Questions tagged [compost]
Compost is organic material which has undergone decomposition by microorganisms and is used as a soil amendment.
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Can I compost pomace left over from winemaking?
I am trying my hand at making wine, starting out with 13 l of grape must. After primary fermentation, I separated the liquid from the pomace, ending up with some 8 l of liquid and approximately 5 l of ...
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New Compost for Beginner
I want to have a compost pile in our newly bought home. We have a crab apple tree that I could not, unfortunately, harvest this year but had about 50-75 apples drop so far. I've saved these in a pile ...
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Is there anything else besides lack of sunlight or excess nitrogen could cause a plant to become leggy?
I've recently been convinced that my potting soil which contains a lot of homemade compost (made primarily from leaves and fruit waste as the greens) is generally lacking fertiliser. My strawberries, ...
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Does compost made with fruit waste as 'greens' provide enough nitrogen to my plants?
I've made a load of compost which has now fully matured and mixed it with a fair amount of leaf mold and soft sand (I believe sand that is encapsulated in clay). And with this combo made a potting mix ...
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How should I handle needle buildup under my Lawson cypress hedge?
I recently purchased a home with a large Lawson cypress hedge along the neighboring property line. It's about a dozen trees, each 20-30 feet tall and maybe 5-6 foot diameter on average. My neighbor ...
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How much aeration does my compost tea need? How do I provide it?
I've decided to try out active aerated compost tea but I'm unsure of how much aeration to provide, and how. I've seen that I should target 5.5+ ppm oxygen in the liquid, but I have absolutely no ...
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Composting in ground
Ive got a 6*4 space empty behind my garage which doesnt get much sunlight and is secluded from my house. I was wondering if I can use it for composting? can composting affect the garage wall( brick ...
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Can dandelion seeds be killed by drowning them in a bucket of water for 30 days?
I used to put dandelions inside of a composting barrel with lawns clippings, unwanted junk mail (paper), etc...
However, the dandelions survived the composting process.
I would put the dandelions in ...
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Is the moss harvested by jet washing my driveway a good soil?
Every spring when I jet wash my driveway I collect about 80 litres of moss. I have a large garden with many plants that can benefit from any nutrients I throw on them, and I’m thinking whether the ...
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Why is my raised bed soil white under the surface, and why aren't plants growing well?
The soil in my raised bed is white and brown right under the surface. Is this a beneficial fungus? I've added quite a bit of compost to the beds, and they are filled at the bottom with wood and wood ...
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Is there any way to have soil (humus) tested by a lab for toxins and pesticides? [duplicate]
I'm running a leaf compost. It's a pretty big scale. I pick up leafs from all the neighbors chop them with a special purpose tool and then store them for a year in multiple 250 gallon bins. The end ...
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Is roundup and pesticides a concern when composting?
I'm running a leaf compost. It's a pretty big scale. I pick up leafs from all the neighbors chop them with a special purpose tool and then store them for a year in multiple 250 gallon bins. The end ...
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Does Sassafras Sawdust Make A Good "Brown" For Kitchen Composting?
I've read Sassafras is a slow decomposing wood.
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Will my tobacco plant survive indoors under this grow light?
Hi I'm trying to grow tobacco indoors but they have not come up yet. I'm currently on day 2 I'm using a clip on 40w led grow light. Will this be enough for them to grow? I have a link of the model
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Getting rid of fruit flies in the compost bin
A few weeks ago I put up a compost bin in my garden, similar to this one (bottomless and placed directly onto the soil). Soon after I began to use it, I noticed swarms of fruit flies inside.
The first ...
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When a compost is made hot are worms able to migrate to a safe place
If I were to add loads of nitrogenous material to a leafy compost and turn it vigorously, would the worms that weren't initially wounded easily be able to escape to a safe place before being fried by ...
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What's the mineral composition of the bract leaf of a linden tree like for composting
The only leaves available to me at this time of year "July" is the little tongue shaped "bracts" of the Linden or lime tree. The function of these bracts I believe is to protect ...
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Hickory leaves for compost
I've done some trimming on some hickory trees and now I have a bunch of leaves, and branches.
I would like to know if these leaves are good for composting to be used in the garden afterwards. Or is ...
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Grow Light Tobbaco/Chili Peppers
I'm currently growing some bubblegum chill/Long Scotch Bonnet/Jamaican Mushroom Chili under a grow light and some Amber leaf tobbaco as well as some bronze tobbaco. I'm keeping it under the light for ...
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Adding indianmeal moth larvae to compost
I feed mixed grains to birds in a pot. Today, I saw that the grains have turned smelly. I wanted to clean it and I found that there were a lot of small worms in them. A quick google search shows that ...
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What is a good way of getting rid of cypress leaves?
My parents' garden is circled by a massive hedge of cypress. When they bought it 10 years ago, it was completely unkept, and over the course of the years my dad has been trimming the cypresses more ...
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Can you grow anything edible in leaf mold while it's decomposing?
I have hundreds of gallons of leafs that I've mulched with a WORX leaf mulcher. They're in one large bin now. I'm wanting to know before I move this soil to a raised bed, is there anything that you ...
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improve decomposition of wood chip pile
I recently cut down and chipped a row of lilly pills and now have 4 cubic meters of wood chip. Intention is to let it decompose over a couple of years and use it to compost my garden.
I originally ...
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What are these bugs? And how can I restore a healthy compost?
I have a ventilated outdoor compost bin, primarily for food scraps. Until recently, it was a diverse ecosystem that produced good compost. About a month ago, it turned into a mono-culture of these ...
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Should I mulch my neighbors' leaves?
My neighborhood is 40 years old. I'm planning to only compost my backyard trees leaves. My front yard has a huge maple infected with scale and aphids, and has iron deficiency. The aphids suck moisture ...
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What is this disease attacking the leaves of most of my plants?
more than half of my plants (total about 100, from a wide variety of plant families, all on a large balcony) are affected
stems, roots, flowers and fruit show weak growth but no direct sign of the ...
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Composting camphor leaves?
I have been reading at various sites online that it is bad to compost camphor leaves because camphor is mildly allelopathic, specifically, inhibiting seed germination. I also see some other people ...
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Galvanised fire bins and ash?
I bought a new galvanised fire bin and burnt a shed load of garden waste ...just leaves and branches. I want to use the ash in the compost when preparing my raised beds but I'm worried about the ...
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How long do leaves remain "green" for compost material after cutting a tree?
I am planning to clear some trees from my property to make room for a garden. I would like to chip/shred the branches to be used as mulch and compost material. According to the Back to Eden ...
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what happens to uncovered Bokashi waste?
Usually Bokashi waste is advised to be buried.
But we know rats are not attracted to the Bokashi waste. So what is the real reason for burying this waste. What happens if Bokashi waste is not buried?
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Simplest grass seed mulch options: Nothing vs Paper vs Ground Wheat vs Ground Oats
I am growing Kentucky bluegrass on deep topsoil in Minnesota and found that the grass
punches through mostly in spots covered by a thin shredded-paper mulch that I applied
(since I applied the paper ...
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Can anyone identify producer of this rotary sieve?
I am trying to find the producer of this rotary sieve (image found on now defunct hotbin blog). It is mentioned that it is a Belgian, but not more than that.
I'd be also happy with pointers to ...
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Is submerged composting of meat practical?
The list of no-no composting is
Meat
Fish
Poultry
Cheese
Oily foods
Butter
Dairy products
Other animal products
Can I drop them inside water for being composted and yet feel safe from smell and rats?...
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Growing plant in a composting terrarium
I was thinking about throwing compostable rubbish into a jar and growing a plant in it while the jar lead is closed as a terrarium before the composting proceeds—and then leave it as it is. I am not ...
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Why is table salt evil?
In history class they teach the military strategy Scorched Earth: "burn the villages and forests, salt the fields, come back next year to fight a starving enemy".
What is the chemical ...
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Is it safe to use yuca/cassava skins in my compost
A whole bunch of cassava root has made its way into my house and now I have a whole bunch of cassava rinds, about a kilo or so, which I chucked into my compost bin (A trashcan full of holes) to start ...
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Ammonia smell in compost
I've got a pile of hot compost going which consists primarily of:
Straw (about 75% by volume)
Kitchen Scraps
Rabbit Manure
Fall leaves and grass clippings
At the moment it's giving off a pretty ...
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Garden Bin full of decomposed grass... is this compost? Can I apply it to the dead patches of my lawn?
Disclaimer: I am a complete beginner to gardening and have no idea what I'm doing.
I have a garden bin full of decomposed grass from the former property owner.
Is this basically compost? Can I apply ...
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Does composting spearmint contaminate lower temp compost piles?
I heard that you should NEVER compost mint, because it will contaminate where you put the dirt with a lot of new mint plants. Is this the same if you compost spearmint?
Note to the masochist: I want ...
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Does adding large amounts of compost permanently decrease soil drainage?
Composting all my kitchen scraps in buckets ~20L results in:
large amount of compost compared to the amount of soil on the balcony (say 60L compost/year versus 200L of soil)
low temperature ...
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Does nitrogen-rich material become carbon-rich after drying?
So my compost is very nitrogen-rich since my yard is mostly lawn and grass clippings are nitrogen-heavy. I read that hay, on the other hand, is carbon-rich. Since hay is just grass dried in the sun, ...
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Compost won't heat up
I bought a composting bin with thermal-insulated walls, mainly for composting kitchen waste:
However, according to its thermometer, the temperature never rises over ~20 celsius. Youtube videos say ...
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does steam kills weed seeds in compost
I have some compost material from a group of homes, if I wanted to sell them to organic farmers, will steam treating them kill all the weed seeds inside it?
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Does a defunct anthill make good compost?
So, there was this defunct anthill at the summer cottage, that I decided to turn into a vegetable patch. After the fact, I'm wondering how good compost the stuff really was.
So, what sort of compost ...
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My home made compost produces leachate which smells a bit and is mixed with soil underneath, can i use that soil?
I've used a plastic bin with several holes done into it as a composting container. The content are all veggies and fruit leftover.
The compost gives out excess water (called leachate / compost tea). ...
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Are gnats or small flies common around compost piles?
I am new to composting and started my first pile a few weeks ago. I've only put the following things in the pile:
Yard waste - grass clippings from mowing, clippings from my garden, clippings from ...
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New home yellow and patchy lawn from animals
If I thatch and aerate my lawn add some compost and seed will it help prevent this?
should I add tons of seed or tougher grass?
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Compost for beginners
I generally use grass cuttings and vegetable waste. When material is added should it be gently compressed or just left as it had been added
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Compost from wood chips
Last year I had 3 pine trees cut down in my yard due to safety concerns during inclement weather. These trees were healthy and disease free. After grinding the stumps I had piled the remaining wood ...
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Is this growing medium good for compost?
This straw-like growing medium was used to grow dhingri (oyster) mushroom. However, due to climate getting hotter here, the mushroom died, and now I am thinking if this medium is suitable for compost ...
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