Notes on Compost

‘GREENS’
● Fruit scraps (including citrus peel)
● Vegetable peelings
● Tea bags
● Old flowers
● Spent bedding plants
● Rhubarb leaves
● Comfrey leaves
● Nettles
● Young annual weeds (e.g. chickweed and speedwell)
● Pond algae and seaweed (in moderation)
● Coffee grounds and filter paper
● Grass cuttings
● Manure (horse, cow, pig, sheep, goat, chicken, rabbit – not too much as could become too wet)

Human urine is a very good activator!

‘BROWNS’
● Tissues, paper towels and napkins (unless they have been in contact with
meat or disease)
● Tumble dryer lint (from natural fibre clothes)
● Old natural fibre clothes (e.g. woolly jumpers or cotton t-shirts
– make sure you cut them into small pieces)
● Vacuum bag contents(as long as you have natural fibre carpets)
● Garden prunings
● Toilet and kitchen roll tubes,
● Woody clippings
● Dry leaves, twigs and hedge clippings
● Human and pet hair (slow to break down)
● Cotton threads/String(made from natural fibres)
● Feathers
● Wool
● Newspaper(scrunched up)
● Shredded confidential documents
● Straw and hay
● Vegetarian pet bedding
● Ashes from wood,paper, or lumpwood charcoal
● Sawdust and wood chippings
● Corn cobs and stalks
● Cereal boxes
● Corrugated cardboard packaging (scrunched up in small amounts)
● Pine needles and cones (although slow to compost don’t put too much in)
● Egg shells (but crush them first to speed up composting)
● Egg boxes (good as they trap air)

(taken from this post from the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-Op)

Am I Too Weird Now?

At my new apartment, I had left a pile of compost materials in a plastic dish on the counter.

One roommate complains about the garbage everywhere, and the other says that she threw it out "for me".

What if I just wanted my compost?

How do I go about trying to keep plastic to a minimum, recycling to a maximum, and eco-friendly cleaners?

They buy veggie burgers and "Women's Protein Powder". ... what? Since when do women have different protein needs than men? Last I checked, protein was protein to a human body. Egads.

I am feeling very very leery about the house meeting we're having on Sunday. I have the feeling that I'm in a very small minority here.

Reading these posts every day, my last household, my mother's attitude, and my forgiving fiance have allowed me the luxury of feeling like this was NORMAL. I forgot that we were more "revolutionaries". :-P

Kathy Harrison over at the Just In Case Book Blog had a post recently (although I can't find it) about how she's so glad that she has the internet community to make up for the lack of one in real life. I was like "oh so true" but it clearly hadn't been up until now.

Note to self: tone down doom light for easily spooked roommates.


EDIT: I guess it was over at Retro Housewife Goes Green and not the Just In Case Book Blog.

Stuff to Save

Posts on Composting:

How and Why I Got Started With Organic on the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-Op
Compost: Good For Us and the Planet on the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-Op
Composting on the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-Op

Vermont Castings stove

Oatmeal Fudge Bars that Mister wants me to make

Posts Relating to Foraging:

Some foraging stuff from PeakSurvival's blog
Processing Acorns from Prodigal Gardens
Seasonal findings from Prodigal Gardens
Pictures of plants
Handmaiden's Kitchen

Chickens 101

Ginger Soda from The Just In Case Book Blog