compost question: egg shells, tea bags and grape stalks

[roosky]

Hi,
We are compost virgins, but am beginning to realise, from reading this forum for the first time today, that we've been doing it all wrong - only "greens" - no wonder it was smelly !!! We have a plastic barrel, with no bottom, sitting on the ground, and we put everything in the top. Can you tell me - will egg shells, tea bags, and woody things like grape stalks, break down if we now start putting in things like paper, grass etc. ? Also, how do you regularly turn it to introduce air if it's in a barrel like ours ?
These are probably all obvious things to you experts out there, but.... help !

[opabinia51]

The grape vines (if woody) would be your only brown in there, everything else is a green so, try to find some leaves, you can buy cocoa bean hulls if you don't have any neighbourhood dogs, shredded blackand white newspaper articles are good as well but, add no nutrients, just Carbon.

Make sure you use your clippers to chop up the grape vines, I use them in my sheet compst and they work great!

Those barrels are okay but, they don't really let the air get at the compost. A simple pile works just fine, it is easy to turn, the air gets at it and it's easy to get at.

You can also throw some pallets together and there are a myriad of designs for composters on line.

You can also employ sheet composting in your gardens and trench composting. They work great.

Feel free to ask any questions!

Opabinia

[roosky]

thanks very much - think we'll have to get rid of the barrel eventually.

[doccat5]

You can also add shredded black and white newspaper, shredded leaves, ask around your area, you can probably get some manure as well. Use a shovel or pitchfork to "stir" the inside of your barrel. It will take a bit, but you can get it working.

We use recycled pallets and they work great.

[cherlynn]

I had the bottomless plastic barrel for compost and a couple of compost piles. Thanks to joining and reading this forum, I have since learned that I had too many greens in the plastic barrel! Yesterday I went out to the compost and dumped the barrel, much of which was not decomposed and added it to a mixed pile..."yummy" lots of grass and leaves and assorted composted stuff with lots of worms. I am giving up on the barrel...the piles are so much easier to maintain! I love this forum. Thank You!

[opabinia51]

We are very happy to have you here! Be sure to start some threads with any questions you might have and join in on any discussions.

[cherlynn]

Thank You for the warm welcome! Believe me, I'll have many questions!
I'm newly retired with more time to enjoy my yard, plant and tend to my vegetable and flower gardens. It is such a wonderful grounded place to be!

[doccat5]

Welcome to the wonderful world of composting! You are well on your way to being another 'addict".......LOL

[applestar]

For years, I was unable to do any strenuous work in the garden, so my compost consisted of nothing more than a black plastic compost bin filled with kitchen scraps and occasional weeds. To minimize work involved in taking out the kitchen scraps, they were collected in brown paper bags. Starting with a lunch bag, then when full/nearly full, put in next size brown paper bag (may be from a deli or hardware store), and so on until they were in a double layer of grocery bags with handles. That's when the whole thing went out to the compost bin without any other processing. (I might have stabbed at them a couple of times with garden forks to poke holes in the bags.) Occasional weeds and wind drift of brown leaves on the patio were only other additions. My "pile" tended to be too dry, and it was never turned, but it still yielded black compost from the bottom access every spring. I'd say approx. 1/2 the bin was usable compost.

Now that I'm able to do more, I still use brown bags to keep kitchen scraps, except that I can take them out more often so they're usually not in layer and layers, and I dump out the bags, then rip them up to add to the bin. I'm also more careful about maintaining moisture levels. This year, I was actually able to build a second bin to turn out the unfinished compost from the plastic bin. So I should get the full bin's worth of finished compost this year

I think that the plastic compost bin is a good place to start the raw material -- especially the unsightly kitchen scraps and such -- particularly if you have neighbors that wrinkle up their nose at the idea like I do. (I swear next time I move, my criteria for a desirable house is going to include the neighbors' gardening habits. )

Good luck with your compost!

[cherlynn]

Applestar, I really like your use of the brown paper bags! Although, I do have less of them than I used to...trying to use cloth shopping bags! Anyhow, I plan to try that out, much better than cleaning out a plastic container. Do they use any chemicals in the brown paper bags?

Our compost pile is next to the neighbor who has a wooded and leaf filled area adjacent to our property...so it is not a "smelly" problem. The other neighbor keeps his huge compost pile far away from us...other issues like lawn chemical use by our neighbor would be our problem, but that is another subject! It's all the trials and tribulations of living in the suburbs!

[applestar]

You want to avoid colored ink -- particularly red, or so I understand. That means no pink, orange, purple or brown printing either (Remember your *primary* colors and what to mix to get which color? ) I *think* it's OK if the bag is printed with soy-based ink. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong!)

[doccat5]

You can use brown paper bags, black and white newspapers, just discard the slick colored fliers and ads.

[Charlie MV]

green or brown?

[opabinia51]

Pine straw I'm not familiar with it sounds like a brown but, I don't know exactly what it is.

Shredding corn stalks creats a great fibrous brown that adds wonderful strcutures to your soil. Corn husks treat the same way make a wonderful green. Best way to get a hot compost going.

[Charlie MV]

pine needles.

[opabinia51]

Yes, Pine Needles are classified as a brown. Definately. Now, pine needles are due contain some allelopathic chemicals if memory serves correctly, trying googline "Pine Needles and allelopath" or substitute allelopath with allelopathic and see what you get.

[Charlie MV]

Thank you.