moisture in the mix rather than too dry. I have only started using this method since this last Summer so the jury is still out on if it's worth the extra effort. But everything I read tends towards the axiom... smaller pieces quicker compost. And since it's open to the air (aerobic as opposed to non-aerobic) it doesn't tend to stink and more often than not it's quite tolerable depending on what goes in the mix. I generally have lots of citrus skins which adds a nice note to the air. I just ain't certain the mold that sometimes forms contributes or detracts from the process.

[imafan26]

I'm just hoping that is a dedicated blender. I don't think I would want to eat anything that came out of it.

[blenderbender]

Hah!.... (a) the contents are always fresh when they go in, (b) the mold develops after contents have left the blender container, and (c) I do use a dedicated container for this purpose.

[tomc]

Blender, if it helps, decay is decay. The goal of composting it to accelerate decay.

The stuff your doing to wring out excess water from the material you add to your tumbler is probably to the good.

The only other thing I have tried doing to keep my tumbler going was to drill holes any place I though the unit could tolerate. This was to increase air-flow.

if you had a really big chest freezer, I suppose you could freeze your grind till spring is nearer.

All this fiddling is why I preffer tower (or bin) composting. it was never adequate to my need.

[blenderbender]

Blender, if it helps, decay is decay. The goal of composting it to accelerate decay.

That is my gut feeling.... but I just wasn't certain if perhaps some molds are better or worse. I don't think I'm going to lose any sleep over this.... was just curious. Thanks!

[applestar]

This is totally unscientific with no reliable basis to draw from, but I've heard that white and green molds are generally OK, black ones are iffy, and red mold is OK / desirable on rice for wild fermentation.

[imafan26]

You know bokashi can be made by basically fermenting rice bran.

[toxcrusadr]

Yep, that stuff is just getting a head start. The compost pile is such a biologically active place that any mold (or anything else for that matter) that gets going on ingredients before you put them in, will have to make its way along with everyone else. In the end it all balances out. Except for a very few plant diseases, there are no microbes that are really detrimental to the compost.