In article , Nick Maclaren
writes

In article ], Chris ] writes:
| Is it OK to put orange peel in the compost heap?

Yes, though perhaps not in wormeries and similar specialised mechanisms.

| It seems a shame not to do so - and yet my concern is that it might not
| rot down as quickly as the other stuff - and that that might delay the
| readiness of the compost for use.

It disappears within 6 months - far faster than even small woody material.
IF kept damp, not sodden, and aerated.

At heart, I am a vegetable gardener and my attitude towards compost is
well beyond bordering on fundamentalism.

My opinion is that if it is raw vegetable matter then it goes to one of
three places, either straight in my gob, in the pan later or on the
compost heap for another time round the loop. What ever it was when it
started out it I will be eating some of it soon enough[1]. There is no
place for removing perfectly good vegetable matter from your system
especially the expensive imported stuff when it can, with little effort
and almost no cost, be turned into tomatoes next year or the start of 5
years of good strawberries or a nice sweet cabbage or three or...




[1] Soon enough is a variable figure which depends entirely on getting
the balance right for composting whatever it is you need to recycle.

Three years into composting an entire 20 year old Elderberry tree I have
turned the leaves, twigs and branches under three years old at the time
of felling into something quite special and this year (this week as it
goes) I stripped the all the bark from the remaining logs and bigger
branches like it was tissue paper and packed that particular pile down a
bit smaller somewhere else. This partially decomposed bark product,
which has come up like coconut fibre but weaker, is being hoed into the
surface of a currently fallow bed with a mind to added water retention
next year for whatever goes in there. It can be done, it will be done.


--
steve auvache
A Bloo one with built in safety features