You can make compost in as little as four to six weeks with a compost tumbler. The secret is in the sauce.
Photo by Mantis
Tips for Adding Material to a Compost Tumbler
• Collect a variety of organic waste materials from your yard and garden.
• Be sure to include a mix of both nitrogen (green) and carbon (brown) ingredients for good balance.
• Do not add products that have been treated with chemical fertilizers or pest control products.
• If you have bulky items, such as corn cobs, melon rinds, or shrub clippings, shred before composting.
• Fill the compost tumbler with compostable ingredients, close the door, then turn the tumbler four or five times. Be sure to turn it daily.
List of Most Common Things to Compost
• Fresh grass Clippings
• Shredded leaves
• Kitchen trimmings and peels from vegetables and fruits
• Garden debris such as dead flowers and plants
• Black and white newspaper
• Rotted fruits and vegetables
• Pine needles
• Coffee grounds
• Tea leaves and bags (remove the staples)
Things You May Not Have Known You Could Compost
• Burned toast
• Citrus wastes
• Crab, shrimp and lobster shells
• Nut shells
• Potato peels
Photo by Mantis
Wait, I can Compost That?
You can add almost any organic material to your compost, and in small quantities you're unlikely to upset the balance of "greens" and "browns."
• Cardboard cereal boxes
• Human hair and animal fur
• Elmer's glue
• Fingernail and toenail clippings
• Fish bones
• Greeting card envelopes
• Grocery receipts
• Ivory soap scraps
• Kleenex tissues
• Lint from clothes dryer
• Manure (From horses, cows, chickens, rabbits, pigs or sheep. Do not add waste from dogs or cats)
• Milk (in small amounts)
• Old leather gardening gloves
• Old or outdated seeds
• Q-tips (cardboard, only)
• Weeds (Yes! The temperature inside the ComposTumbler gets hot enough to kill weed seeds!)
• Wooden toothpicks
Pine needles do not contain chemicals that are going to kill anything. The southern states use pine needles as mulch because they are plentiful there. Any tree will be negatively affected if you pile any type of mulch too high around the trunk. It allows insects to burrow under the bark and can kill the tree. It also keeps the bark damp and in the dark which can lead to fungus and mold. Mulch is good but not up against the trunk of the tree.
don't use pine needles, but if you want to kill a tree then pile them around the foot of the tree and it will die because they don't break down and they have a chemical in it that won't even let anything to grow with it. Just look under a pine tree there is nothing growing under it.
pine needles you should not use they don't break down fast and they are good if you want to kill a tree just pile them around the foot of it and it will die
That sounds alarmist to me. Everything you touch, handle, smell, wear, etc. has or has in come with contact with 'known carcinogens. Even the linens you sleep in!
These DO NOT work as pictured! We have tried over several seasons following the directions to a T, and nothing comes out as advertised, not in 4 to 6 weeks, or over several months. Even tried commercial composting ingredients. Ours was in a greenhouse as well. Finally dried nitrogen fertilizer in a desperate attempt to get something to work. It just rusted out all the metal parts. Total loss and waste of valuable time!
Don't believe it! I and couple friends have/had one and it does nothing like the picture shows! We tried following directions to the letter over several seasons. Added composting ingredients, etc, and finally gave and/or threw them away! Waste of money. Better to make good ole compost piles. Like dieting, there is no fast and easy way!
No! Not Grocery receipts! They have a known carcinogenic on them! You should never eat after directly holding one and you should always wash your hands as soon as possible. I would not recommend putting grocery or any other receipt into my compost!
No! Not Grocery receipts! They have a known carcinogenic on them! You should never eat after directly holding one and you should always wash your hands as soon as possible. I would not recommend putting grocery or any other receipt into my compost!