Mbpyster
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question about "composting" in the woods

Hey everybody!
I have a question that is...composting related..in a way. Here goes...

I hate to see my food scraps get sent to landfills, so I have been throwing my food scraps (pretty much all fruits/veggies) into the woods by my house. I figure it will be broken down to feed plants, or it will get eaten by hungry animals...but either way avoid the landfill. Obviously I am not getting any return for the plants I personally tend, but to be honest, this is the laziest way I can think of to get rid of my food waste! My questions are....
1) Is this OK? As in, will these scraps still get broken down, and possibly help out the mini ecosystem of the forest?
2) Should I throw all of my fruit/veggie scraps into one big pile, or should I spread them out over the woods? I am unsure if it will work if I just throw them in a pile since it is mostly fruits and veggies (I read somewhere about needing carbon sources)
3) to go with Q2...would it work if I threw all of the veggies/fruits where a large rotting log is? Then perhaps there would be other organic matter from the tree, that could aid in the overall process of breaking down/etc.
4) Any hints or tips you have for me!

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ElizabethB
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Hi Mbpyster,

Welcome to the forum.

If all you want to do is dispose of your vegetable kitchen and garden waste then scattering it in the woods is fine. Fall leaves will provide all of the "browns" needed. Keep doing what you are doing and Mother Nature will take care of the rest.

If you want useable compost for your garden then do create a concentrated pile. Your woods will provide all of the "browns" you need in the fall. Rake leaves into piles and add your vegetable waste. Don't forget egg shells, coffee grounds, tea bags. If you want useable compost you will need more "greens" than your kitchen will provide. If your mower has a bagger occasionally adding grass clippings is great. You can get additional, free, vegetable trimmings from your local vegetable market or grocery store produce department.

Looking forward to hearing from you again.

john gault
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Mbpyster wrote:Hey everybody!
I have a question that is...composting related..in a way. Here goes...

I hate to see my food scraps get sent to landfills, so I have been throwing my food scraps (pretty much all fruits/veggies) into the woods by my house. I figure it will be broken down to feed plants, or it will get eaten by hungry animals...but either way avoid the landfill. Obviously I am not getting any return for the plants I personally tend, but to be honest, this is the laziest way I can think of to get rid of my food waste! My questions are....
1) Is this OK? As in, will these scraps still get broken down, and possibly help out the mini ecosystem of the forest?
2) Should I throw all of my fruit/veggie scraps into one big pile, or should I spread them out over the woods? I am unsure if it will work if I just throw them in a pile since it is mostly fruits and veggies (I read somewhere about needing carbon sources)
3) to go with Q2...would it work if I threw all of the veggies/fruits where a large rotting log is? Then perhaps there would be other organic matter from the tree, that could aid in the overall process of breaking down/etc.
4) Any hints or tips you have for me!
I kind of do the same thing you do, except the "woods" I throw my kitchen waste is my yard. I no longer have a dedicated compost pile. I have mulched over so much of my yard that I barely have enough grass to justify having a lawn mower. In the winter time I throw my waste into the main garden, to mature over winter. and once my garden gets going I throw my waste into one of my many heavily mulched areas, AKA, the woods :mrgreen:

It's fine to keep throwing it in the woods, but if you do, you'd probably not want to pile it up all in one place, unless you don't mind attracting certain types of wildlife, but not sure what that would be since I'm not familiar with your specific location.

As for carbon sources, the fallen leaves are prefect. If all you have is a small amount all you need to do is throw it on the ground and cover with leaves (that's all I do in my yard). If you do make a pile, then just make sure to mix in plenty of leaves and sticks and stuff, like seed pods and whatever else is around. That will keep the pile from going anaerobic, keeping it from smelling.

As far as it breaking down, as long as there's a healthy biome there, it will breakdown fast enough. I live in Florida with very sandy soil and not much in the way of soil organisms, but once I started mulching, I created habitat and they all moved in. I never once bought worms, nor any other type soil organisms to get started. Nature will start it on its own. Don't be fooled by some that say you need to buy compost activator kits. Nonsense :lol:

It's really tough to screw up composting, since nature does it all. The worst mistake I've made is just getting the Carbon to Nitrogen mixture wrong and having the pile go anaerobic, but that's an easy fix, just mix it up and add some more carbon, I.e. leaves and sticks and other "brown" materials. And also don't get caught up in the ratio between "Brown" and "Green" material. If in doubt just add a few more leaves, it's a very forgiving process.

imafan26
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Get a worm bin. Worms will eat the food scraps and you will get vermicompost and worm tea. It is easier to maintain a wormbin than a compost pile since the worms do all the turning.

You can do some trench composting in the garden. Bury the chopped up/frozen green waste about 18 inches deep. Let it sit a few weeks. It will sink when it decomposes. I do have to put chicken wire over it as the mongoose like to dig it up looking for the grubs that are attracted to it.

Leaving it in the woods works too. Here there are no "woods" and the heat and humidity is such that food scraps will stink and attract flies unless it is buried.

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webmaster
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If you have bears, coyotes, javelinas, wild pigs, raccoons, porcupines, opossums and etc in your neck of the "woods" you might end up harming them, backfiring on your good intentions to help. Some of that food might even be harmful to them (which is what I tell people who feed bread to ducks directly where I'm fishing!).

Inviting wild animals closer to humans always ends badly for wild animals. Making wild animals accustomed to human presence is bad for wild animals. It is their fear of humans that helps keep them alive and keeps us and them out of harms way.

Feeding wild animals is a disturbance to the natural order of the wildlife around you. Animals have a job to do. By giving them access to a regular source of human food disrupts that natural order. For example, causing an overpopulation of an animal species is destructive.

Although feeding animals feels like it's helping, it is actually destructive.

I agree with imafan26 that it's a good idea to acquire or make a worm bin.

john gault
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I live in the city, but I still have nightly visits from raccoons and possums. I don't have any problems with them digging up my compost, which is simply buried under heavy layer of leaves. The reason is because most of my kitchen scraps are not viable for eating, things like peelings, coffee grounds, paper and such are not really sought after by most animals. Now if you're throwing out tons of non-eaten food, then yes that could be a problem. So the question is: What constitutes your kitchen waste?

Like I said, I have nightly visits from raccoons and possums, but they are here looking for grubs and stuff; I'm constantly finding holes dug into my soil from them, it presents no problems and I don't see them as pests, but again, if I were dumping tons of unused food, than that would be a problem, but an occasional treat found by wildlife will not present a problem, it's when it becomes normal for them to find our food as a major source of calories.

Worm bins are a lot of work, personally I'd rather have my worms be out in the garden, because there are a lot more benefits to worms than just their castings. They are crucial to building soil, including things like aerating and breaking down organic matter (not just kitchen scraps).

BTW, I also get an occasional visit by these birds when I leave out the carcass of chicken/turkey and then I bury the bones under the ground after they clean them up for me :mrgreen:

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SQWIB
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I'm with webmaster on this, I try to adhere to the Leave No Trace and Do Not Feed The Animals, principles, other than them tearing up my garden :D

I think the negatives would outweigh the benefits, from a wildlife standpoint.One example is someone tossing a banana peel or an Apple core out the car window, seems harmless enough, after all it's quickly biodegradable, right?
True but it can draw animal near the side of the road where many are killed and it is still considered littering.

I know you are not tossing scraps on the side of the road but my point is the same as Webmaster makes

In the city it is considered littering whether organic or not
Compost it. My 2 cents,

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applestar
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Hah. This turn in the discussion has reminded me of something....

One thing I stopped doing is putting out apple core and peelings (and other fruit scraps) for the squirrels and chipmunks during the winter. I used to think they needed to eat, too, and they would come for the birdfood, but would spend more time eating the apple scraps, which I had thought was better.

The trouble was, next late summer/fall, the adult squirrels and the new baby squirrels that grew up eating the apple scraps felt that MY ripening apples on MY apple trees were the tasty treats they remembered. ugh! Nope. UNTRAIN them from eating scraps from crop foods and learning to become familiar with those as "edible" and "good to eat"!

imafan26
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We don't have a lot of wild things here. The most common wild animals are not even natives. Wild pigs were brought by the early Hawaiians and others are escaped domestic pigs, deer imported for hunting nearly destroyed the native vegetation on Molokai. Imported birds are displacing native ones. Mongoose was imported to control rats. Instead the mongoose made a deal with the rats so the mongoose raided the henhouse in the day and the rat at night. Feral cats and mongoose will both kill the native birds. Feral chickens are everywhere.

The webmaster is right, there are always problems when humans interfere. The importation of the alien species, some which destroyed habitat because the plants evolved in an environment that did not have pigs rooting up trees or eating seeds. Native birds are specialists and many are dependent on the availability of a specific food source. Native birds also evolved in an environment without large predators like cats, dogs, snakes, and mongoose. Many of the native birds are ground nesting and very colorful and easy prey for predators. Sailors stoned the dodo birds into extinction just for fun.

Feral feeders end up in conflict with a lot of people because while the feral feeders are trying to give the cats and chickens a better quality of life. The colonies are being fed near where other people live or recreate so they don't like to have to deal with the droppings and noise they make. The feral feeders are neutering the cats and they do try to find homes for as many as they can but other people keep abandoning unwanted unsterilized pets. The humane society considers any animal that has been in a colony two weeks as being feral and will kill them because they are considered unadoptable. I have two cats from a feral colony now. People living on the edge of the "wild areas" feed the feral pigs so that like webmaster said, they have become less fearful of humans and they are teaching their young to not only get the handouts but how to raid garbage cans for food. Many of the new wild birds, finches, java rice birds, mynah, bulbul, cardinals, pigeons, and even some macaws were pet birds that people set free or escaped. There aren't many wild parakeets because the cats find those very easy to catch. However, these birds will not only go for seeds in bird feeders but when people feed them they hang around the picnic tables and can carry disease. Some birds here are so used to eating bread, pizza, popcorn, and hotdogs that they don't even eat birdseed. The birds now forage in my pots for seeds, so I have to cover seed trays to keep them out. Cardinals, mejiros, bulbuls love to eat papaya and other ripe fruit, and they are tricky. They eat the fruit from the back and just leave the skin. The cattle egret was imported by the plantations to kill vermin in the field. The plantations are gone. The birds still look for vermin but now they follow the smaller farm plows, park mowers, and swoop down in yards after they are mowed looking for whatever was rousted.

Most of the problems here were manmade. Importing animals without consideration of their impacts on the environment or the local food chains. Humans encroaching on habitats feeding or leaving their waste out in the open force the denizens to adapt their habits and diet and the ones that cannot, perish. It is one of the reasons why Hawaii has one of the highest species extinction rates in the world.

GardenGeorge
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Going to setup a compost at my summer place when spring comes so got some great tips here. I have talked abit with my neighbours and they recommended me to sift the scraps with dirt so its easier to break down. Good to know to keep in mind that some foods might be bad for the animals and so on. Noted. Might get back with pictures when I get it setup. Cheers guys!

toxcrusadr
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Soil doesn't really do much for the compost. The stuff you put in already has plenty of microbes for degradation, and if it doesn't, as long as the pile is on the ground they will grow up into it. That's about the only thing soil CAN do. On the flip side, it produces no nutrients, takes up space, and shuts out air and water from the compostables. If you really want to, a handful of soil or the occasional shovelful is OK in your compost, but it's not necessary.

It would be better to have a leaf bin next to your compost, a circle of wire fence which you fill and compact down with leaves in the fall. Each time you add kitchen scraps to the compost, layer some leaves over them. That provides a balanced mix of ingredients, absorbs moisture from wet food waste, and helps keep the pile fluffy enough to get air inside.



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