How Do You Compost?

We have a bucket on the back porch. We throw banana peels, coffee grounds, potato skins, the ends of the celery, peelings to just about anything, no orange peelings though. We put in the end peices of bread sometimes, little bits of paper or paper towels if there is no soap on it, and anything that we don't eat fast enough, the last yucky bits of greens etc.

All that gets pretty nasty by the time the bucket is full. It all goes downstairs to the worm bin. We throw that all in and balance it out with news papers for the dry stuff. Eventually, it gets too full. We either have to dump the whole thing out in the backyard to finish composting, which we can't do until spring, or we have to start a new trash can of stuff.

Worms can be touchy. If it gets too wet and gross, little white worms take over the bin. If it gets too dry, they would die. Sometimes we end up with very few survivors by the end of the winter. Hopefully, we do a better job this winter.

We compost. We live in Texas, so the climate stays relatively warm. But we compost even in the coldest months of the winter. It just takes a bit longer to break down. We now have a nice "fancy" compost bin, but we started with a plastic trash can with a lid. (I didn't want compost piles in the yard) We wanted to make sure we'd be committed to it before we invested a ton of money. We simply drilled some holes in a plastic trash can. Some on the bottom and a few around the sides. It lets moisture out and air in. We just dumped our compost material in there. We put used tea and coffee. Veggies and fruits. All peels and egg shells. Lawn clippings, leaves, some paper. Absolutely no animal waste, meat or dairy. We didn't learn until later that you have to have a balance of greens and browns. Greens are stuff high in nitrogen like veggies, egg shells and grass clipping. Browns are higher in carbon like leaves, paper and shredded cardboard. Having the right balance helps it compost much faster. ANd for us, we notice that if we are too low on browns, the fruit flies get maddening. Now we have a compost bin that spins to allow water out and air in. It's much faster than the trash can was. So we fill the barrel until it's full and close it up. We try not to add anything and let it compost one batch at a time. We use the old trash can as a "holding" tank of sorts. It works well for us. We noticed our amount of garbage decrease almost immediately. It helps our garden a lot too.

My one complaint about composting is the taking it to the compost pin. You peel potatoes and then have to trek across the yard and dump it. It can get old and frustrating. We tried storing it in sealed containers for a while and that didn't work either. It would get stinky. So finally we inherited one of those glass containers with a filter on top. It's meant to hold composting material. It gives me a bit more time to make it out to the bin. It doesn't stink and it holds a good amount. I wish I would have invested in that sooner.

Solar cone. No smell, no rodents. Google it.

I can't answer all your questions, but if you get on amazon.com there are all sorts of barrels and containers and such to keep the compost confined and stirred.

From what I understand, you need a good mix of wet and dry in order to make good compost: carrott peels, coffee grounds, egg shells, lettuce scraps, cucumber peels, broccili bottoms, and so forth. Everything needs to be raw (no putting leftover cooked broccili in there). Add grass clippings and dry leaves as well (your needed dry items).

I wish I could compost. We have too many critters out here. They eat my carrot peels, cucumber peels, banana peels, apple cores and so forth. Then the foxes and coyotes eat my chicken carcasses. I guess, in a way, I am being green b/c I am not tossing it all in the garbage. But I'm not making new fresh dirt b/c the animals eat all my good stuff!

I composted behind my garage when I lived in MI. I started with the dirt pile that was there then I put items on it and mixed it in. Every week when I dumped the grass, I used a shovel and rake to mix it up. The grass got slimy, gross so I put leaves on top in case anyone had to walk back there.
It stunk when I didn't mix the grass down deep enough. My neighbors noticed skunks and racoons, so I put fencing around it to keep them out.

Compost heaps produce heat when they are decomposing.
The center of a pile can get fairly hot.
There are composters that are like barrels and you can turn it with a crank.
But you can also just have a pile or use some fencing to to make a pen.
You can add any sort of vegetable matter (leaves, vegetable peelings, spoiled fruit, banana peels, melon rinds, tea leaves (tea bags), coffee grounds), egg shells are ok - crush them up.
Cow or horse manure is ok.
Skip bones, cheese, meat, fish, oils, dog/cat poop - it will draw flies, maggots, rats and animals.
It needs to be moist, but not too wet.
This has some good info:

http://www.thisland.illinois.edu/57ways/57ways_31.html

http://www.gardeners.com/All-About-Composting/5061,defaul...

http://www.gardeners.com/Composters/20706,default,sc.html