Shredded paper will work fine in compost. Consider that the size of a trash can might be a problem (unless you are using worms), because for compsting to happen effectively also requires some volume. Another concern is to make sure the pile is getting enough oxgen - locked into a trash can may cause some nasty smelling anaerobic processes that won't be pleasant. Even shredded cardboard.

At the top of the forum is a link to a FAQ page and one of the topics on that page is Greens and Browns. There is a comprehensive list there.

Newspaper should be fine, I avoid the colored inks as some of them may still have metals in them.

Wood chips, sawdust, planer shavings, cardboard including household stuff like towel and TP rolls.

Straw, especially if there are bales laying around from displays after Halloween.

These probably make up the majority of what people are using.

Thanks drmbear & toxcrusadr. I will look at that FAQ. I have a 32 gallon trash can that I covered down all the sides and bottom with holes. I plan on layering it with browns & greens & then rolling it around the yard once or twice a week to keep it from becoming anaerobic. Thought that might work, We'll see.

I once used a 50 gallon trash can for a composter, drilled it full of holes too, and still could not get enough air into the mix and always had a wet, stinky mess in that can.

Here is a link that might be useful: Composting Tutorial

That is why one has a trash can style for the early stage and later something else for the curing stage of the compost. A trash can style will be fine for the beginning stage. Newspaper however made a huge glue like mess. You would have to mix them around a lot also. I buy bagged ground up wood used for mulching to use as browns and to give the compost body. Consider maybe if you can find free sawdust?

I started with a can years ago, not a bad starting point but I soon found it was hard to empty out, you have to reach down in. I would empty it halfway then tip it over. So keep that in mind, because a turn or two of the pile helps it finish faster and with finer texture after breaking up clumps.

Good luck and happy rotting!

I would use fine coir 100:1 (natural fibre extracted from the husk of coconut) and horse manure 30:1.

The newspaper and their inks should be fine, I am a printer who works on newspaper presses. Stay away from the glossy paper as that process uses different ink. I think there are better things to put into a compost than newspaper.

If it isn't on the endangered plant list,doesn't have a haz-mat sticker nor attracts green flies,it may wind up in my bin.
I find that throwing a few branches in amoungest material as it's layered can help with airation and agitation. In a drum it's obivous when turned/rolled or flipped. In a pile or bin,grabbing a branch and pulling out loosens things up. If one has suffecent strength to lift extra weight,branches caught on fork farthur stir material while turning.

Had an interesting discovery in the yard. I just make piles for composting and leave them, pretty much forever it seems. I was scavenging compost out of my one big pile of material and didn't want to mix in anything new yet and also didn't want to have a second pile at that time, so I loaded two and a half 39 gallon trash cans, unventilated and waterproof, with plant rubble and then forgot about them. Everything from sunflowers to woody branches, weeds to palm fronds. Maybe not clinically "forgot" but it was getting hot out.

When the summer monsoon rains quit roughly three or so weeks ago I remembered the barrels. They were wet. Thick liquid water wet. When I dumped them on top of the pile they gave out almost nothing but black crumbly grainy mud. Compost. Somewhat stinky compost, but compost in fact. The woody stuff was still pretty much intact, though, but it'll get spread for February's tomato set-outs.

What am I blathering on about? If I tried this wet-barrel-stuff deliberately it would be a total failure, but I just wanted to say if one has enough time and if one is willing to wallow in laziness (sic semper Minere), any composting method works. No drilled holes, no tossing, no ratios, no concerns. Just do anything and give it time, even load up a small barrel! You do need space (which many don't have) and a commitment to long term gardening (which most of us have).

Not to change the subject, but to stress the seriousness of all this, did you know that Mars is the only known planet inhabited solely by robots?

I've read that the garbage can roll around just lets everything slide around and doesn't mix it. It needs some sort of inside ridges (think about a dryer) so the stuff gets tumbled.
You might want to go to the local Humane society and see if they have bunny or G Pig shavings. You get the browns and plenty of N (pee and poop) all in one!
Happy gardening! Nancy

The bottom compost should be mixed with the top and all the insides should be moved to the outside, as the outside is not composting as quickly and is not as hot.

Cold composting takes more time and therefore, more turnings, more time is passing. But, you can get by without turning cold compost, but it won't be very good compost that way, but it will still breakdown. I was not seeing any compost worth even keeping, but that was a long time ago. I wonder if anyone did an experiment of not turning the cold compost and taking a photo of the end result of that?

So many people were taking the "free" mulch in Foster City from trees they grind up, they put up a whole bunch of signs saying not to remove the mulch. They wanted to keep the mulch for their gardening needs, I guess. Parks use it dump under trees for weed suppression. I have to take a photo of one of the signs next time I go there. I would rather buy it, then deal with loading it up in my car, when its illegal. It kind of trashes your car and only works if you have a pick up truck.

Leaves are lousy for composting unless you are doing vermiculture. Leaves Mold they don't compost. Get a pair of chickens and they'll eat all your kitchen waste. This browns and greens chart never addresses different modes of decay and leaves mold they don't compost.

"Leaves are lousy for composting " "Leaves Mold they don't compost."

Please don't tell my leaves,they have done it in the past and I have nothing else to do with them. They are starting to fall,my lawn only appreciates a portion mulched in and I would hate forcing them into compost with threats of a bonfire. ):

I have mixed batches of materials for composting for years using a LOT of leaves. Usually with grass clippings as the greens. The combination makes fantastic fluffy and nutrient rich compost.

Leaves will compost slowly by themselves by a more fungal dominated process since they are low in nitrogen. But they will certainly compost faster in the presence of green materials.

I find plain, corrugated brown cardboard, shreeded or ripped a bit, to be the easiest and best brown if you don't have others to hand. And usually pretty easy to find.

Yes, normally there are not piles of coconut coir laying around but cardboard is easy to come by.

Leaves Mold they don't compost.

Really?? What do you call this?

{{gwi:311673}}

EVERYTHING organic decomposes in time and that decomposition is called compost if it is done in any sort of deliberate manner.

"I wonder if anyone did an experiment of not turning the cold compost and taking a photo of the end result of that"

Tropical Thought,
I did. I put up that bin in May and filled it till mid September.

Spoiled hay and pony poop, then grass clippings, kitchen waste, rotten woods, little by little, as it shrank I would add a diversity of stuff.

I wonder why my photos are always upside down, if someone knows how to put them right, I would be delighted to learn ;-)

When I opened it mid september, it was so dense and dry on the outside that it stood upright on its own. And it seemed that nothing much had happened. You could see all the strata from eocen to pleistocen.

But the inside, although dry, did decompose somehow.

I had put in there some artichokes flowers, a lot of them, because I planted 12 artichokes seedlings and they were so badly attacked by snails that I thought it clever to surround them with a large ring of .5 inch of UNused coffee grounds, about 2 kilos (4 lbs I think) of caffeinated grounds.

What a genius I was to extrapolate from an article saying that caffeine at 2 per cent killed snails !

Yes it prevented snails and slugs to reach the plants, they died on the coffee grounds on their way to the artichokes.

Then the artichokes grew in reaction with so many horns on their leaves and flowers that I could never get close enough to harvest for fear of being stabbed to death by the horns !

Then they flowered and dried up and I put all of them in the compost bin, and regrew all nice and soft. I wouldn't have thought that those horrible huge artichoke palms and flowers full of horns would have disappeared, but they did !

No particular desire on my part to wade into a voluminous discussion of composting, but I will say, leaves not only DO compost, they are probably the premier material for a high-quality blend. What's more, the big guys-those firms setting up to relieve cities of their "yard waste" have found that leaves and only leaves are really safe from the chance inclusion of grass clippings from a lawn which has been treated with one or the other of the very persistent herbicides-Milestone and the other aminopyralid-based products, which defy decomposition and can and do go on to cause trouble when that compost which contains them is used in gardens, etc. killing plants long after anyone thought the material would still be active. Tree leaves are 100% free of this scourge.

There is an old term for compost made from leaves-leaf mold-but that's just funny old English, not an actual indication that this is somehow not composting in a proper manner.

+oM

Although a book didn't compost. The inside pages I could still read.

And don't worry, I didn't put a good book, it was a well deserved fate for such an idiotic book ;-)

There weren't many worms in this bin, only a few at the bottom where it was wetter.

But there were many larvae of aurora cetonia (rose beetle ?), those big-butted small-headed worms that crawl on the back. I took a video that I can't manage to include here on GW, but I sent it to my daughters through text message so that it would open automatically, otherwise they don't open my videos because they know I send gross stuff on purpose ;-) Anyway I had a good laugh when they answered I was gross and disgusting and weird and to stop that (include rude words) !

So cold compost happens, without any turning, without enough water, but very slowly and not thoroughly.

I've composted leaves, old business cards (soy ink), bill receipts and envelopes (no plastic), leftover sawdust (not chemically treated wood), random free newspapers (soy ink), and a ton of other wood and paper products.

They compost just fine if you add enough greens to supply sufficient nitrogen. While grass clippings do that, they're kind of slimy. I prefer fresh garden cuttings and things like that.

Mix well, add water, and off they go. Mix regularly and they resemble compost in about two weeks. Don't mix and it takes months, but still gets there.

Francoise: Are you posting photos from a tablet or other mobile device? I think they normally show you the photo 'right side up' (somehow they know!), even if it is not in reality. You might need to open your photos in a Photo Editor software and Rotate them right side up, then save.

Tox,
Thanks a lot, I'm not good enough to send photos directly from one of those state of the art devices ;-)
I got an IPhone 5 for free when the 6 was released, so I take photos from it then I email them to myself then I download them on my PC and they're right side up... Then I download them on here and there you are, all wrong side up ! Sometimes they're not, but it's pure luck because I suck and don't know how to rotate them !
As for videos like the lovely one I have of the fat larvae, which in fact was taken by chance because the phone turned from photo to video without me noticing (those screens are too sensitive to be used with dirty gloves near a compost pile being destructed) I can't manage to download here ;-(

Like grubby,I prefer not wading into already long threads but evidently op turned green and ran for the nearest exit when nancyj mentioned pee,poop and spoild hay. Besides,this is urgent,Franco needs help far more than the newbee composter. Is this an accurate recap? Franco takes snapshots and videos,some of which crosswise and up-side down. Despite the imagery being gross,weird and disgusting ,the worst of it was sent to Franco's daughters. Thank goodness GW's filter blocked all except that which is family friendly,albeit shot while lying in various positions as the day progtessed. If noone can suggest somthing closer to home,we have a dandy place in the states called The Betty Ford Center. LOL Just funning plus honing skills that might land a job handleing media for a 2016 candidate. Je te souhaite bonne chance et tout le succès

Francoise, what software are you using to view photos on your computer after emailing them from your phone? When you view them is it in a photo library or viewer of some kind? If so it may be clever enough to show them to you right side up even if they are not. If your computer is Microsoft Windows based, you may have a Photo Editor program. If you open a photo in an editor program, you will see the true orientation. Let us know what you have and we can try to help.

"No particular desire on my part to wade into a voluminous discussion of composting, but I will say, leaves not only DO compost, they are probably the premier material for a high-quality blend."

So are wood chips. When you use wood chips you not only radically increase the bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes, the wood chips also attract earthworms, which create vermicompost"one of the best composts on the planet. Plus, they keep out weeds. Covering the ground with wood chips dramatically reduces water evaporation, thereby minimizing the need for watering. The wood chips also tend to absorb moisture from the air at night and release it back into the soil during the day when the plants need it. There is a guy in Washington who bought an orchard in 1979. He hasn't watered it in 35 yrs, but it produces plenty anyway. Something to think about in drought stricken areas...

âÂÂI started planting my trees and covering [them]. At that time, I had straw and sheep manure; now IâÂÂm doing the wood chips,â he says. âÂÂMy orchard has not been watered or fertilized for 35 years, and itâÂÂs produced abundantly beyond what people can imagine."

My neighbors gather and put their leaves in paper bags to be picked up. I keep all of mine. We use a mulching mower to grind them up and leave them in the lawn. Sometimes the deer use them for a mattress.

I appreciate the note about very persistent herbicides in city mulch. I'd considered getting some extra but not now. I don't use Round up or anything likely to harm bees, etc. If it isn't safe for them, then it can't be good for me.

A link that might be useful:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/10/05/wood-chips-ground-cover.aspx

The persistent herbicides are typically used in pastures, so they show up in manures, which can find their way into commercial compost, or worse, in more concentrated form if you use mystery manure from a farm w/o asking about what they use on their hay. City compost or mulch is less likely to have it, IMO, because the stuff is not used much if at all on yards. I think we did establish here awhile back that the herbicides in question 'can' be used on residential yards by professional applicators, but when you consider the dilution from all the yards that don't, plus all the non-grass stuff like leaves and limbs that are in yard waste, the risk seems low.

Tox, you're so very kind to want to help me, I guess you don't know how dumb I am with a computer ;-) How do you think I've got to ask people living thousands of miles away, well because everyone around me knows I'm a lost cause ;-) I couldn't know the correct geek vocabulary to explain my system in french, much less in English ! But my daughter is coming to see Old Mom for Christmas, so I'll ask her to fix it for me.
Good for you, you don't know what you escaped, but be sure it's a good thing you did ;-)

I do find that worms get into my random stuff piles, in very large numbers. With or without wood.

They don't invade until the temperatures drop, but after that there are tons of them down there, feeding away happily.

Haha, well I have an old mom 1000 miles away who can't run her computer either, so I'm used to it. :-] Whatever you figure out, write down the instructions. I am always forgetting to do that myself, and 6 weeks later I can't remember how I did something. :-p