The ingredients you make your compost out of do effect the final nutrient outcome.

That said, watermelon rinds are relatively high in N, low in tannins/phenols, and therefore a good addition. Plus, earthworms appreciate their long-holding moisture capability.

Off topic, but I'm thinking pickles.

Dovetailing off what nc-cm said about worms. Limited space and abundance of melon rinds makes me think you should get some worms. The result is also better for plants.

The Watermelon rind is reported to be somewhere around 97 percent water with a large amount of Lycopene, but I find a dirth of information about things such as N. P, K.. I have put large amounts of these rinds in my compost piles over the years, chopped and unchopped, and have found the wee bacteria digest them fairly rapidly either way.

Thanks for the info, everybody. I find that in the summer I have so much veggie/fruit waste to put into the compost that I often don't have enough browns.

Cardboard, Patty, cardboard is your brown friend.

So, how small are the pieces of cardboard you use? Do you just rip up the cardboard with a box knife? I used shredded newspaper one time, actually ran it thru the shredder, & it was a mess. It took forever to decompose so I've been leery of anything like that since. I

In the summer when we had an abundance of fruit & veggie waste as well as countless tea bags from making ice tea, we used to fill empty food boxes with waste & toss the boxes into the compost heap. Cold cereal boxes, oatmeal containers, cracker, rice & pasta boxes all worked well. Even small boxes made of corrugated cardboard worked out well. Newspaper WILL take forever to decompose IF you don't mix it with other things. In fact, when I didn't have a box, I used to gift wrap my garbage in several sheets of newspaper. - Laura

I like the idea of boxing and "gift wrapping" the greens.

Another brown source to explore are wood chips from tree trimmings. Some tree services offer these free of charge. In my little corner of TX the city picks up tree/brush trimmings, grinds them into mulch and then makes them available to the residents for free. They maintain a large mulch yard with piles of varying age from fresh to ~2 years old (about compost) - I can get up to 2.5 cu yards per quarter for free.

Boxes do a good job airirating the pile. I twist news papers to get added airation. Neither is a very good option without a lot of space and multiple piles/bins.
Boxes are less likely than bagged yard waste to conceal dog poop, nuclar waste and dead animals until you have hauled them home.
I wonder if that would stand up in court against a citation for illegal dumping? See here judge , "I was only returning trash which I had earlier mistook for good composting materials."

We do that with the boxes as well. Sometimes I put other goodies in them....

How long does it take for your piles to compost the boxes and cardboard?

I've been sticking to very small stuff like chopped up kitchen scraps, UCG, grass, leaves, straw, and shredded paper. My pile composts in about a month.

â¢Posted by uscjusto none (My Page) on
Thu, Jul 25, 13 at 10:38

How long does it take for your piles to compost the boxes and cardboard?
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This is only one of many stratagies to shall we say, conserve time and energy. Not fast at all so if you want compost in less than a few months at best and several on the average,this isn't for you.

One of my "brown" sources is hardwood planer shavings. I have a contractor friend who, when he planes JUST hardwood (i.e. not coniferous woods - poplar, although relatively soft is technically a hardwood), saves me his planer shavings. I also can't use hardwoods such as Walnut. If you get some coniferous shavings, that's not the end of the world... they just take longer to rot, especially the cedars and hemlocks. I just add a thin layer of these. You need to trust the provider to not have contaminated the shavings with any sawdust from manufactured products such as particle board or OSB... too many glues. Obviously the provider will have to be using a dust collection system to collect what you need.

My blog is not directly related to this topic, but you may find it interesting anyway.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lively Dirt - the Garden Blog