I put clippings of a hedge through a mulcher and some other stuff like nerium bush and then put it in my compost. It seemed like it was going great and the pile was hot for a good amount of time, like two weeks. But I have turned it and most of the stuff was not decomposing as I guess the mulcher didn't really mulch it small enough and it just squished the stuff. What was making the compost hot were just some food scraps and now my pile is just a bunch of thorny and cut up leafy parts that don't seem like they are going to decompose any time soon. I wanted a compost that was quick and at the start it was working with grass cuttings but now I fear, I have ruined it. I know it sounds silly and everything is going to decompose eventually, but the goal was to make compost fast, also because I need it and Now I have just made a mess like my two other cold compost piles that take forever to make an inch of soil. Say what you want, but to me it is just a bummer as I feel as if I have wasted two months of careful composting and just making it large enough. I hope at least someone will understand this feeling I have.

Found this guy this morning :(

This might sound dumb but what is purpose of leaf mold and what can it do that other similar thing like compost or worm castings cant or arent as good at

Hi, I'm an IB student working on redesigning a composting bin for my IA. I'm gathering data to develop a primary persona and understand users' needs and challenges with their current composting system.

I'd really appreciate it if you could take 2 minutes to fill out my survey. S

I'd also appreciate any feedback on the survey itself or suggestions for questions I could improve.

Thanks so much for your time and help.

Do you consider this compost to be complete? The fine wood chips don’t seem to be breaking down anymore. Thanks !

I thought when I stopped useing my tumbler I wouldn't have to deal with the compost clumping together. What can I do to prevent this

Video is current pile I've stopped adding to a week or so ago

Images are the last pile i put into a raised bed under the tarp to finish it off

https://reddit.com/link/1x2ucq8/video/d69su1tkfquh1/player

I know I looks dry but thats just on top see in video when I dig in a bit it got good moisture

Here is a video of the tumbler!

I had recently filled the tumbler so I was just checking it occasionally and letting it compost away. There were a lot of cardboard/paper shreds and coffee grounds, but the moisture seemed good.

I left for a week long vacation and got super busy so I hadn’t checked it in a while. It rained a lot when we were gone, so I added more cardboard shreds to help with the goo.

Today I realized there was a huge chunk stuck to the bottom so I went to break it up into pieces. Turns out I accidentally made a tumbler full of mycelium-powered spongy stuff! Really cool to fiddle with.

I broke some pieces off and threw them in my older aging compost piles in hopes that they would colonize. Cool stuff!!

Wondering what to do here. Doesn't look usable, and I'm not sure if urine is the answer.

Topping my beds and planting cover crop this weekend

A productive morning building two new compost bins ready to be filled.

I just received my yearly chip drop I get from city. First time ever it’s 100% pine. Half is pine chips, the other half is pine needles. I was going to put alot in my compost. Can I still do or it’s going to be very acidic?

City of Toronto piled up this wood chip pile to spread around a local park. We had rain and it has been sitting for a week and now, it has become a hot steaming pile :-)

I've a hotbin composter that I've been struggling with. Lost the heat from it a few weeks ago. This weekend I've decided to take everything out and put it through again. As per the pic, it's wet on the outside but the centre is bone dry. It was cooking nicely until fairly recently. What am I doing wrong? How do I get this producing excellent compost quickly (which is what it's designed to do)?

Also I've added mares tail and other weeds, how much I need to cook them to kill them off?

I've set up a garden compost bin and plan to put vegetable and fruit scraps, as well as cardboard and leaves, in it. I hope it works out.

Im not 100% sure what snake this is, blind snake as far as I can tell. Have found quite a few living in my compost heaps.

Friend or Foe?

I have had an indoor composter for three years. I've always used the worm tea as fertiliser but I've never gotten around to using the compost with my plants.

How do you do that? Do you keep the worms in? Do you mix the compost with regular soil before using?

Thank you

🪱

Hello! I am hoping to buy a stainless steel compost bucket with a carbon filter. I’ve been looking online and I’m only really finding one I like from Amazon…but I don’t want to buy this from Amazon. Does anyone have any recommendations of small business I can support while making this purchase?

Edit: copy and paste from original post.

Just bought a place a couple of months ago, and it has a lot of yard waste left over from the last owner. Pretty extensive gardens and lots of fruit trees.

So I’ve been lurking on here since then.

Mostly I am just trying to deal with the shear amount of stuff. The previous owner’s compost piles were just preserved large sticks with tarps which just created full on rat habitats.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:
- Put together the pallet bins.
- Layer of cardboard on the ground, with a layer of sticks on top of that.
- Bunch of brown waste from the first clean up of the yard, then layering greens and browns as much as possible.
- I also made a pan galactic gargle blaster juice with a colt 45 beer, molasses, half cup of ammonia and enough water to make a 5 gallon bucket to spray over the pile.
- I also added a couple of bags of healthy soil from our old garden to try to get some good bugs and things in there.
- Set up a tumbler to pre-compost the pest attracting stuff.

Is there anything that looks/sounds dumb? Anything I should be doing differently? Or should I just pee on it and give it some time?

This pile is about a year old. I've been using a 20 gallon tote with holes drilled all over. How healthy does it look?

Hello! I am working at a farm where they have a beautiful compost facility. They are currently putting in goat berries / used goat bedding (pine shavings) and cleaning their stalls out twice a day completely and then putting fresh pine bedding on top. The compost is not breaking down and is piling up. How frequently should the compost be turned? Should we be adding any "brown" to this mix or just leaving it as is with the used goat bedding (pine shavings, goat urine & berries) Can you help with some advice and any resources you would recommend sharing with them?

This is my compost after being sifted with a 1/2 inch screen. Can you tell whether it is good stuff simply by examining it?

I have a mill that heats and cook food scraps to create awesome food grounds. I don’t want to use the food grounds directly as compost because 1. They aren’t fully broken down 2. Animals get into and destroy my garden.
So I’m add to soil and compost starter in a big bin.
Does it have to be wet to activate ? Or do I just mix with dirt and check back in the spring?
Or not mix with soil at all?