On 7/11/2015 6:49 AM, songbird wrote:
T wrote:
songbird wrote:
T wrote:

Before planting, I dig radish and carrots greens from
store bought organic produce. Now that my little garden
is in full swing, I am not going to be digging anything
under.

Is there any reason I can not just save these green in a
brown paper bag until after the growing season, then
dig them under? Seems like a waste to throw them away.

anything that won't regrow is good worm food.
left on the surface in your sunshine it will
dry out and then could be dug in later. no
need to save in a paper bag.

i put almost everything through the worm bins.
some things are better off being dehydrated first
(carrot tops, brocolli stems, beet tops, onion
bottoms, potato peels) everything else the worms
eventually turn into primo fertilizer...
...
My concern about throwing it on top is that it would be
a hiding place for squash bug eggs and powder mold spores.

i doubt it would make that much difference for
either of those.


One of the vitamin vendors my wife orders from takes
compostable brown paper (I asked) and puts it through
a shredder, but doesn't tear it off the paper at
the end. They use it for padding. I dig it under.
The Zuke I have living on top of it seems to be
enjoying it! Dug under carrot tops with it too.

unbleached paper (otherwise called craft paper) is
pretty good mulch material as it is pretty close to
wood itself. about the only papers i don't recycle
here through the worm bins are newspapers (i don't
like how they smell when they get wet) and anything
that looks to be plastic coated. eventually the
fungi and worms will break it down, even the white
stuff.

by far the stuff that the worms like the best when
it comes to paper is shredded cardboard.

when it comes to veggie and fruit scraps they seem
to really like melon rinds.


songbird

We compost newspapers regularly bird. I run them through the paper
shredder so they compost faster. The paper is no longer made with
dangerous chemicals and the ink is made of burned pine resin and soy
oil. Even the comic pages are now made with clay colors versus the old
dangerous colors.

Had a client some years ago that was a paper mill plus made the
soy/resin ink, Arizona Chemicals if I remember correctly. I haven't
worried about the chemicals in paper since then. Been using them for at
least twenty years with no problems whatsoever. If you're worried query
your local newspaper as to chemicals.

George