Back to compost please

I have read so much on the internet about composting. What to compost what not to compost. This is just some of the stuff I have been composting lately because I read it was fine to compost (but then started second thinking)- I just want your thoughts on this please....

cooked pasta but what about uncooked pasta?
cooked rice but what about uncooked rice?
egg shells but what about rotten eggs?
human hair and animal fur

I also compost all the regular stuff like fruit and veggie pealings and paper, coffee filters and grinds and tea bags, vacuum bag debris etc... Is there anything else I could be composting that I am just not really thinking about or that doesn't come to mind when you think compost???

One more thing - I thought I would go out and "try" to turn my pile since I haven't done it in a few months but my pile is pretty hard right now due to the deep freeze we have been suffering in. I guess this is normal for the compost pile in the winter???? Sorry my first year composting here....

You want to put healthy organic materials that with decompose easily, egg shells, peelings from fruits and veggies, grass clippings, seaweed, leaves, hay or straw. I never heard of doing pasta or rice.

Do not put in fat or grease, diseased plant material, cat or dog poop

Save the hair and just leave out for birds to take to use for their nests
And for the vacuum cleaner debris there might be plasitc and stuff that will not decopose so I won't use that.

I never fuss with my compost pile when temperatures drop below freezing--not much decomposition is taking place then. I don't see why uncooked pasta and rice can't be added, they are vegatable products. Hair or fur might attract rodents.

Dawn, There is tons on this in the soil and composting forum. Certainly your cooked pasta & rice are fine. Hair is fine. Pretty much anything that will decompose is OK and there are people who compost things (meat, poop) that others say you can't. You do have to worry more about pests if you do these things. (I don't). I also compost shellfish shells (good nutrients) and cardboard.

My compost is inactive all winter and I don't turn it.

Okay thanks. I guess I won't bother turning it anymore this year - well at least until it warms up LOL

We have six compost piles and never turn them in winter. Once April arrives it's soon enough to even think of turning them.

It's fun to read this thread--I also am a novice at compost AND to the NE version of winter, and I was astonished to find during our recent Feb. freezes here on Cape Cod that my three 3x3 ft. compost piles had turned into frozen mini-Everests of stuff!! I probably couldn't turn them with anything less powerful than a fork-lift! But I keep on throwing scraps on the piles, freeze or not, because it's become an addiction.
One thing I do to keep those fruit and veggie scraps coming, is lurk around the produce section of our supermarket when I shop, looking for the employee who might be "cleaning up" the produce bins. He or she usually just has a big cardboard box into which they toss wilted greens, bruised apples, soggy cucumbers, etc., and they are always happy to let me take the box-full off their hands when it is full. I happily bear my "spoils" home, and cut or shred them for my pile. My DH thinks I am nuts to be so happy bearing home a box of "garbage"-- but I have at least trained him NEVER to throw any coffee grounds in the trash.

I think that is great! I have started collecting all the scraps from work and bringing them home.....so many of us snack on apples or banana's and we of course drink coffee...I bring all the left over stuff home for my compost pile. The only problem is now it is full - I need to get a new one.

Yes, Dawn, I'm with you. . . in the name of Compost, one happily becomes a garbage-collector. Like when I go out to eat with friends in a restaurant, I am ALWAYS happy to take home any vegetative "scraps" that other people don't feel like finishing. Here on Cape Cod, the wait-staff usually ask if people want their unfinished meals in a Doggy Bag (which is usually a plastic-foam container, which I can then recycle into a winter-sowing container, but that's another thread. . .)
Oh, I have some remnants of good manners: I don't collect left-overs at really fancy restaurants. . . .well, I do if they ASK me. . . and it's only the non-meat products. Oh heck, I'm relentless.

Do not use poop from meat eating animals in compost.

Actually I don't use poop of any time at all - just seems gross to me.

No meat, no bones, no fish, nothing greasy (too hard to break down), nothing from the nightshade family: tomatoes, eggplants, squash, cucumbers, etc. With teabags you don't even have to remove the paper tag. Even coffee filters can be added.

Today I dumped our bin, from under the sink, and went to attempt to make a hole in one of the piles to cover what I had dumped but I, too, found frozen Mount Everests back there, just like CCG. I managed to scrounge enough to cover the addition.

I'm interested, Pirl, in your advice about never including vegetables from the nightshade family (tomatoes, cukes, eggplants, squash.) I didn't know that they were bad for the compost pile. Why is this? Couly you tell this novice more?

Yes please explain pirl....I didn't know that either??

I was reading up on worm bins as well. Does anyone use one of these? Looks like a lot of work to me.

They supposedly contain the possibility for either Fusarium wilt or Verticilium. The seeds from these plants are a massive problem as they'll sprout everywhere you place the compost. Sounds like fun until you have to remove a thousand seedlings a day for 100 days - even then more will germinate. The amount of heat generated in a compost pile will NOT kill the seeds.

We learned the hard way!

Pirl, I've had very little trouble with old tomato seeds sprouting from my compost. Agastache, lambs ear and Malva are the trouble makers here.
Eight months after planting a new strawberry bed, I find out that I shouldn't have planted tomatoes there the year before ~ verticilian wilt. Hopefully they will be clean this (second) season.
Andy P

Malva grows in the cracks of our driveway. It's one determined plant. We had horrendous problems with tomato seeds sprouting from one area where we (unknowingly) just ditched the split or over ripe ones. It's the viruses that we'd all like to avoid.

Pirl, I disagree about nightshade plants. If you want to keep tomato seeds out I can understand, but I don"t think the plants don't cause wilt. When things compost the heat will kill off most problems. IMO, people make too many rules about compost. All you are doing is what nature does naturally, only a little quicker. You can balance greens & browns or not. It will still turn to compost. The soil & Compost forum has people that are the equivalant of Zuzu on roses (incredibly knowledgeable). They can answer any questions anyone has.

Ask at a coffee shop for grounds for your compost. Starbuck's makes a policy of giving them out for compost.

I have to disagree, Dave. You must know by now that Ralph Snodsmith (WOR Radio gardening guy) is my guru and he's the one who has taught my DH and I most of what we live by, regarding compost. We did ask our MG's (the local ones) and they haven't the slightest idea but the word through Suffolk County Cooperative Extension service has been not to include the nightshade family in compost.

Well, always room to learn. Speaking of which, what is an MG?

Master Gardener. I'm not one of them: I'm too busy with the garden to take the course. The two local MG's have the worst gardens and one has more weeds than can be believed. I seem to respect the people who DO the work more than those who supposedly have the knowledge but can't apply it to their own property. I'm sure it's just a fluke but it is what it is.

I guess it is like sort of a mechanic -they they mechanics are too busy take care of other peoples cars they neglect their own and have the worse cars to drive LOL LOL

Oh. Like Booker T and the MGs.

I always call it the cobbler's shoes syndrome.

So true in far too many cases. The guy who lived next door was a very successful insurance agent and even had flood insurance though we're 200 feet from the water and NOT on any flood map. He also sold a great deal of long term care insurance. Now he suffers from Dementia and needs it for himself but he never bought it.

Well I went out and bought myself another composter today. My other one was full. I think it will be more handy having 2 of them anyhow.

Okay how do you feel about composting stale bread? Is this okay to do as well??? Some sites say it is fine - others say no.

I do it. Why do some think it's bad?

Hurray for Dawn! Compost bins should have a warning that using the compost may become addictive!
I vote yes as long as it's bread without butter or any kind of grease.

DawnLL - I have a worm bin - a little one - in my kitchen. It is new this year and I'm still learning. The hardest part so far has been to keep the worm bed moist enough. I found out carrots are not worms most favorite food - guess they are too hard to "chew". I will have to put the worms in the basement come summer - they will be too hot in the house.

I've heard you're not supposed to put any citrus in compost.

Why no citrus in compost, Bklyn?

We put in all our oranges, tangerines, lemons, limes, grapefruit. Tell us why we shouldn't do it - we need to know.

This message was edited Feb 26, 2007 4:24 PM

Presumably, citrus takes a long time to decompose. Experts (not me!) say you can chop up citrus if you add it to your pile.

My pile is gone. I've gone through two composters, one wooden, one plastic, both of which fell apart. My composting is now restricted to the blossoms and leaves of my huge magnolia, along with coffee grounds. I have them in a bamboo composter in the corner of the yard. I have sooo much tree (shown here with my niece in it), and so little garden, but it seems a shame to put the leaves out as trash.

Very pretty niece.
I don't mind things that are a Iittle slower to compost. I always have 2 piles. When I use the compost in 1, I through anything that is not fully composted into #2

What about the mother-in-law? Compost or no? I say no - she won't break down - she only causes breakdowns in others. And I'm not convinced she's organic.

As long as you keep her on a vegetarian diet for a month first, she will be great in the compost.

Could be, but the thought that she may re-seed and volunteer all over is just too much to risk. There are some neighbors I am not crazy about, but there is a Constitutional Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment.