Clever Ingredients for Your Compost Pile

The winter issue of Organic Gardening Magazine has a Top 10 List of Compostables to add to your compost bin. The list included: aquarium water, out dated kitchen herbs and hair. The Organic Gardening website has more information here.

I get asked a lot about what is compostable and what is not -- So I thought I would post a list of what is acceptable in a compost pile. If you have a few more ideas based on your own composting experience, post them in the comments!

It is okay to compost the following:

• Old cotton, silk or wool (torn up
• Floor sweepings
• cardboard (shredded)
• Leaves, stems and chopped twigs
• Wood ashes
• Pine needles
• Sawdust
• Straw or hay
• Coffee grounds & tea bags
• Seaweed/Kelp if you live near the ocean (Here is more info on that)
• Vegetable scraps
• Grass clippings
• Newspaper, (shredded)
• Alfalfa meal, cottonseed meal
• Aged manure

Stuff to AVOID: Dog or cat droppings, coal ash, diseased plants, meat, bones, fish, fats, dairy, colored paper. Apparently, some colored inks have heavy metals so that is why we are advised to avoid it. Small quantities would probably be okay, but not a lot.

And then there is Trench Composting...

Anyone have other ideas on what to compost?

Comments

[Teresa]

Hmm, how about hair? Can that be composted? When I cut the boys' hair, I just toss it out in the yard for the birds to pick through (for nesting material).

We also toss our egg shells in the compost.

[Theresa Loe/GardenFreshLiving]

YES Teresa!

Hair can be composted (I had it listed in the top paragraph, but forgot to add it to the main list).

And thank you for reminding me about egg shells. They are excellent in the compost pile.

[Beth Ann Daye]

Thank you for this excellent list. Would you tell us more about the black composting bin that you show? It looks interesting, too.

[Theresa Loe/GardenFreshLiving]

Hi Beth Ann-

I didn't take the photo (it is from Istockphoto.com -- A copyright free photo site) BUT, I think the composter is a Deluxe Pyramid composter. I think that because there were several shots of it on the site and that is what it looked like to me. You can get the composter from Gardeners Supply Company. Here is the link:
http://www.gardeners.com/Composters/20706,default,sc.html

The composter I have is the tumbler type. I have had a small one for years, but just bought a HUGE one this week. I will be putting it together this weekend and then I will let you know how it works. I prefer to tumble rather than stir my compost...but that is just me. ;-)

[Dana]

I've read that you can also add pasta cooking water, and any leftover wine or beer.

[Nagen Rai]

your idea seems very creative . but in my way i usualy burn down dry things execpt plastics, glass, rubber. Ashes are another fast compost, which can be put directly to soil. my challange is to make light weight soil for the plant. i think we can compost iron material , it breaks down quickly.

[Theresa Loe/GardenFreshLiving]

Dana-
Leftover wine...who has leftover wine? LOL

I like the pasta cooking water idea!

Nagen-
Good point about the ashes. They are always good to add.

[Dana]

When I read about leftover wine on another site, the full sentence said, " When cleaning up after a party, any wine left in your guests' glasses should go right onto the compost pile." Does that make better sense!!!!

[Theresa Loe/GardenFreshLiving]

Yes Dana...That makes better sense.

I was just kidding about never having any leftover wine. I just meant that if it was the last bit left of a GOOD bottle, I would hate to dump it in the compost! LOL But if it was left over in someone's yucky wine glass, yes...I would dump it.

Thanks!

[Lazy Gardens]

Theresa -
Ashes are not "always good to add". In most of the arid west, the soil is already salic and alkaline. Why make it worse?

Your information about colored inks is a decade or so out of date. Petroleum based inks with metal-based pigments are now far less common than soy-based inks with non-metal pigments. The inks themselves are a bit more expensive, but the overall cost of printing (which includes cleaning the press and disposing of test sheets, cleaning rags, surplus ink, and solvents) is slightly lower.

I compost everything on your AVOID list except coal ash - small quantities of meat scraps, the occasional fuzzy green yogurt, dead quail and lizards, all plants (except cactus) diseased or not, even carnivore poop and pine-based kitty litter. By the time I get around to destroying a pile and sifting it, they are all gone.

[best deal on laptop]

Hair can be composted (I had it listed in the top paragraph, but forgot to add it to the main list).

[nagen rai]

i wonder how hair can be compost. i think we can use cat and dog dropping and deased plant. And the other way to use fat, dairy,meat, meal is to give to animal.

[Compost Tumbler Reviewer]

Here is an alphabetized list of compostable (sp) items:

Alfalfa
Animal fur
Apple cores
Aquarium plants
Artichoke leaves
Bagasse (sugar cane residue)
Banana peels
Bat guano
BBQ'd fish skin
Bee droppings
Beet wastes
Bird cage cleanings
Bird guano
Blood meal
Bone meal
Bread crusts
Brewery wastes
Brown paper bags
Burlap coffee bags
Burned oatmeal (sorry, Mom)
Burned toast
Cardboard cereal boxes (shredded)
Cattail reeds
Chicken manure
Chocolate cookies
Citrus wastes
Clover
Coconut hull fiber
Coffee grounds
Cooked rice
Corncobs (takes a long time to decompose)
Cover crops
Cow manure
Crab shells
Date pits
Dead bees and flies
Dirt from soles of shoes, boots
Dolomite lime
Dried jellyfish
'Dust bunnies' from under the bed
Egg shells
Electric razor trimmings
Elmer's glue
Expired flower arrangements
Feathers
Felt waste
Fingernail and toenail clippings
Fish bones
Fish meal
Fish scraps
Flower petals
Freezer-burned fish
Freezer-burned fruit
Freezer-burned vegetables
Fruit salad
Garden soil
Gin trash (wastes from cotton plants)
Goat manure
Granite dust
Grape wastes
Grapefruit rinds
Grass clippings
Greensand
Greeting card envelopes
Grocery receipts
Guinea pig cage cleanings
Hair clippings from the barber
Harbor mud
Hay
Hog manure
Hoof and horn meal
Hops
Horse hair
Horse manure
Houseplant trimmings
Ivory soap scraps
Jell-o (gelatin)
Kitchen wastes
Kleenex tissues
Leather dust
Leather wallets
Leather watch bands
Leaves
Lees from making wine
Limestone
Lint from behind refrigerator
Lint from clothes dryer
Liquid from canned fruit
Liquid from canned vegetables
Lobster shells
Macaroni and cheese
Matches (paper or wood)
Melted ice cream
Milk (in small amounts)
Molasses residue
Moldy cheese
Moss from last year's hanging baskets
Nut shells
Old beer
Old leather gardening gloves
Old or outdated seeds
Old pasta
Old spices
Old, dried up and faded herbs
Olive pits
Onion skins
Outdated yogurt
Paper napkins
Paper towels
Pea vines
Peanut butter sandwiches
Peanut shells
Peat moss
Pencil shavings
Pet hair
Pickles
Pie crust
Pine needles
Popcorn (unpopped, 'Old Maids,' too)
Post-it notes
Potash rock
Potato peelings
Powdered/ground phosphate rock
Produce trimmings from grocery store
Pumpkin seeds
Q-tips (cotton swabs: cardboard, not plastic sticks)
Quail eggs (OK, I needed a 'Q' word)
Rabbit manure
Rapeseed meal
Rhubarb stems
River mud
Sawdust
Seaweed and kelp
Shredded cardboard
Shredded newspapers
Shrimp shells
Snow
Soggy Cheerios
Soy milk
Spanish moss
Spoiled canned fruits and vegetables
Stale bread
Stale breakfast cereal
Stale potato chips
Starfish (dead ones!)
Straw
Sunday comics
Tea bags (black and herbal)
Tea bags and grounds
Theater tickets
Tobacco wastes
Toenail clippings
Tofu (it's only soybeans, man!)
Tossed salad (now THERE's tossing it!)
Tree bark
Unpaid bills
Vacuum cleaner bag contents
Watermelon rinds
Wedding bouquets
Weeds
Wheat bran
Wheat straw
Wine gone bad (what a waste!)
Winery wastes
Winter rye
Wood ashes
Wood chips
Wooden toothpicks
Wool socks

[Theresa Loe/GardenFreshLiving]

Wow! Thanks so much for the awesome list!!!

This is great.