5 Composting Myths You Should Stop Believing Right Now
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What if I told you your compost should actually smell GOOD?? In this video, we bust the top 5 myths and misconceptions about composting and by the end you will be armed with the info you need to build the ULTIMATE compost pile!
IN THIS VIDEO
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 – Intro
00:18 – Myth 1: Compost Smells Bad
01:22 – Myth 2: Compost Attracts Bugs & Pests
02:29 – Myth 3: You Have To Follow Specific Recipe
03:13 – Myth 4: Compost Takes Too Long
04:39 – Myth 5: Compost Kills Weed Seeds
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How do you raise the temp?
Is it a myth that potato peelings should not be put into the compost heap?
Problem with composting is rats.
You want easy hot compost, raise chickens and use their bedding. It’s actually pretty easy
I soak really stubborn weeds in a bucket of water for a week before throwing it on the pile, it kind of rots things first. I thought drying out buddliea branches would make them into good support canes, it has but they have started growing 😂
If my compost isn’t completely broken down but I need it, I use it as a mulch on the veg beds. It carries on breaking down on the bed then and just becomes part of the soil eventually.
what do you mean by greens and browns?
Can I use wet paper towels, bread, or lemons?
I don’t mind weeds. Pull them out they aerate the soil, lay them on the surface they add to the mulch layer.
Do not let them seed.
The most important thing to eliminate the weed seed bank. I am very careful about what I put in my compost.
My girlfriends mom just throws trash and dog shit under a tree and surprisingly she’s grown the largest grape fruits and dragon fruit in the area.
Living in Sweden, that dark cold mysterious country somewhere up in the north, i of course use compost.
Have two insulated composts:
https://media.farbrorgron.se/2021/09/Spons-Mulli-Farbror-Gron-1536×1041.jpg
Fill one with waste from kitchen and other smaller waste from garden. When it is full, i go for the other one. When that is full, the first one is done.
How do i take care of it?
It is placed on the ground where there is soil (maggots). And then i start it with a few centimeters of soil in the bottom.
Then throw in stuff. Banana peel, orange peel, stalks and all kind of shit.
In rare cases i pour on water if it happens to be to dry.
That’s it.
Nothing more.
When finished i remove one side and start digging out. Some parts might not be totally done depending on what it was but i sift it through a screen (my grand dad built decades ago – two handles on each side, a net in the middle with walls around, fill it, and two persons rock back an forth)
What is sifted out goes back in the compost again. Mostly it is sticks and stuff like that. Eventually it will be gone.
Then i have a larger one with pallets, EU size, and two by two (long edge). There i throw in bigger shit and can also be weed in some cases. It will last for years before full.
Leaves in the autumn i put on the soil in my growing areas. Then turn it down the following spring.
Sticks and branches i let my garden monster from Bosh (https://www.bosch-diy.com/imagestorage/sv-se/kompostkvarn-2680158-hires-png-rgb-oneux-397033_w_1600_h_800.png) eat and it makes nice little chunks that also go on the growing areas and on bushes and stuff.
Nothing to waste.
It’s been a year since i started composting with red wigglers, inside my apartment (zone 5a) and i LOVE IT. Some weeks i’m a bit too tired to take care of it and i just remind myself to do it later that week. It’s getting a little to heavy for me so i need to find a solution for that. Otherwise it has reduce my city compost bin from SO MUCH. I keep some veggies scraps for stocks. The other stuff goes into the worm bins. And the no goes go to the city. It’s just amazing and i get casting every 3-4 months. My plants love it.
If you are a gardener and don’t like bugs then either educate yourself or don’t do any gardening as you’ll most likely end up drenching your garden in chemicals to kill the bugs.
It’ll work out for the best for the planet, and your own health, if you just don’t do any gardening if you cannot educate yourself.
Every community garden ever
Hello do you know anything about white fuzzy suff in compost everything else seems to bee good my red wigglers seem to be ok?
How do you heat your compost up?
What’s so complicated about nature being nature? Dump your grass clippings and pile your leaves in a corner of your backyard and see how rich the soil is a year later
My dad had a compost pile going when he died. It hasn’t been used or added to or manipulated in anyway in 15+ years. The material in the bin is about 3 feet by 3 feet by about 2 feet deep. This year, 2024 I started a new compost on top of his pile and its going very well so far. My question is, is the compost he had, which is now under my new compost, still good? Does compost go bad?
For what it’s worth, 27 cubic feet is a cubic yard, not 3. 3^3=27
To make a new planting mound I make a 3 ft square and 8 inch deep pile of a mix of green grass clippings, rotted forest wood, chopped leaves, leaf mold, and some chopped weeds, stick a handful of rich, active/alive garden soil in the center, then cover with at least 6 gallons of sandy soil from a wash between two hills. Peeing on it a couple of times helps too. Spray with water. Put cardboard around the edges and around the stems of whatever you plant to cover any bare soil.
Not recommending this, since can go poorly if approached badly. Especially in colder climates.
I live in the suburbs, one of those planned neighborhood things. I compost everything you’d traditionally think of.
But also all dairy, meat, whole eggs (expired, happens), and pretty much anything that was purchased to eat and is left over for whatever reason. Chicken bones included, which disappear in my compost bins. Probably the least good thing that goes in are the coffee filters; love drip coffee, love the grounds, but the pulp-and-glues papers do go in. Meh.
Stuff is full of worms and is so dark and rich and easy to sift in the end.
No rodents; care taken. No smell. Yeah, no kidding.
Been doing this for about 12 years. We put out so little garbage-bag garbage (I’m sure our recycling bins are a scam like everyone else’s, but we engage in the Hope). Like small white kitchen bag every ~10days.
Currently trying to figure out if I can breakdown uninked cardboard elsewhere. Not in the compost.
Anyway, just saying. Don’t do this, you’ll get vermin. But I don’t.
My compost smell like sweet coffee. I never add any coffee.
My compost just attract mouse n snake to come which scare me n my kids n annoy my husband. I guess I only can compost leaves and grass to keep them away
Life’s had a billion years to learn how to work together… Even anaerobic bacteria have a purpose… I have broken into parts of my pile that reek of it, and found MORE red wigglers in it than anywhere else in the pile…
My philosophy is hands off, let nature do its thing… I don’t need compost in 14 weeks… I don’t need to over manage anything… It works out just fine.
I have a variant on the Johnson/Su that I use… 6′ radius, 3’6" high… Simple, on the ground, one 3" air pipe circling the bottom with access to the outside… Load it with everything, anytime, including kitchen scraps, dairy, fats… A year later I have almost two cubic yards of worm casting/leaf mold… Surprisingly effective for very little work. I DO however screen it in the spring when I’m harvesting the compost… Toss back the sticks, branches, stumps, undigested bits of anaerobic parts, all the worms I find… Start again.
landfill are giant composters
Doesn’t 1 cubic yard equal 9 cubic feet, not 3? Otherwise great video!
1 cubic yard isn’t 3 cubic feet. 1 cubic yard is 27 cubic feet.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13)
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
I usually just throw everything into the pile in the fall. I have my husband pee on it. Turn it once a week. By Spring we have good compost. I sometimes put our rabbit manure in it too. So it can break down. I always have an amazing garden.
3 cubic feet is only one third of a cubic yard. Cubic means cube shaped, so 3 feet by 3 feet or 9 cubic feet total….
Human liquid activator works well and is full of nitrogen.
My first compost heap turned into a vile smelling sludge! 😂 when I tried to aerate it, I almost gassed the neighbours with an indescribable stench, I was mortified. Luckily I’m quite good at it now, but this year a rat moved in and made itself at home. I didn’t have the heart to evict it. It didn’t stay long though.
How many people tried to wipe away the power lines from their screen thinking it’s hair 🤚🏼
5:04 don’t worry about killing weeds. Weeds are your friend. Learn about them
1 cubic yard is 27 cubic feet not 3 😅😅
We’ve been composting for years at work, and just what creeps out of the piles with the help of worms raises the ground level around them – by over a foot for up to ten feet away from the piles in ten years. It’s beautiful new soil and the worms level it off so we don’t even notice it until it buries things, then we scrape it up and move it to where it’s needed.
I can never get over 110 or so, no matter what I do or how I mix… lol
The creepy crawlies also make superb compost.
my friend has a restaurant and had drums and she puts all the food that is not eaten. and then she puts in leaves from around the area. and sticks and branches from trees. newspapers and cardboard as well. her restaurant is only open mon – fri. what else can she do to make her compost work better?
I just dig a hole in the garden or flower beds and toss in our kitchen waste, coffee grounds, and what ever will compost, then cover with soil. I pick a new spot every few days and don’t worry about it.
It also helps the compost to add some horn shavings and crushed natural limestone here and there (no quicklime !). Not sure if this is the correct wording but I think you can get to it somehow.
I have a question for the Berkeley method, how do you heat it up to 54-65 C?
No compost pile is complete wo adding soils. You hear generation is from the soils compaction. You are composting to make soil anyways why wouldn’t you include soil in the compost so you have a stable ready to go soil day one instead of having to mix it later etc..
This is where a lot of the prepper community is light years ahead in this compared to the concern say grow your own community..
We got this from actual farmers mind you.. farms have compost piles.. dead animals go there.. food waste goes there.. animal waste goes there and then it’s buried in soil.. later to be dug up and distributed in the fields.. you’re never going to get and maintain proper heat wo compaction and you’re never going to get proper compaction in a compost bin or pile wo soil..
This 50/50 ratio is garbage.. its way more broken down then that.. germs and brains for that portion that is fine.. but then you got food waste at 15 or so, animal waste at 15 or so.. soil should always be 50% if the total mass. And you don’t air it and turn it.. more like the anerobic thing you talked about and I’ve not seen but seen you play it into a bucket.. your bucket is the mound.. the soil locks it in.. you then leave this u touched more or less for a season.. then you go in start to turn it every so often to mix it and reality is.. it takes 2 season to build a proper compost pile..
I would take your woden bins and do the same thing in smaller sections as this is more capable for the normal homeowner/gardener…
Tbh this is above and beyond the capabilities of most homeowners or the time needed to do this correctly..
If you can’t do this I’d suggest nothing more than grass and leaves and for most.. still then you need some soil for compaction to get the temps up..
Larger way to get temps up is to soak it in water occasionally and let it bake for days after..
The most important thing to remember is that compost happens. No matter what. No matter what “recipe” you follow (or lack there of). As long as we’re talking about organic material, it will happen eventually because that’s just nature. So there’s no reason to over think it, especially if you’re doing it for environmental reasons.
My wife found a dual barrel compost tumbler at a thrift store for $0.50. It was in almost new condition. We’ve been using it for about 8 years now. We only recently started gardening. In previous years, we just worked it into our terrible clay soil in the yard. Now I’ve taken to gardening and of course I use it in our beds. We collect tissues and cardboard and paper and then we have a compost pot under the sink for food waste. When the pot is full I go out and pour it into one of the tumblers. We get tons of black soldier fly larvae. It’s creepy when looking in during the summer because it’s dark inside the barrels, but there are so many larvae, it just kind of looks like this single moving mass. Makes grade A compost. Black as night.
My compost turned into
Mold when I placed some of it on the top of my plant soil, how do I prevent that? (This specifically happened after I added water to my plant).
I made one ina small bucket, please tell me if Im wrong… Soil, browns, k.scraps, browns, grass cuttings, browns, soil, greens, browns and soil. Please let me know if this will work, i just leave it alone and turn it probably once a week. Thank you
I’ve been saving a bunch of cardboard. Most without color but some brown with color. No tape or labels.
I’m thinking of getting a shredder but how small can I get away with so I don’t have to invest in a shredder?
We had a rat visit our compost bin.
I went out and hit the bin with a stick s couple of times a day and the rat left immediately. They only stay if it’s quiet and safe for them.
I’ve heard that some gardeners use a battery powered radio to discourage rodents 😅