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David Rowland

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Composting
4/11/2013 2:30:59 PM
Composting is an excellent way to fertilize your plants, improve your soil, and keep waste out of the rapidly filling landfills.

What is good to compost? The list of good things to compost is extremely long, so trying to list everything would be impossible. However, there are some guidelines that work for general issues.

When composting, just about all scrap food, except for meat products, and citrus can be composted.

Newspapers, (not the shiny pages), cardboard, toilet paper and paper towel rolls, notebook paper, and other kinds of papers can be composted as well.

Grass clippings, tree leaves, pine needles (pine needles will raise the acidity of your compost), weeds (your compost needs to reach 185 degrees F to kill weed seeds)

Peanut shells also make a great composting material, and can be put directly into your garden as fertilizer.
Daves Wire Creations --- Handcrafted wire wrap jewelry http://www.DavesWireCreations.artfire.com
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Myrna Ferguson

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RE: Composting
4/11/2013 2:49:55 PM
HI Dave,

Love all your info on composing. So why not citrus? Is it because of the acid?

So how can I make a compose? I am only one person. I have tried those composers and it was a mess. I either had too much water or not enough in the thing. I never got any where with it.

Myrna
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David Rowland

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RE: Composting
4/11/2013 3:22:29 PM
Hi Myrna,

Yes, it is because of the acid in the citrus fruits. The acid makes your compost much more acidic, but more importantly, it kills the earthworms, and good nematodes which decompose your compost.

If you were adding water to your compost, that is why it is a mess. You don't need to add any water. When using a composter, you can get what is called compost tea.

You drain the tea off, and spray it all around your plants also as fertilizer.
Daves Wire Creations --- Handcrafted wire wrap jewelry http://www.DavesWireCreations.artfire.com
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Myrna Ferguson

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RE: Composting
4/11/2013 3:33:29 PM
Hi Dave,

Thanks for the info, but now i have gotten rid of the composter.
When I got the composter, there were no instructions to it. I stuffed a lot of leaves in it.They were really dry, so my neighbor suggested water. Which nothing ever really happened. I just had a mess.

Any good ways of just using your scrapes for compost just by themselves? Do you know what I mean? I have been throwing my egg shells out because I know they are great for the soil.

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David Rowland

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RE: Composting
4/11/2013 3:54:20 PM
Myrna,

It's too bad it didn't have directions. Generally, when you compost, you add your kitchen scraps, except for citrus and meat products. You put in some grass clippings, dead leaves, etc...

You don't need to add water. From the sounds of it, your problem was that you only had leaves in your compost. They will decompose, but take much longer.

For a good compost mix, you need your kitchen scraps, leaves, grass clippings, etc.....

Since you no longer have the composter, you have some choices.

You could make a compost pile directly on your soil, and build it up that way. The difficulty there is that you may have some complaints about the smell from your neighbors.

You could use buckets to compost. Depending on how much waste kitchen scraps and yard waste you have, that could add up to a lot of buckets. And those buckets would have to be turned, or the contents shaken up to speed up decompositon.

You could get a 50 gallon drum, with a lid to use as a composter, but again, it needs to be shaken up to help speed up composting.

Or, you could get another composter and learn how to use it to compost. A composter is just like using a barrel, only much easier to turn it to speed up the decomposing.
Daves Wire Creations --- Handcrafted wire wrap jewelry http://www.DavesWireCreations.artfire.com
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