FALL IS A GREAT TIME TO BEGIN COMPOSTING

Source(s):  Gary R Peiffer

Everything of an organic nature will compost, but not everything belongs in your home compost pile.

The following is a list of compostable materials: Food Other Apples and apple peels Cucumbers Algae (pond weeds) Leather waste and dust Articohoke leaves Egg shells (crushed) Apple pomace (cider press waste) Leaf mold Asparagus bottoms Grapes Blood meal Leaves Bananas and peels Grapefruit Bone meal Muck (marsh and swamp mud) Beans Lettuce Corn stalks Peanut hulls Beet tops Lemons Cotton rags Peat moss Berries Melons Feathers Pine needles (chopped) Bread Onions Felt waste Rope Broccoli stalks Oats Flowers Sawdust Brussel Sprouts Pears Garden wastes (trimmings, plant remains) Seaweed Buckwheat hulls Pineapple Grape plant waste Soil Cabbage stalks and outer leaves Potatos Granite dust Straw Carrot tops and scrapings Pumpkins Grass String Celery tops Squashes Hair Weeds Citrus rinds Tea leaves and bags Hay Wood ash Coffee grounds (and filters) Turnips Hops, spent Wool rags Corn cobs (chopped Zucchini  

 

Do not compost meats, fats and dairy products including: Butter Lard Salad dressing

Bones

Mayonnaise Sour cream Cheese Meat scraps Vegetable oil Chicken Milk Yogurt Fish scraps Peanut Butter  

 

Common Organic Wastes You Can Compost (from around the community) Coffee wastes - every restaurant has coffee grounds. Ask if they will save their grounds for you to pick up. Leaves - you'll find these bagged and waiting at neighbor's curbside. Food scraps - minus meat, bones, dairy or fatty foods. Ask your greengrocer or supermarket for their wastes. Sawdust - don't use any kind of treated lumber as it may contain toxic material. Grass Clippings - are plentiful; landscapers are always trying to get rid of these. Wood chips - a tree service may deliver a load if you are willing to take a large uantity. Use first on garden paths, then compost it after the initial decay. Hair - very high in nitrogen

 

 

Non-Compostable Organic Materials Everything of an organic nature will compost, but not everything belongs in your home compost pile. Some materials that create problems include: Certain grasses with a rhizomatous root system, such as crabgrass. These may not be killed by the heat of decomposition and can choke out other plants when compost is used in the garden. Plants infected with a disease or a severe insect attack where eggs could be preserved or where the insects themselves could survive in spite of the compost pile's heat (examples are apple scab, aphids, tent caterpillars....). Cat and dog manures, which can contain pathogens. These pathogens are not always killed in the heat of the compost pile. Plants which take too long to break down, such as rhododendron and English Laurel leaves.

 

Several types of compost bins can be seen at the Fernbank Science Center Compost Garden, 186 Heaton Park Drive, Atlanta, GA 30307. For further information please call UGA/COBB COUNTY COOPERATIVE EXTENSION at 770-528-4070.

Resource(s): Composting and MulchingCenter Publication Number:  20