Sean Straw wrote:
songbird wrote:

consider the case where you have the innards of a squash
or melon. there are a lot of seeds in there. most of them
will sprout if not composted in a hot pile.

The 95% solution: feed such scraps to chickens, who will ravenously
consume them. out of the MANY squash seeds (from the "guts" I've fed
my chickens), I've had just four volunteers crop up this year in prior
locations of my chicken tractor. Of course, if the chickens were
still situated where they'd been fed the seeds, they'd have consumed
the sprout as it emerged, so survivors are merely a function of my own
process. I just dig 'em up with a post hole digger and transplant
them anyway...

some of us don't want to keep other animals
(or can't because of limited space or abilities).
for me keeping worms is enough.

right now i'm snipping them off when they sprout
in a garden where i don't want them to grow.
instant green manure.


banana peels are great, worms love 'em. same with
melon peels, no pretreatment needed for them.

Also, both are excellent sources of moisture, which the worm bin needs
(in balance).

heh, i just put out many lbs of very soggy
worms and they were very healthy. short of
swimming they are fine. heavier to move though.
and not recommended until there are enough worms
to keep it oxygenated. a bin with only a few
worms and a lot of veggie scraps will likely
ferment or get into other kinds of rot that
don't smell good. a wet soggy bin on the good
side of things smells like the bottom of a ditch
or swamp.


from last fall's processing that i didn't bother to
chop and dry as a comparison test case).

taking some partially composted material and sending it through a
chipper-shreader with straw (from a straw bale) works wonders. Small
bits = more surface area, and therefore more surface for bacteria to
break them down.

we wouldn't get enough use out of a chipper/shredder
to make it worth owning one. i did get a medium duty
paper shredder as that freed up more space than it took
up. that was my concession last year to gadgetry. it
has turned out very well as all the cardboard, cardstock
and paper now gets recycled for garden use (via the
worm bins or used as mulch). the worms really like
shredded cardboard (the secret is the glue and all those
spaces it has in it, plus it holds moisture well).

any pieces of wood that we have that we don't use as
an edge gets buried, the critters and fungi break them
down eventually.


songbird