I put in 5 gal bucket of rakeed up leaves today and some banana peels also pulled some unwanted garlic tops and put that in. Trying to get more browns in I don't have problem with getting greens.

chopped leaves and grass clippings,and apple peels-had to give thr brocalli ends to the rabbit but that will benefit the pile in the long run also so I guess that counts.

Leaves and Grass. I have been scoping out OPBL'S on the side of the road,,but never have the nerve to stop and put them in my car. !!!!. Plus, I don't know what is in THEIR leaves. Who knows,,maybe full of dog or cat stuff (I don't want cat or dog poo in my compost pile),,,or perhaps something worse??? Do you think I should grab them anyways????

"but never have the nerve to stop and put them in my car. !!!!."

LOL ÂI drive around town and do estimates for an air condition company all day. I stop in my WORK truck and put the goods in the back. Then I pull up to the next job estimate with a truck full of leaves and air condition parts!

Coffee grinds
Grass clippings
cardboard ,paper, and some other peoples leaves

sam

today's addition included 3 of the worst avocados I ever tasted.

used tea bags
coffee grounds and filters
rotted apples and pumpkins
leaves, leaves, leaves, and more leaves
leftover salad from a work potluck
banana peels
flat soda
old apple juice

Popcicles!
We had some real old ones that had melted and refrozen. No greens, purples, orange a red and a yellow.... :)

Cut back and shredded all of my elephant ears and banana trees, shredded oak leaves, banana peels, left over mexican food, some corn dogs that were WAY overcooked, ground up burr oak acorns and some tea grounds.

Well, Instead of ME picking up OPBL's. I called my husband from my cell phone and told him where to find all the bagged leaves. WOW!!, I must have seen 200 bags today. He went out and picked up 28 bags with his pick up truck. YAY !!! I will store them for the winter. Plus, I have 6 huge bags stuffed full of leaves from my own yard. I hate to see leaves going to waste. I am obsessed with them. As I was driving down the road today, I saw someone mowing his leaf-scattered green lawn today with a bag on the mower and ALMOST stopped to ask what he was going to do with the grass and leaves. LOL. Crazy !!!

composter only had room for one of those paper-particle drink holders, some napkins, a little bit of nyjer seed, and then topped off with fallen leaves. Added a bit of water as well. I think that'll be all for the winter- it hasn't shrunken for weeks.

Bagged up some shredded leaves, each with an old jack-o-lantern for next year's pile.

Today was the day I got rid of all the my wife's outdoor potted plants, it was in the 20's here last night. Some went on the bottom of the pile when I turned it for the last time this year, the rest of the potting mix went on a small garden plot for spring.

I didn't have to raid garbage by roadsides, I volunteered to rake my dad's yard again. Got 19 bags the last time, got over 22 this time, still more leaves to rake! I ran out of bags, an old sheet, and a tarp tied with lots in the middle.

I got some goods like:

eggshells
coffee and filter
old pears that are half rotted
potato pealings
rotted greens left in the refrigerator too long

Someone even voluteered to let me rake his yard! I'm going to take him up on it!

Ever hear of black leaf mold? I'm not making it, but just curious if anyone has tried to make it before. No greens, just leaves in a bag with holes that is a litte wetted, rotting in a bag for so many months, not sure how many, but they say it's great for gardens.

Nothing today, but yesterday I flipped and fed the bin that had gotten cold.

5 gal. UCGs with filters
5 gal. boxwood trimmings
2 jack-o-lanterns
brown lettuce
fall leaves and straw.

Karen

flowers, you might make up some flyers & put them on people's doorknobs (don't know how true it is, but I was advised that putting something in a mailbox when you haven't paid postage is frowned on by the fed govt!), saying that people can drop off bagged leaves, & bagged leaves *only*, at your address.

scarlet, I don't think you actually have to *do* anything to get leaf mold;
just put the leaves out there & keep them moist-ish, & they'll do what comes naturally.

been a slow time for compost here;
I had a bug, so no scrounging, & very little other activity.

I did have a lot of kleenex, coffee grounds, & warm orange juice.

well, I had a virus or some such, & I didn't pick up my teabags Friday or Saturday.

figured the restaurants would throw them away;
you can keep used coffee grounds for a while, but tea bags "ferment", & for some reason, people don't like to eat in a place that smells like something's fermenting.

so last night I went to pick up the tea bags at the 2 restaurants, &...

they'd put 3 days worth of filled 5-gallon buckets outside next to the dumpster!

7 buckets of wonderful soggy slimy nitrogenous second-hand tea bags!

Yay!

Pumpkins. I have three jack 'o' lanterns that are "melting" away.

carload of punkins from a whole dumpster-full.

UCG, paper towels, old salad greens, cilantro, onion and leek trimmings, carrot and parsnip ends, potato peels, butternut squash, tomatoes, lemon and lime rinds, apple cores, weeds, a few leaves (I think my neighbor may have raked again, will get his from the curb this week), shredded paper.

Egg shells and carton
Carrot trims
Tater trims
Two apple cores
Two banana peels, don't tell the worms-they won't starve
Lettuce trims
Avocado pit and peel
Mail well shredded
Need to switch to Vermicompost forum to finish list

Curt :-)

*burb* Composter is full.
1 dog (enough hair from 3 dogs to make one whole dog)
forgotten avocados
coffee grounds and filters
limp carrots
lots of bloody kleenex from another DIY disaster
snaked 3 drains, drain mystery lint/hair
brown leaves from houseplants
stale beer that didn't make it to slug bars
floor debris from sweeping
dead lettuce
Topped off with a bunch of fall leaves because I'm done turning for the winter. What happens, happens. I'm starting a new compost pile and the old one is done till it's done.

thought I had posted this, don't see it now:

The other day I got about a dozen punkins out of a dumpster full.

Dang people not putting their punkins where I can reach them...

Last night my pile got half a chocolate pudding pie (it was a good pie we forgot about)

Been drivin around collecting OPBL
so much so I ran out of old compost to layer with and room.
No worries my 9x8x5tall bin has 2 sides of leaves with compost in it stacked 4ft by 3ft. Next plan is more leaves with manure layers.

teabags
coffee grounds/filters
shredded newspaper & junk mail
scraps from office Thanksgving party
&, very sad to report...
one young possum, victim of a speeding driver.

Wish I could pick up OPBL. No such program here. I'm thinking about hiring the grandkids to go to the parks with me to rake up leaves on public property!

My Dad just had his trees pruned for the winter. At my request, the tree trimmers raked all the leaves out to the area I'll be putting a spring garden in at the folks. That helped!

I clean homes for others, and always have cardboard and shredding to add. They kindly save theirs for me.

Plus lots of coffee grounds
eggshells
fruit and vegetable leavings,
the last of the little split tomatoes from the vines
(next, the vines)

I love making compost!

ground up leaves
a few layers of soil
potted plants including the potting soil
weeds
all kinds of peels
a little envelop of fertilizer that came with a plant last spring
water 'cause my Earth Machine has a top and it always seems so dry inside

Put it to bed for the winter

Is it time for another "Compost Wacko" thread?

Yesterday I found 14 *huge*, heavy, tightly-packed bags of leaves at one house.

I could barely lift the topmost bag, & it filled up the whole back seat.

Luckily, a couple of young guys in a pick-up truck came along & offered to take the rest of the bags to my house for $10.

"You might be a compost wacko if you'll pay somebody to deliver other people's bagged leaves."

(I would have asked them to cruise through the neighborhood looking for more, but the pick-up truck was *stuffed*!)

I haven't actually added these to the compost/mulch/whatnot yet, but they'll be there by Saturday!

They have been there for a week lined up in the drive 40 maybe 50 bags. I grit my teeth and drive on. No place to put them, no way to get them to the composers on here! Afraid to ask they might say yes.

Curt :-)

40 lbs of brown bananas which attracted a family of racoons. They didn't stay to get composted. :O)

A bottle of home made wine.

From reading this forum, I have become brave enough to take OPBLs from the neighborhood, so thank you all very much. I scope out what's available when walking the dogs, particularly on trash days, and my most exciting grab was from the arms of a trash guy. He looked at me like I was some wacko, and maybe I am, but, he gave it up. Today I found a house with three bags, so went back with the truck to pick them up, went into a cul-de-sac to turn around and found 8 more! Now, I have no fear. On the downside, our chipper/shredder is down, so the bags are lining the veg beds until they can be properly shredded. New urban chic.

We hit 30 degrees a couple nights ago, so the pepper and remaining tomato plants were added to the compost, along with lots of UCG, eggshells, banana peels, onion and garlic peels, and man pee. This occurred when I was adding turnip greens to the pile. Not cool.

CJ

All my normal manure providers are out so I contacted a horse rescue farm and got two truck loads of 60/30 straw/fresh manure. Layerd the manure with 40 bags of OPBL
a little old compost little wood chips and water.

Hornet's nest.

15 quarts of tomato sauce I processed wrongly enough to make me feel uneasy about it. (mutter, mutter, mutter)

Actually, it was last weekend that I fed the sauce to the leaf pile. I guess it liked the sauce. The leaves were 132 degrees (maybe more -- I just have a short thermometer) before I turned them yesterday morning.

"He looked at me like I was some wacko, and maybe I am, but, he gave it up."

Ah, cj, you *belong* here!

Thanks Silvia... nice to feel at home with such an interesting group.

He really did give me a look; we have a lot of Latinos here in Tulsa, and he may have been one, and really didn't know what I was saying. However, my instinct tells me that he really couldn't figure why this old, white woman wanted someone else's trash. But, the truck driver smiled and waved, as if he's seen it all before. You gotta love it.

deer carcass and scraps
2 turkey carcasses and fat left over from stock making
1/2 gallon milk
50 pounds of apples

it will be frozen here next week so I hope it starts to heat