We are running out of sites for waste dumping in the U.K. and there is a tax on landfill. My city recycles 80% of waste collected and actually saves money by doing so.

Amanda, your city sure knows what is best for the people there. What a great incentive to get people to use the city compost - by offering low cost compost with free delivery. This will clear the hurdle for a lot of gardeners as most don't have the means/vehicle to pick up the compost. I am making a note of this along with other wonderful ideas posted above.

Floral_uk, WOW! That is an impressive rate of recycling! It certainly shows that if a municipality is serious about recycling and reducing waste deposits at landfills, it can be done! Does your town have a web page/information regarding how this is done? I would love to read up on it. Thanks!

Deannatoby, you are so right! Composting operation can be run by a private business or nonprofit composed of individuals who are knowledgeable about composting, soil science, or agriculture. Such a group will probably produce a better finished product than a composting department within a municipality since they will be accountable and responsible for the product that they sell. But if it is to succeed, it has to be able to make enough to break even or small profit. This may work for some locales that have a high cost for landfills, It may not work in places where the cost of putting trash in the landfill is cheaper than recycling/composting. I wonder how much does it cost to produce a yard of properly finished compost? Do you all think it is higher than $10?

Karen, I'd rather not say exactly where I live but this city has a similar system.https://www.bristol.gov.uk/bins-recycling/where-your-recycling-goes

Karen, its free compost with free delivery :) low cost bins if you want to compost things that aren’t yard trimmings.

Wow, that’s great Amanda! Here is $42 per yard delivered. I just called my tree service guy, he could give me some free wood chips in a few weeks. That would be great for weed control in the rose beds.

I don't know, Karen. When I lived there she had a big construction machine and would turn these huge compost piles to keep them active. Our area of the country is very pro-local product, so people would pay a higher price for local, but not a large higher price. I can't remember the name of her product since I had just started gardening before we moved.

Thanks for the link and info, Floral_uk! That was a very interesting read! I am amazed at all the things UK can recycle and reuse.

UK has some amazing stuff for sure. Their healthcare and nursing home are free!

That’s how it works. I hope the national insurance premium is not too expensive. One of our rider friends is from UK. He mentioned by the time he is ready for a nursing home he’d go back to UK. It’s too expensive in the US for senior care.

National insurance covers our state pensions, unemployment benefits, maternity allowance, etc. It only funds part of the NHS. The rest is funded out of general taxation.

Even our rather small rural community has three bins, including one for green waste. I don't put a lot in there since any raw vegetable matter goes around the plants. When we had a tree taken out it was shredded and that's now been put around all the roses and other plants in the garden. So much can be reused, and we eat just about everything I cook. Sometimes I'll put what's left over near the driveway and by the next morning it's always totally gone. Obviously that wouldn't be a good idea in anything but a rural setting, but here the skunks, opossums, coyotes and smaller creatures make short work of it.

I always have some kitchen waste since people hate my cooking, the meat goes to the dog, other leftovers go straight to the garbage bin to prevent rat problem. One of my neighbors has a small plastic compost bin that always leaves her yard in the wind storms. How big is your compost bin? Any photos? How do you guys deal with flies near the compost?

I never have any flies in my compost but probably because the majority of it is leaves. I also have the green cone for much of my kitchen waste. It works fantastic.

I live in a suburban environment that is a little more close to the urban side of things and I have a terrace on my apartment, luckily- it isn't huge but a pretty decent size. Anyway, I have a working worm bin on my terrace and I have no problems with smell or flies. I think we can do interesting things in small spaces. I've even seen those rolling composters that don't take up a lot of space. Key with the worm bin is to know the right balance. I always have a supply of torn up paper egg trays, cardboard boxes and that brown Amazon packing paper from when I buy stuff online. That plus some leaves that I collect, I add to the kitchen scraps- no chilies, onions, garlic, meat, dairy or grease. Alternate the browns with the scraps and the worms do the rest. No smell, no rats and ...well a few flies but nothing major.

Sean, you have a great system set up at your apartment. The worms are great workers, aren't they? I don't have a worm casting system on my property but I can see earthworms activities all over my yard. They are very active at this time of year when it is cool and wet. What percent of your organic trash do your worms process?

Summersrhythm, to avoid flies in the compost pile, just cover it with soil. The soil also neutralizes any odors.

Ingrid, I too give meat scraps to the feral cats in my neighborhood. Two come around everyday. Since they come around, I have noticed no more mice activity during winter. This tabby is the boss.

Karen, they are awesome! I pretty much use them to process 60% of my fruit and veg scraps. I even bring home banana peels from the bins at work- I'm weird like that! :D When I'm not stuffing the banana peels into my rose pots for extra potassium (the local worms in there love them!), I chop them up and put in the wormery. I also drain off the liquid from the bottom of the wormery, dilute it and use it to water my plants. Win-win.

I hate to tell you folks, but adding fresh banana peels directly to the garden is not helping like you think it might and is possibly even detracting from healthy growth,

Yes, banana peels are a source of potassium but so are most other kitchen vegetable and fruit wastes. And undecomposed banana peels are a very slow source of any K, as they take a long time - up to 2 years - to degrade/decompose and the K released. And during that time frame, the soil microbes that are busy trying to digest the peels are also using up nitrogen to do so. So you might be depriving your plants of needed N while waiting an excessive amount of time for a small amount of K. And expecting a good decomposition of banana peels (or any other fresh vegetable matter) in any container planting is just wishful thinking.

So feed 'em to your worms (in moderation) or add to a mixed ingredient compost pile. But just burying the raw kitchen waste in the garden (or worse, directly in a planting hole or at the root zone) is of very minimal benefit and could even prove to be detrimental.

My grandmother (a Great Depression survivor) always kept an old blender on the back porch for leftovers. She‘d puree the stuff into a slurry, then dig a small hole and bury it. Her flowers were prolific and gorgeous.

I’ve been doing this recently, since I think it makes it a little easier on the microbes if it’s already broken down. I’m also making worm towers for our compostables out of old 4” drain pipe, with tight-fitting lids. Around here, we need rodent-proof ways to compost, since the rats will dine on anything left in the open. :-)

Anybody else having trouble posting?

No problem posting here.

I heard liama’s poop is the best stuff for roses. You can put it directly in the garden without burning the plants. I’d like to give it a try if I could find any liama farms nearby.

. Hmm. There are quite a few llama Farms well alpaca near me. Does that count?

Actually bunny poop is even better than llama. It tends to be only partially digested alfalfa for the most part and alfalfa has a great effect on roses. It contains triacontanol, a natural growth hormone that encourages basal stemming. And bunny poop is also safe to use fresh from the rabbit - no burning.

My garden never looked as good as it did when I had pet bunnies!!

That's really awesome, Sean! I bet your plants are doing great and love the precious liquid that you feed them when available.

Perma, thanks for the tip! I have an old food processor that I can retrofit for this purpose. It sure makes a lot of sense that the finer the materials the faster they break down.

Vapor, do you think you will try llama manure? Not sure how you would go about getting it. It sounds like a messy and probably unpleasant business.

Gardengal, what do you think of bird guano? Is that as good as bunny poop?

Karen, if it's anything like horse droppings it shouldn't be too bad. I would probably put it into 5 gallon buckets until i need it. That's what I do with my finished compost and it's much easier to store and cart around the yard. I have access to super cheap turkey manure from an organic turkey farm, but I don't know how that will be yet. Maybe not too bad if I get my shovel full from the bottom of the pile.

I put aged alpaca manure in my raised beds. Not very smelly at all. Because of their very clean diet and no antibiotics or worming meds, it was a great choice for us. My raised beds are also wicking beds and house red composting worms, so I wanted really clean manure. The worms loved it.

I’ve tried horse, chicken, rabbit, and cow manure as well. The key is to get aged manure, that’s been sitting a month or so. That’s much less mess and less risk to burning my plants than fresh manures. :-)

Bird guano generally has a higher NPK than other types of animal manures. And it also tends to have a pretty good range of micronutrients due to the high fish diet of the seabirds it is collected from. Bat guano not so much. But both lack the triacontanol that is usually present in bunny poop....and bunny poop is a whole lot easier to get hold of :-)

Llama poop is pretty clean and unoffensive afa manures are concerned. Also called llama 'beans', they are small, round, rather dry and almost odorless nuggets of goodness....similar to bunny poop but larger. Very easy to use. Easy to gather as well if any llama farms in the area. I have used it before I got my pet rabbits.

Vaporvac, you are brave! I don't know if I can scoop turkey poop esp fresh droppings. I had raised chickens and I know how stinky they can be. From what Gardengal wrote about llama droppings, they sound to be in an ideal form for collection - dry and odorless pellets. I hope you can test llama manure on your roses and share your experience on the Forum. Though I am sure the roses and plants will love any manure esp. from an organic source!

Perma, your plants must love to be in your garden! They get all the good stuffs! Your roses probably smell awesome too. I cannot prove this but I find organic fertilizers give the roses a better and longer lasting scent. Or maybe it is just in my heads. :)

Gardengal, thank you very much for explaining the difference and benefits of the various types of manure. I really appreciate it! I got some seabird guano on clearance that I can try on a few roses this year.

Karen, let me go have a gander before calling me brave! LOL! I may get one whiff and hightail it to the Llama farm instead! : )) They did tell me I could get "aged" turkey manure and apparently it's popular as they sell it by the bucket full of a front-loader. I originally thought I'd just add it to my rotting leaves and probably that's what I'll do if I get the llama droppings to put directly on my roses. Gardengal, it s so useful to know about the different manures. Perma's roses are a testament to their goodness. :))

Oops, I meant alpaca, not Liama. I must have been half sleep when I post that. Lol

I chop up the banana stalks from the banana plants once they flower then scatter them around under the roses. They actually decompose pretty fast. Same with the shredded old leaves. Idk how much K they actually have but plants seem to like it.

Poultry manure should not smell if its actually aged properly.

I use our bunny pellets straight on the garden. I also leave some under the rabbit hutches where we vermicompost. Nice rich black dirt down there.

Goat manure can also be used directly on the garden.

I dump our parrot cage droppings in my bigger compost pile as well.

Well I'm grateful for the info but I mus say, those banana peels surely disappear very quickly! And I see lots of earthworms. Right now, I grow everything in tubs and pots and I hwvehave lots of worms. When I uprooted my roses to transfer them from the UK to the Netherlands when I relocated for work, not a trace of any banana peels, or any of the organic matter I'd added-added- only dark compost, a healthy root system and lots of worms.

I bought 2 bags of dried alpaca dung andvI can vouch for the no smell because I shipped it there too!! I even store it indoors people and trust me, I HATE odours. This is the most scentlessscent less dung there is. I have used rabbit from a rabbit farm and it was rank but it's true- didn't burn the plants. BEST crop of crown prince pumpkins I ever had!! Horse manure was well rotted when I used it and got great onions but again, fairly smelly stuff.

What I can tell you the worms go berserk for is fresh seaweed!!!! My word! I mean, cover it when you use it- like with a layer of compost, soil, mulch, etc, as it will become leathery if it dries exposed but after a few months, the location will be teeming with crawlers and your plants will show their appreciation.

Sean, thats so cool about the seaweed! Do you have to rinse it a lot to get the salt off? I can totally get seaweed here.

I wonder if green algae would work too. I get that on my waterlily pots sometimes. I usully just pull it off and throw it lol. Hmmm I might just stick in the flower bed.

I live in a town of 5,000. We have a brush dump. We are required to take shrub waste, wood cuttings, garden and lawn waste to the brush dump. They have equipment and piles that turn it back into rich soil. Others pick up the logs for their fireplace.

That is a great thing. OT, what is the beautiful picture in your avatar?

I think it is called "folk art," a term I picked up from the Antiques Road Show on Iowa Public TV.

My grandmother, born in 1905, painted it. I think she started painting in the 1950s. This was painted on particle board. Her other paintings were oil on canvas.

I was close to her but never saw it before she died. Her canvas oil paintings are all framed and hanging up. We found this in her basement in a box, and my uncle said I could have it. She must not have been happy with it, but, I am. I framed it and hang it in my office.

Grandma and Grandpa were accomplished rose gardeners. It is probably a painting of one of their garden roses from the 1960s.

Exquisite and have such a Feeling. You are lucky to have grandparents that were Rose Garden this! It's clear that's where you get it from. Time I would like to see this as a picture here as it's very small in your avatar. If you have time. Did you learn about roses from your grandparents?

@Sultry, I have heard both arguments for rinsing and not rinsing. My personal view is that it can't hurt and I am sure that there is some benefit to removing the extra salt. What harm in hosing it down or rinsing in a bucket before spreading? :) I havent used green algae before. This article advocates it as good for composting: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/composting/ingredients/pond-scum-garden-fertilizer.htm

Thank you so much for that link. There is something exceptionally charming about it. I love that here name was Myrtle, also.

SJN, back before our red algae problem in FL, I would scavenge seaweed from the beach and put it under the mulch. Never rinsed anything off, because I wanted to retain all the minerals. Algae is great fertilzer too! I used to dump it in the compost bin and the earthworms loved it.

Sean, thank you so much for posting your experience with organics in containers. I’m glad to hear you are successful in your methods. I’ve always tossed a few composting worms into my pots, and then fed them the same way. They rewarded me by renewing the container mix with their castings. Once I realized they were escaping from the pots via the drainage holes, I started putting down a circle of window screening in the bottom. Now they are staying in the pots! :-)

Oops, meant to reply to eden child: I think you’re safe with rabbit manure. I always buried mine under the mulch, so it would stay moist, and never noticed anything scratching around at it. I think if you cover with mulch and water it in good, you’ll be just fine. :-)

edenchild, I'm having a hard time liking that post! I can just imagine unfortunately! LOL! : ((

Can’t like that either, lol! My Sheltie was bad about that, so I feel your pain. Bunny poo will be MUCH easier. :-)

Athough it probably depends a lot on the dog, I have gardened with dogs all my life, usually mutiple dogs, and they never showed any overt interest in the bunny poop. In fact, they had free rein of the enclosed patio where the bunnies resided and could get to it relatively easily if they wanted to......but they never seemed to bother it or hunt it out at all.

America can grow its entire corn crop with the urine we all flush down our toilets. Please view with an open mind!

https://youtu.be/73_f58MHE5U