Simple Compost Ingredients List -Browns and Greens

[rainbowgardener]

I don't compost a lot of bread, because usually it all gets used. If the end of the loaf gets stale, then it becomes bread crumbs for cooking. But sometimes it gets by me and gets moldy and then definitely gets composted. But I have a compost bucket (tightly covered) under the sink where all the kitchen scraps go. They stay in the bucket for a few days to a week to even more in the winter. If it's really cold and snowy (hard to imagine right now, isn't it ? ) the bucket just sits til there's a break in the weather. In dire circumstances, I've been known to just put a full bucket out on the screen porch and start a new one. Anyway the point of all that is that the bread and everything else gets mixed up together, it soaks up juices and starts breaking down (my compost bucket contents often heat up nicely, more so than the big compost pile). So by the time the bucket is dumped onto the pile (and then covered with weeds and such), everything is pretty ready to break down. In this process, I've never had any problem with the bread not turning into compost as readily as anything else.

[top_dollar_bread]

thanx for the feed back..My bread isnt moldy just hard
I opened the plastic bag to a new loaf and found that it was hard??

So ive been letting it sit in the sun (hopping birds will get to it) and its gotten a lot harder...I plan on breaking it down to crumbs (in my hands) before adding it to my compost...
Any idea if its a green or brown??im guessing green?

I will only add half the loaf to my compost, the other half will given to my worms....I finally started a worm bin
(will be posting my vermicomposting exerince, in a soon to come thread)

[gixxerific]

I give my bread to the birds. They like it and maybe it will keep them off my plants they sometimes like. It may also keep them off the tons of worms (in my tilled garden)

[Diane]

Hmm. I just put in 3 or 4 heels (about fist sized) of homemade bread that had been forgotten in a bag and gone completely moldy (I mean completely ) I'll let you know what I find when I turn the compost again in next few days -- I have a brown bag full of corn cobs (BROWN) and husks (GREEN) that has to go out but we've had some rain + heat = muggy + MOSQUITO HORDES = don't go out there (and laboriously turn over the compost pile no less) unless I want to get eaten alive!

Corn cobs take a while too and newspaper. I wonder if the browns just take longer than the greens and maybe we can tell what is brown by that?

[top_dollar_bread]

Corn cobs take a while too and newspaper. I wonder if the browns just take longer than the greens and maybe we can tell what is brown by that?

I don’t think browns take any longer then greens to break down, by just being a brown. The C/N ratio is how I determine brown from green. I also personally believe more carbon/browns are necessary for speeding up the decomposing process in the compost.

What I think makes certain organic material to break down faster, is its size or surface area exposed to the micro herd. When adding news paper/cardboard for example. I either shred it up (news paper) or ripe it into smaller pieces (cardboard). By doing this extra step, my news paper/cardboard sometimes breaks down faster then some of my grass clippings. (well mostly the news paper)

Also think about bones, if you threw a bone in your compost, it most likely wont break down at all. But if you grind it to a powder like bone meal, the microbes will defiantly be able to break it down.

I threw the bread in my compost, but i lazily/stupidly left the crumbs at the top of my compost bin. Then next day when I went to add some egg shells I had ants all up in my pile…man I hate ants..so I buried the bread crumbs, in hope they break down faster, but the ants are still swarming my compost..I tried cinnamon but that worked only for a day and I tried spraying with a concentrated caribbean red hot pepper spray…they ran for the hills but again came back..any one got any ideas???

[bananabat]

I see toilet paper cores and paper towel cores come up a lot on these lists. I used to work at a parrot shop (a very interesting first job) where we would use those items as toys that the birds would shred up. Well, we had to stop because birds were becoming ill and turns out those cardboard cores contain lead, i think it was. Maybe not lead, but it was something rather bad (arsenic maybe?). Still okay to compost?

[applestar]

Bananabat, you should not scare people like that without verification.
Apparently the metal in question was zinc:
http://www.theparrotuniversity.com/papertowels.php

I'll look around some more, but for now, am breathing a sigh of relief.

I did come across a good point -- we only use fragrance-free products around here so I don't have to worry about that, but if you use toilet paper with additives, you ARE adding trace amounts to your compost.

[bananabat]

Huh, I guess my boss was just taken by parrot-keeper fads/rumors. Sorry if I scared you badly, applestar!

[The Helpful Gardener]

Zinc CAN be a build-up metal in soils, and it's really toxic to make...

Bread is a green. Comes from grain, which is a grass, which is a green... All the carbon is in sugars rather than locked down stuff like wood. And I think browns DO take longer to break down as most of our compost systems are no fungally dominated but bacterially dominated, but I suspect that too is part of Natures design; she shifts the whole ecosystem to get to fungal dominance, not somewhere we really want to go with our piles...

HG

[applestar]

OK we need a chemist among us to test a toilet paper tube and see how much Zinc comes out per tube! OK sort of kidding. Do you think there might be a significant amount? Zinc is a micro-nutrient at appropriate levels.... Is there a plant zinc OD symptom or a zinc-sensitive plant that could be used as an indicator?

[ChefMatt]

This thread has been really helpful, thanks to everyone who contributed! I know it's not ingredient related, but about how much time should it take to develop and age enough compost to effectively fertilize a garden of roughly 8'x10'? And is it only helpful to turn compost up to a certain frequency? Will I do more harm than good by turning it daily?

[The Helpful Gardener]

Hey Chef

It's a matter of degrees here; we are starting a biological culture which IS fertilizer basically. The more we get, the more fertilizer. It's like asking how much yeast do I need; you need to start with one organism and it replicates, right? Just takes longer... Same thing here...

Turning daily is great for about the first two or three weeks, then backing off some is actually beneficial. Turning every day doesn't HURT it, but it does slow the fungal development considerably, shifting things towards a bacterial mix when balanced is likely better...

AS, excess zinc can cause iron deficiencies, so the whole chlorosis/yellowing to white thing applies... is the toilet tube thing a red flag? No. SHould we still think about it. I do...

HG

[builder0101]

Not only do I use the paper towel cores I compost every paper towel I use unless I am wiping up grease or oil or am using it with chemiclas. Usually I am just wiping up the counter from preparing dinner.
Mike.

[builder0101]

How much ashes/charcoal from my burn pit can I add? Obviously it is only tree branches and th like tat I burn no synthetic materials or painted material etc.

[AreaCode707]

Is there a general guideline for greens to brown ratio?