The Garden Helper

Helping Gardeners Grow Their Dreams since 1997.

No-dash-here, you've found The Real Garden Helper! Gardening on the Web since 1997

Composting in trashbags

Gardening Reference » Gardening in 2006
« Prev thread: composting advice?| Next thread: composting in winter?? »
Back to Thread index
by njoynit on April 01, 2006 01:33 AM
Can you place leaves,green junk&paper, table scraps and a shovel or two full of soil in bag and a lil water toss it about& tie it up and keep it tossed for about 2 months and make quick compost?

* * * *
 -
 -
I will age ungracefully until I become an old woman in a small garden..doing whatever the Hell I want!

http://community.webshots.com/user/njoynit03
http://community.webshots.com/user/njoynit
http://photos.yahoo.com/njoynit03
by Longy on April 01, 2006 02:11 AM
Sounds more like a tossed salad!
I know it works for making leaf mold. Why not give it a try? I'd leave the kitchen scraps out of it incase it gets a bit manky!

* * * *
 -
The secret is the soil.
by weezie13 on April 01, 2006 02:23 AM
Yep, I aggree with Longy, leave out the kitchen scrap's..
Too easy to have varmits into the bag....

I take my almost finished compost, *if I need the bins* and put it in the bags, and start all new in the bin... and leave the bags to FINISH UP COMPOSTING..

And make sure it's in a DARK GARBAGE BAG...
And kept in THE SUN....

* * * *
Weezie

Don't forget to be kind to strangers. For some who have
done this have entertained angels without realizing it.
- Bible - Hebrews 13:2

 -
 -
 -

http://photobucket.com/albums/y250/weezie13/
by pagarden on April 01, 2006 07:52 AM
well that's an idea! i was thinking i had to wait until it was 100% done to take it out and start a new pile BUT i suppose if i wait till it is just about done like you said and use a black garbage bag i can start on the next pile faster! woohoo!!!! thanks for the idea!
by patches1414 on April 01, 2006 03:57 PM
I started doing that by accident one fall when I had too many leaves I'd mulched up. I thought it was too much brown to add without without having any green stuff. [dunno] I figured when I started cutting grass in the spring I could add it to the bins then; but, by spring, I had leaf mold. Now I do it every fall and the plastic bags work great!

patches [kitty]

* * * *
 -
 -
"Lord, I love you and I need you, come into my heart, and bless me, my family, my home, and my friends, in Jesus' name. Amen!"
by pagarden on April 02, 2006 08:59 AM
so.....forgive the question- but what i sleaf mold and is that a good thing or a bad thing???
by weezie13 on April 02, 2006 11:26 AM
Leaf mold like what happens in the forrest/woods..
The leaves fall down on top of each other and press each layer down, and the bottom layers turns into a compost like consistancy for the roots of the trees/plants to use or utilize as food for themselves...
Thus the cycle of self feeding of trees before the invention of LIQUID FERTILIZERS....
Organic food...

Make sure your leaves are moist.. *and kept in the sunshine and the bagged sealed so more moisture can build up.. and heat up the leaves,
which will start to cook up the leaves and render them down..

It doesn't hurt to throw in a product, something called "RINGER PLUS" *which will help break down the leaves much faster and has an ingredient to start the cooking process so to speak...*

* * * *
Weezie

Don't forget to be kind to strangers. For some who have
done this have entertained angels without realizing it.
- Bible - Hebrews 13:2

 -
 -
 -

http://photobucket.com/albums/y250/weezie13/
by njoynit on April 02, 2006 12:56 PM
hmmm wouldn't fertilizer do the same thing as ringer plus.
My kitchen scraps are mostly coffeegrounds+filter,tea bags,eggs shells,tater peelings& dustpan dumps.I do get a few other veggie/fruits(broccoli,salad stuff,moldy bread)

I need to move my compost pile cause A tree fell in it durring Rita&I'm changeing THAT corner of the yard some as my ducks are in that area&Tex is being a bully so have a'corner' pinned for the 2 babys for now.Its actually inconvient right now as have to go in the duck area&I broke my wheel barrell.

Leaf mold builds good soil.

* * * *
 -
 -
I will age ungracefully until I become an old woman in a small garden..doing whatever the Hell I want!

http://community.webshots.com/user/njoynit03
http://community.webshots.com/user/njoynit
http://photos.yahoo.com/njoynit03
by pagarden on April 03, 2006 04:39 AM
well thanks for the tip. my neighbor raked all her leaves out of her bushes this morning so i asked hubby to get out the mulcher/vaccuum and suck them all up for me and he's putting them in a black plastic bag as we speak! so i suppose they are already mulched i might just add a bit of water- not too much- sela it and let it sit in the garden since it's not tilled or ready for planting yet. sound good???
by PAR_Gardener on April 05, 2006 10:30 AM
Njoy,

I think the garbage bags are ok for the leaf mold since making leaf mold (I'll actually have to try that method.) Making leaf mold isn't about a carbon to nitrogen ratio/hot composting. I would be concerned if you are trying to make "quick" or hot compost in a sealed garbage bag. Hot compost is an aerobic process and requires oxygen. A sealed garbage bag would run out of that before you got good compost.

I think I know where you are going though: the sealed bag keeps the moisture in, black would help keep the temps up, and a half filled bag wouldn't be all that hard to "toss" as Longy had suggested. In the end you'd have anaerobic decomposition, and I'd step back right after you opened the bag. If you waited long enough, it would turn into mush or soup depending on how much moisture was in the materials. It probably would not get hot enough to kill any seeds that were in the bag too.

Over the winter, I keep my kitchen scraps in recycled 40 lb cat litter pales. By spring, I have mush and soup. It's great for starting a new pile, but it smells bad, and I've gotten tomato and melon sprouts if I don't hot compost the material.

* * * *
Composting is more than good for your garden. It's a way of life.

Active Garden Forum

« Prev thread: composting advice?| Next thread: composting in winter?? »
Back to Thread index


Search The Garden Helper: