All good advices. Two reasons I'm asking about composting the "right"
way is because A) I don't want it to start stinking by having too much
nitrogen and B) I want to minimize the time so I can start using it
this summer. Being an engineer I tend to overthink things. No, it's
not rocket science, but I'm sure some ratios are better than others so
I'm trying to learn from other's experiences from the start instead of
trial and error on my own.

Just so I have an idea, is that 50/50 brown/green by weight? Would
make sense since it's the amount of material that would be working
with each other. That 30:1 ratio is probably by volume because brown
is so much lighter. We probably generate a few pounds of green each
day. That's a lot of leaves I have to keep around to keep up with the
green since brown is so light...Perhaps once I get the pile going it
would regulate itself so I don't have to worry so much about what I'm
throwing in.


On Apr 9, 6:24 pm, Phisherman wrote:
On Wed, 9 Apr 2008 12:50:28 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
I'm starting trying start my first compost. I keep seeing a carbon to
nitrogen ratio of 30:1. Is that by weight or volume? Most kitchen
scrap is nitrogen so that's the one I have plenty of but that's the
low part of the 30:1 ratio. Winter just thawed out and I have bunch of
dried grass on my lawn. Grass clipping is considered green, but is
dried grass considered brown (besides the fact that it looks brown)?
Can I dry "green" things out and it turns to brown material? Seems
like brown is harder to generate in that quantity than green material
since lawn is mulched, but is needed in vastly greater quantities.
Even using newspaper, that's a lot of newspaper compared to how much
kitchen scrap is generated daily. There's no way I can compost all my
kitchen scrap. I know people talk about straw and hay, but those
things are bulky and I don't have room to store a bale of hay until
kitchen scrap catches up nor do I have a compost bin large enough for
that much hay. What are people using for brown material? Maybe I could
start spread chopped up kitchen scraps on my lawn and let it do its
thing. I kid.

I don't know any gardeners who weigh or measure their compost. It's
not rocket science. Try to have 50/50 of brown/green. If your pile is
not giving off steam and smelling "earthy," something is not right. I
havn't had much luck composting newspaper, but I don't buy newspaper
anymore since I read online. You can shred newspaper and use as brown
material.