I did a lot of garden clean up today and sowed my winter cover crops. I'm starting a new compost pile with:
16 tomato plants
12 pepper plants
marigolds
cucumber vines
lots of nasturtiums
I'll add lots more tomorrow and anticipate the falling leaves.

Dog poop, tortoise poop, a dead bird, grass clippings, coffee grounds, egg shells, orange peels and chopped banana leaves.

The worms had minestrone:
onion peels
garlic peels
zucchini ends
carrot peels
potato peels
parsley stems

and apple cake:
apple peels
egg shells

some ucg/utb to wash it down

and a toilet paper roll for good luck

And the compost got a lot of garden clippings including a big pile of ornamental grass that was too floppy and had to be cut down.

Annpat, I threw my old stale bread out to the squirrels.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Sorry to say, not much---just a small bag of UCG mixed in--when I turned it this evening. There were some interesting bugs in there!

For the worms:
broccoli stems
old stale tortilla chips
ucg/utb
banana peel
apple cores
onion/garlic skins

For the compost:
spent perennials' foliage and annuals

torn-up junk mail saturated with old coffee & tea
coffee grounds
tea bags
banana peels
eggshells

but today I get to scavenge the office for paper & cardboard-Yay!

Just started a new pile-----
cleaned out a flower bed--threw it all out in the yard
mowed (bagged) lots of fallen leaves/grass/flower garden stuff (green/brown mix)
added some egg shells
banana bread
choc cake
UCG
a couple of mushy tomatoes

Tomorrow, they shall get,

coffee grounds and tea bags
rotten tomaters
noodles
rotten grapefruit
egg shells
tons of shredded paper.

I shall dig a whole in the pile, dump it in, add the shredded paper and put a cinder block on top of it to give the critters something to play with while they try to dig up the noodles. ha!

Worms:
a couple of zucchinis that went bad in the fridge
rotten tomatoes, it must be that time of year
and the usual assortment of utb/ucg/onion & garlic peels
and a nice blanket of salt marsh hay from my tomato bed

Compost:
spent tomato vines
weeds
subsoil from planting hole
a smattering of horse manure
and a little salt marsh hay

2 egg shells
a baked sweet potato growing fur in the fridge
a couple past their prime tomatoes
a tea bag

Tonight I will add eggs shells, used paper towels, UCG and kitchen waste.

"kitchen waste" pffft, such a generalized term. We want details!!!

for example, the 1/4 baked potato that DH did not eat. The worms will.

Going into the compost pile or lasagna beds I'm building, 'tho maybe not all today:

Contents of compost bucket: Apple cores, pear cores, coffee grounds from French press, tops from bunch of radishes, veg bits from making ratatouille, mouse sans head and one leg (thanks, Minu!), mouse's tail (not a rubberband lying on the rug after all), various other veg bits and pieces, water from washing up dishes and coffee pot, bits of dried cat food, some crushed egg shells, grapefruit peels, dregs from wine glasses & wine bottle, olive pits. I usually empty the bucket multiple times a day but didn't do it last night or this a.m.

Shrimp shells and the paper the shrimp came in.

Bag of crushed-up peanut shells.

Contents of paper grocery store bag: Tissues, napkins (stashed in purse at art opening), paper plates (ditto), toothpicks (ditto again), cotton swabs, dustpan contents, shredded small-sized paper bags.

Three bags of UCG from Starbucks.

Three large cartons of rotted pumpkins and gourds.

Forgotten cauliflower from the fridge.

Part of newspaper stash.

Some of my approximately 20 cardboard boxes & containers.

Scoopings from litter box: The litter, which is made from pea pods, plus the cats' urine, plus the brown paper bags the scoopings are in.

Dried leaves.

Garden cleanup: Tomato plants, rotting cukes and the vines, and whatever.

Sawdust from our contractor's work on two pine storm doors.

Piece de resistance???? Bucket of fish heads, scales, tails, from local fish store.

That's what I'm talking about, lynxe.

Peapod litter? Tell me more.

one piece of stale bread
Bad grape parts
Banana peel

perhaps some other things later on.

cuticlesfromhell -- may I call you cfh? :))) -- peapod litter brand name is P-Pod. According to the package, the litter is not necessarily made just from pea pods, as I'd thought. Seems it's a "mint fresh" clumping litter from "plant fibers". The company is in Washington state....cannot tell you much more from the current bag, as it's outside on the patio, filled with poison ivy. The stuff's a bit pricy, with a mid-sized (?) bag $9.99 from the store I go to (which discounts). But it works very well, with almost no odor, and it's very soft. I will not use bentonite-based litters due to the environmental damage the extraction process causes, not to mention the dust.

Back to the OP -- we went to three art openings last night, so my purse came home containing more paper plates, napkins, and toothpicks.

And excellent news! One of the area's Starbucks apparently is only app. 1/2 mile from the gym my husband uses almost daily, and he's already getting into the collecting thing....came home with two bags of UCGs yesterday afternoon! This is so exciting....!

UCG
lots of leaves
grass clippings
cleaned out another flower bed and shredded w/lawnmower
egg shells
over done toast
leaves from house plants
dryer lint
------compost pile no longer gets cigarette butts---I quit smoking 3 weeks ago! :-)

thanks for the litter info, lynxe. Speaking of litters, the Cuticular family just adopted two kittehs this weekend! Hence, the worms have already gotten...

catfud the finicky, slightly freaked out catz didn't eat
plus
lettuce gone bad
lime rind
apple cores
utb/ucg
bell pepper insides and top
onion and garlic peels
dryer lint

And the compost got more spent perennial leaves and weeds.

Congrats on kicking the habit, dlpasti. You rock!!

peach pits
banana peels
old pizza
old chicken nuggets
shredded junk mail
a shredded office product catalog

yesterday I fed it a bunch of weeds and we're up to 120F today.. so exciting.. I got a compost thermometer for my birthday yesterday.

watermelon shell
banana peels
coffee grounds
6 large sunflowers
lots of celery (5 gallon pail in total)
potato peel
6 pepper plants
sawdust
leaves with grass clippings

Worm food:
leftover cat food
a slice of ham that a very finicky cat didn't want!?!
chicken bones
celery top
tomato
utb/ucg
paper towel
banana peel
onion skin

Here is a link that might be useful: Escapist fun: The Amazing Race recaps

Six toilet paper rolls
A dead basil plant
a bag of expired melon seeds.

I feel bed for the melon seeds :(

hulls from red yucca seeds
banana peel
apple core
eggshells
starchy cooking water
prunings from overgrown perennials
coffee grounds
tea bags
wood shavings
shredded junk mail

Started a new pile this evening-----
cut down and chopped three clumps of canna's
chopped leaves(maple, yellow/red)
cut down and chopped russian sage
chopped purple pod bean plants
the "fuzzzz" from the ceiling fans
dryer lint
for moisture--a partial jug of OJ that was found in
back of the frig

Do compost piles require that you have worms in them, or is that something entirely different? Do these compost/worm piles need to be in containers, or can you just make a pile in the yard and throw things on it? (I'm a newbie to the world of composting, but want to start a heap).

You don't need anything special for compost;
mine is in several piles throughout the yard, with no structure around it, but people who live in more urban areas or areas with homeowners associations may have to build/buy a bin to contain everything.

It seems to me that earthworms just naturally appear in the bottom layer of compost, especially if it has a lot of leaves & coffee grounds.

You might check out the Vermicomposting Forum for info on composting for maximum worm "participation".

Wife made a her first pumpkin pie with real pumpkin. It was good, but ended up hidden in the frig so it was forgotten about. So the worms got:

half a pumpkin pie
3 egg shells
bits of uneaten donuts from the kids

Shropshire lad: I happen to have two different composts. One is a bed made of cinder blocks, filled with horse manure, autumn leaves (and now some salt marsh hay) in which I have red wriggler worms and I put all my kitchen garbage in there.

The other is a regular old compost pile consisting of garden waste and some soil and manure and anything compostable I come across. There may be worms in there, but nothing deliberate.

Both systems create lovely compost, though I'm very partial to me worms.

And...since there was a par-tay at the House of Cuticle, my worms got a lot of chow. Good times!

chicken bones
spare rib bones
wilty lettuce
onion peels
garlic peels
lemon, lime and orange rinds
carrot peels, tops and bottoms
celery tops and bottoms
avocado shells and pits
pepper innards and tops
cucumber peels
mushroom bits
scraped off plates
used paper napkins and towels
egg shells
coffee grounds
tea bags

Whew - maybe I should throw some Alka Seltzer in there too.

Lots of expired rice.

Perhaps my hamster's bedding too

Really slacking off here. :(

Contents of compost bucket, dumped multiple times a day as usual - veg peels, apple & pear cores, onion skins, veg odds & ends, egg shells, etc. Plus lots of miscellaneous, eg, bits of dried cat food, bits of wet cat food, some paper towels used to wipe off greasy pans & plates, etc. Plus water from washing dishes. Yes, I am such a Compost Wacko that I try to wash dishes over the bucket.

Contents of coffee pot.

Everything else I've collected is still sitting around while I continue to work on new beds. I've got quite a haul from several trips from Starbucks, not to mention tons of dried leaves from our trees. Many piles of leaves just sitting on the lawn while I work on the ones on the patio; I left those there for a couple of weeks, and they're nicely dried. I'm crumbling them fine and adding to the completed beds as mulch, and to new beds as part of the layers.

Planning a run to the pumpkin farm today to pick up as many cartons of rotted pumpkins & gourds as they'll have.

I do have nice collections of additional browns: bags of well, bags. Bags of newspapers and junk mail. Additions to my cardboard collection - collected whenever I've stopped at a store or business. Bags of used tissues, paper towel and toilet paper rolls, paper napkins. That kind of thing.

But I'm not putting any of that stuff in the piles at this point. I figure I've got plenty of leaves right now.

Poor hungry worms had to wait a while. I guess I haven't cooked much in the last few days. But they finally got:

lots of leftover cat food from very very finicky catseses
old baked salmon
egg shells
gloopy lettuce bits
tomato ends
toilet paper roll
zucchini ends
utb/ucg

In the last three days---about 3" of rain

egg shells
dryer lint
more ceiling fan fuzz
more chopped up canna's
piece of finger that got in the way chopping down canna's
lots of leaves
grass clippings

Leaves I stole from the neighbor's front lawn, year end garden mulch grass clippings, and a slow squirrel.

Has anyone here ever cut his/her finger while working in the garden & held it over the compost pile for the blood to drip?

not saying I ever did that....

I wish it was just a cut......its an owie, more than a bobo!

today I feed my new pile 4X8X3 8 bags of leaves(can't even tell I picked them up the way the wind is dumping them in the yard---I have drifts of leaves)

UCG

Banana, mango, grape, apple, frozen veggies, weeds from yard work, and

OPL

lots of leaves
appropriated some leaves/grass clippings from two neighbors yards
UCG----Starbucks has decided to let me pick up again YEAH!!!
egg shells
last of potted plants in yard(impatients and begonias)

got my new CP 3/4 full, but that'll settle down fast!

I fed mine a groundhog that's been terrorizing my moms garden for the past year.

A new enclosure, went from free standing to using chicken wire I had. I figured it would give me a bigger core to cook it.

OPBL
egg shells
banana peels
leftover pasta
cream of wheat that spilled
oatmeal
tomato branches
sunflowers
apple cores
carrot peelings

lots of leaves (purdy yellow ones today)
a couple of funky green peppers from the fridge
egg shells
2 bags of UCG
dryer lint
used paper towles, etc...
4 5 gal buckets of rain water

(wed if its decent out--I get to mow the neighbors yard for the grass clippings/leaves)

Anybody adding just white table sugar to their pile?

I spread about 3/4 of a garbage bin of UCG from a local coffee shop on the lasagna bed. There were over 200 paper coffee filters which I picked up and put in my regular compost bin and a few in my new compost/mulch BOX. Didn't want those filters blowing away in the wind.

Besides all those many paper filters my poor deprived compost BIN just gets the same old, same old (salad trimmings, coffee grounds and filter, egg shells, tea bags) every day altho it's getting more tea bags since the cold weather started cause we drink more hot tea. Wish I could scrounge goodies like so many of you but there is sometimes a limit what I'll do for my garden. And our groundhogs and squirrels are way too fast for me to catch.

Our bears had left 4 piles on the lawn last week but I told DH to throw it out beyond the house yard fence so they hopefully get the idea to only do their business out there and stay out of MY yard. If he had put it in the compost they might get the idea that's theirs and tough but I have first dibs.

I also spread all of my compost/mulch PILE on the garden today which was 4 ATV trailer loads plus a couple of wheelbarrow loads.

OK, new to composting. ucg I assume is used coffee grounds. What is utb?

Butternut squash
UCG w/filter
paper plate w/old cat food
leaves
twigs
avocado
old coffee
sip of beer
onion skins
tiny bit of rye bread

I talked with the neighbor as he was raking his lawn and asked about his leaves as we left for dinner out. When we got back the leaves were in his yard waste trash can. I wheeled it over to my compost bins and rebuilt a pile with layers of poorly mixed old kitchen scraps and the fresh leaves. That should help even things out and break down nicely. Also, drove back to some leaf bags I'd spotted on the way to the restaurant. I think DH took another way home so I wouldn't ask to stop and figuring I'd forget about them :) ... but I just went back out myself and grabbed them. Turned out to be 4 large bags of beautiful dry grass clippings. There should be plenty of leaves in the next few weeks to mix with them. Now I just have to decide if they stay at my house or go out to the school garden I'm trying hard to improve. So far, I've left them in the bags.

My neighbor uses granulated sugar to rot stumps;
she pours it over the stump, waters it well & keeps it watered, & it really does rot the stumps.

Since rotting is the goal in composting, I'd put that sugar in the pile!

UTB=used tea bags.

I hurt my shoulder cleaning flower beds on Sunday, so haven't been adding to the heaps/piles/sheets, but I do have a bunch of stuff eagerly waiting to rot:

4 o'clock tops by the million

zinnias that a landscaper threw out to make room for his winter display

box of paper junk from office (printer paper that was printed wrong, flyers, junk mail, paper towel & toilet tissue rolls, frozen food boxes).

3 bags of mixed leaves & grass clippings

small quantity of vegetable scraps, some organic humus/manure combo that i actually bought ($1.59 for a 40-lb bag), some crushed cashews, a bit of yogurt, some shredded bit of green twig bark from shrubs, some leaf mulch/leaf mold/dried tree leaves (off the roof). just doing an indoor bin, started with a huge quantity of soil, so i'm doing it differently from most. i'd recommend composters to get that free used starbucks coffee grounds--i have no link with the company at all, not plugging them in any way--which are free and available in hefty quantity. curious whether the yogurt can be a problem--it has some sodium, according to the nutritional info.