Composting

[Shaylin Morgan]

I am going to begin composting and would love to hear tips, suggestions and guildelines from those who have successfully composted.  I will be using garbage bins and do have raccoons who tend to visit. 

 

What do you put in your compost?

What do you avoid composting?

How do you keep animals out of your compost?

[Denae McGregor]

I put leaves, grass clipping and a few newspapers, but mostly this time of the year it is vegetable scraps, no corn on the cob, it itakes to long to decompost. And nothing that has been baked and of course any meats.
The have some great new composer that are on a stand, that you just dump your compose and turn the barrel. It is good to turn over your compose once a month. The resuls are amazing when you see this new dirt.

[Colin Keizer]

We collect food scraps, mostly vegetable but sometimes moldy bread and sometimes fish. The collection goes directly into a hole in the garden, once every two or three days. The hole is about 20 inches deep and is immediately buried. The next collection goes into a new hole, usually right beside the previous hole. This results in two things--continuous compost spreading throughout the garden, and continuous turnover of the soil, all in slow motion.

Has anybody had any bad experiences or heard of any bad experiences with this?

Thanks,

Colin