How to start a Compost Pile

[North Beach Person]

Paper added to compost, regular newsprint, none of the slick inserts or magazines, I've also been told no comics. It should be shredded-more surface area for the breakdown bacteria to attack-the same reason leaves should be shredded. I always sift my compost, made (actually remade it this year) a sifter with 2x4s and 3/8 wire hardware screen. Mix the sifted compost in with the regular soil, loosens up clay, tightens up sand and makes already good soil better-a tiller works real well for this in the garden. Just add it to pots and stir it around. You will be amazed at how much it breaks down after a few to several months-in the order of 80% less in volume. I will sometimes directly dig leaves into the garden in the fall, that doesn't work as well for me as for some.

[TomSD]

As North Beach Person says... no slick paper, only the rag type which is most of your bills and junk mail. And yes shredding speeds things up greatly, just like cutting up large or solid items (peels, carrots, etc) will help.

My quick solution to that is I have an old food processor that I toss any of my bigger scraps through before throwing them in the bin. I also have a higher quality shredder that can handle cardboard and decent stacks of paper. It is a crosscut shredder too so everything comes out like little pieces of confetti which makes turning/mixing much easier and greatly speeds up the conversion. Pretty much everything that goes into my bins is shredded in one way or another be it lawn clippings, vegetable scraps or paper products.

[texdav]

I use two compose bins that the city gave peole thru a program of the sate agriculture department. I put grass clipping and other wasterproduct that are oragnic. I roatate the pile and most use them in out flowerbed as I ma not a big gardener like my brother, I do grow a few things like tomatoes;bell peppers and parsley tho.We also tend to use it wiht the si oil i pot palnts which we repot every year.

[Dudevan]

and I would like to suggest the greatest book on composting. it's called "let it rot" by Stu Campbell. It's a short,easy read but will tell you EVERYTHING you need/want to know. I read about 4 times over the last 20 some years and it turned me into a composting machine.haha.