I was told now is a good time to compost, I have a compost pile and I am only putting in there waste from the garden, now a friend told me you can put kitchen waste in there too. Do you have any suggestions in what to put in your pile and in what to keep away. Please give me some advise.
If you have a lot of wildlife in your neighbourhood (rats, raccoons, republicans, etc.) and the material is not in an enclosed bin with a lid, adding household waste may be problematic. If you want to try, I would start with vegetable and fruit peelings and see how that goes. Mice are impossible to keep out, even in a bin, since you need some openings for venting and air circulation.
You can certainly add vegetable and fruit scraps from your kitchen. I wouldn't had hard pits, like plum and peach. Also it's not a good idea to add corn cobs unless you have a shredder. They take too long to break down.
I get excellent results putting all garden waste in my compost bin. Cutting the larger, woodier, items (like Brussels Sprouts stems) into small pieces helps. I include prunings from fruit trees and small fruits, like raspberries. Anything small enough to be cut up with hand pruners goes into the compost bin; larger woody material gets burned. I used to put kitchen scraps into the compost bin, but that definitely attracted rats. So now all kitchen scraps, including meat and bones, are buried directly in the garden. That way such material can be composted without attracting vermin.
So far from the Kitchen I am adding some peeling and eggshells, question is should I wet it or not, so far i am just letting the regular rain to wet the pile. What do you think. How about coffee grounds?
Hello, We compost, but just garden waste and pruning material from over the year. We shred the materials. You have to have a high percentage of green matter as well to have the temp. reach a point where it will aid in the composition process. We add the leaves from the yard aswell. Keeping in mind that we do not add any diseased wood or leaf matter. This works well for a mulch for beds. Composting kitchen waste is a wonderful idea as long as it is secure from pests (rats, edc.) as 'Cowboy' had mentioned in previous post. We had one, but it became quite a problem with the rats and coons. We had it in a solid bin with no bottom anchored to the ground. There was waste pulled out and rats inside when the lid got opened. Natural rain fall is enough, but adding some garden soil every so often is essential for composting. Turning it aswell. Can get a product called 'rot it' if neccessary. The product was very nice, just not what came with the process. Coffee grounds are fine. Hope this helps
