Compost Question?
Question:I want to start making a compost heap, but am afraid that I don't have enough "brown" materials. What should I do?
Answers:
If you live in an area with lots of pine trees (even if they are not in your neighborhood but somewhere nearby), you can probably find a place to pick up a lot of dried needles. They are always accumulating, and in some neighborhoods, there are needle accumulation bins from which you might just take. Sawdust from UNTREATED wood is great, since there are often sources for it nearby and you really don't need very much of it because of it's very high relative carbon content. If you're desperate, you can use shredded cardboard, but don't use the kind that have a treated surface, but rather simple brown cardboard. The straw sounds like a good idea too.
Buy a couple of bales of straw and add that to your pile and you should be fine. Or ask your neighbors to save their dead leaves for you.
cut the grass and don't rake it for a couple of days. Then mix it in
Add table scraps but not meat products, turn it with dirt regularly and let it cook up. You can also add peat and BS to add plant building nutrients Cow and sheep is a good choice, but basicly you want to turn poor soil into rich soil and shouldn't have to pay much for doing it.
You are right to worry about too few browns. Excess greens will cause an ammonia smell. If you are short of browns or a smell begins just layer in soil for browns. Newspapers with no colored inks or plain brown paper bags will also work. I like to tear then up first for ease of turning later.
Get some compost starter or manure and mix it in. Compost will quickly make brown material with enough bacteria and moisture.
Doesn't help this year's composting, but I bag up autumnal fallen leaves and use as the 'brown' layer in the following year's compost.
If you know someone with plenty of trees in their garden, see if you could 'borrow' some leaf mould, (decaying old leaf matter) the top levels of which are probably still decaying. In any event, this will be rich material to mix into compost at any time.
Depending on where you live, I often find early dead plant matter (not green), such old dead plants, in hedges or disused land etc.
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