My compost bin is built - now i have a question

Dh built my compost bin last Sunday afternoon. I got started filling it immediately!

I do have one question that I can't find the answer to. Can you put dead pine needles in the bin? My husband doesn't think you can so I just raked those to the side and out of the way when I was raking my dead leaves on Sunday. I have two big piles of pine needles and they either need to go into the bin or into trash bags. Can anyone answer that question?

Oh also my neighbor found maggats in her bin the other day and she was grossed out big time. Are there supposed to be maggats?? She thinks she did something wrong. Now she and I have two totally different types of bins. Hers is store bought and totally enclosed. Mine is built from pallats and chicken wire and the top is open.

Any insight on these things would be great.

 

I'm not and expert. Carl is suppose to finish mine today. Don't THINK the pine cones/needles do well, but am not sure. And I think the maggots are good, as they will help decompose. But eventually the pile will get hot, and the maggots will not be able to survive.

 

Pine needles will be fine in there. They might take a little longer than leaves to break down all the way, but they will. Maggots are gross, but not a problem.

 

You could just dump the pine needles directly onto your garden. They make good mulch!

 

I thought there was something in the pine needles that prevent other things from growing. That's why you don't see a lot of decidious plants under evergreens. Don't know where I heard that, or if it's correct!

 

What can I compost?
Anything that was once living will compost, but some items are best avoided. Meat, dairy and cooked food can attract vermin and should not be home-composted.
For best results, use a mixture of types of ingredient. The right balance is something learnt by experience, but a rough guide is to use equal amounts by volume of greens and browns (see below).

Some things, like grass mowings and soft young weeds, rot quickly. They work as 'activators', getting the composting started, but on their own will decay to a smelly mess.

Older and tougher plant material is slower to rot but gives body to the finished compost - and usually makes up the bulk of a compost heap. Woody items decay very slowly; they are best chopped or shredded first, where appropriate.

Compost ingredients
'Greens' or nitrogen rich ingredients
Urine (diluted with water 20:1)
Comfrey leaves
Nettles
Grass cuttings
Other green materials

Raw vegetable peelings from your kitchen
Tea bags and leaves, coffee grounds
Young green weed growth – avoid weeds with seeds
Soft green prunings
Animal manure from herbivores eg cows and horses
Poultry manure and bedding

'Browns' or carbon rich ingredients - slow to rot
Cardboard eg. cereal packets and egg boxes
Waste paper and junk mail, including shredded confidential waste
Cardboard tubes
Glossy magazines – although it is better for the environment to pass them on to your local doctors’ or dentists' surgery or send them for recycling
Newspaper – although it is better for the environment to send your newspapers for recycling
Bedding from vegetarian pets eg rabbits, guinea pigs – hay, straw, shredded paper, wood shavings
Tough hedge clippings
Woody prunings
Old bedding plants
Bracken
Sawdust
Wood shavings
Fallen leaves can be composted but the best use of them is to make leafmould
Other compostable items
Wood ash, in moderation
Hair, nail clippings
Egg shells (crushed)
Natural fibres eg. 100% wool or cotton

Do NOT compost
Meat
Fish
Cooked food
Coal & coke ash
Cat litter
Dog faeces
Disposable nappies

Hope this helps

 

Well I will certainly tell my neighbor not to worry about the nasty maggots. She was really freaked out. We knew worms were great but maggots? Yuck!

My husband thought that the pine needles were too acidic to put in the bin. We have no pine trees in our yard but my neighbors on both sides have pine trees that drop there needles right into our yard. My dh gets so mad because we are the ones that have to rake all that up - and we dont' even have a tree!

 

I knew about no meat or dairy. The thing that had maggots on it was a corn cob. They had eaten corn on the cob the night before and she put it in the bin. The next morning she looked and they were covered with maggots. I haven't put anything previously cooked in mine. I did cut up the corn stalks and bad ears of corn from our garden but they were not cooked. I also put in plenty of veggie and fruit peels, coffee and tea grinds, egg shells, dead leaves, clippings from my rose bush and the corn stalks. This weekend hubby is going to mow and put the clippings in there too.

 

Pine needles are compostable but should be used in small quantities unless you plan to use the compost on acid loving plants because pine needles are highly acidic. They also take a long time to break down because they have a waxy coating.

If you do compost them, make sure you have less needles and more of everything else if you plan to use it on more than acidic plants and layer them.

You can also use the needles as they are to mulch most evergreens or if you have acid plants, like roses.

 

Cooked foods should not be put in the compost pile...they have no value in the mix because the nutrients have been cooked out and they will likely just rot and get nasty rather than help your compost. Sounds like you are doing well Tiffany,just a tip though to help your compost break down faster so you won't have to wait forever to use it if you have large prunings or whole ears of corn (raw), or other large items just chop them up a bit before adding them to the pile then they will mix in better and break down easier. I always chopped mine up with the shovel after tossing them on top of the pile..then I just smash with the sharp end of the shovel and mix it in. THe grinds are great compost and will help to attract your helpful worms.

 

So actually corn cobs wouldn't be wise if you had cooked them. I have put stuff in my food chopper before adding them...potato peels, and stuff like that. Oh, and also the throw-away parts of fresh pineapple! I chopped those up first, too!

 

Corn cobs are great for compost even if they are cooked. Although cooked cobs have little nutrients, chopped, they have fabulous aeration qualities. Aeration is something people tend to forget when they compost. Proper aeration helps the compost to break down faster and it is also great for the soil.

 

So what else makes good aeriators?

 

we vermicompost and the worms love cooked food. It is easy for them to digest. Also I thought cooked food was good if you were turning it often as opposed to just letting it sit and naturally compost long term like.

Oh another good thing we put in there is stale cereal. My DD will eat about half a box and refuse to finish it so it usually goes stale. We usally put some of it in the compost and the other half in a pile in our back yard for the birds and squirells

We use a barrel for compost if we had an actual pile I would just put it all in there but I don't want a whole bunch of squirrells scaring me when I go out the barrel. lol.

 

straw and hay. We had a problem where when we first started I didn't drill holes in the barrel...oops. and it filled with rain water I used hay/straw and shreadded paper. After we pay our monthly bills I just shread them and dump them in they are great for worms and also stay nicely moist

 

Shredded corn husks, chopped corn cobs, chopped hedge prunings, nut shells, and straw are all great for aeration.

 

That would be my worry. You'll be using this compost on a pretty general range of plants and some don't tolerate acidic soils very well. A few probably won't hurt though.

 

MINE IS DONE!!! The stuff I had in the trash can is now in it, and I'm excited!!!

 

It has been one week and so far we've been doing great! Mine is 3x3x3 and it is 3/4 filled now. It has grass clippings, dead leaves, veggie and fruit peeling, tea and coffee grinds, corn cobs and husks, soil, plant clippings, weeds, dead roses and we've watered it every day. I know it may sound like a lot of water but it isn't. I am trying to keep it moist! It has been a constant 100 degrees with no rain for the last three weeks.

Now I am trying to figure out where to place my enlarged garden. I thought I had it figured out but I've hit a snag. I think I know a new place but have to run it by dh.

 

I have an area that SHOULD have flowers, but has weeds instead. Tonight I weeded half of it, and dumped all the weeds into a crate (rather than a trash can). Carl watched me for a while, and then said, "I bet I know what you're going to do with all that...." It felt SO GOOD to dump it into the compost pile!!! And, an added bonus, I dug up some really healthy looking bulbs that I didn't know where there! Not sure what they are, but I buried them and hopefully I'll find out next year when there's no weeds!