On Thu, 01 Oct 2015 11:46:58 -0400, Dan Espen
wrote:
Boron Elgar writes:
On Wed, 30 Sep 2015 20:41:43 -0700 (PDT), Hypatia Nachshon
wrote:
On Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at 10:35:42 AM UTC-7, Boron Elgar wrote:
On Wed, 30 Sep 2015 08:27:17 -0700 (PDT), Hypatia Nachshon
wrote:
On Saturday, September 26, 2015 at 4:10:31 PM UTC-7, azigni wrote:
On Sat, 26 Sep 2015 15:38:02 -0400, Brooklyn1 wrote:
Bananas do not compost well, mostly they rot/ferment and stink... over
ripe bananas are good for baking (banana bread/muffins), over ripe
bananas can be frozen for delicious snacks... also bananas make great
dildos.
Thanks, I was thinking of the potassium in bananas, but never heard of
anyone mixing them right into the soil. The meal ideas sound great too!
I don't add them to my compost pile as I thought the peels were full of
insecticide, etc?
However it is OK to put them into MUNICIPAL compost. Our city
encourages food waste to be deposited in yard waste cans. They
responded to my inquiry about meat and fat -- usually a no-no in
home compost -- by pointing out that the yard waste cum compost
is treated at such a high temperature that it can handle no-nos.
Pesticides? I'd like to se verification of that. Never heard of it.
The result, BTW, is rich compost that is free to residents on a
quarterly basis. People line up in their cars & trucks and load
all kind of containers with this fab compost.
I am unabashedly sentimental about this community event!!
I have always hesitated to use community composts, as many homeowners
allow their grass clippings to be collected and the insecticide, weed
killers and broad herbicides that they use wind up in there.
We do not eat hat many bananas and the skins to not contain enough
pesticides to prevent me from chucking them in my own compost,
however.
These comments about "polluted" municipal compost are indeed food for
thought and I will ask the City about the issue. But I wonder
whether treating yard waste at the high temperatures they say
wouldn't be enough to "kill" or neutralize the bad things cited on
this thread.
You need a certain sustaining of temp to encourage decomposition but
not so hot that you kill off the good microorganisms, but I have never
seen anything that says composting destroys garden chems. I am happy
to read any articles about it, though.
Lots of info here.
http://compost.css.cornell.edu/physics.html
In general, allowed chemicals do not remain toxic for long times
in the environment. That's how DDT got banned.
Composting is done relatively quickly, and believe me, no one knows
what kind of stuff folks put into their "green" pickups.
But it's trendy now to fear everything. OMG, that stuff contains
CHEMICALS. Run and hide.
I have never claimed such.
Face it, put 9 billion people on the planet, and pretty soon we're all
taking in each others waste products. No way around it.
We all have a big of the Big Bang in us already.
Composting breaks lots of stuff down, the bacteria have a field day.
That is how it works.
Here are meal worms breaking down styrofoam:
http://tinyurl.com/qz3jdqx
Then, if you are growing edibles, the plants themselves are selective
about the compounds they take out of the soil.
But that is no reason to be indiscriminate in what one adds to the
soil.
Personally, I think a lot of people are fooling themselves, thinking
they can eat their way to health. You need to stay active.
Any crap you eat, a healthy body can process.
Depends. Kids and women of child-bearing age do need to take a bit
more care about certain compounds/elements, but there is a sucker born
every minute, and the Dr. Oz's of this world like to take advantage of
it.