Compost bin

Ok so I have a large compost bin, so what to put in it?

I know you can put in vegetable peelings, shredded paper, egg boxes, tea bags, nut shells....

But I read about plate scrapings. Is this cooked food??
How about fruit skin, banana skins, apple core?
Pips and seeds from fruit & veg?

Thanks

 

All of that except meat

Try to make layers, i.e. kitchen scraps followed by crumpled cardboard/paper, to not only balance out the wet & dry stuff, but also the Nitrogen/Carbon ratio

 

This might be useful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compost

 

I put all sorts in mine, in no particular order. Ideally its as Zigs said, but all I do is have a bucket in the kitchen, into which goes egg shells, tea bags, fruits and veg peelings, paper and cardboard (ripped up small, and not in huge quantities), in fact just about anything that decomposes. But not meat.

When the bucket is full, or threatening to get smelly, I empty it into my compost bin outside. That same compost bin also gets all my prunings out of the garden, but not really woody stuff (that takes far to long to go away).

My compost bin is actually my green waste wheelie bin, which never, ever goes out for the bin men. I've drilled a load of 12mm holes in it for drainage and ventilation. It takes over a year to fill, because in summer stuff decays faster than I can add stuff.

The resulting 'compost' is a long way from perfect, and many would say its not much good, but what I do is dig it into the last remaining heavy clay bit of my garden, where it really helps to add structure, and rots down the rest of the way in the soil.

When I empty it, I pour it all out, much to my wife's annoyance, put the top half back in (which isn't decomposed enough) and dig the bottom stuff into the ground.

I don't really do it for its horticultural value, as its not that great (except for adding structure to the clay), but it saves the binners having to take it (so better for the environment in theory - one less stop for the great big heavy diesel lorry), its more convenient, one less bin to put out, and it improves the ground.

If you do it properly, with layers like Zigs says, you'll get better compost, but maybe its a bit more effort.

 

Here's one that was too wet without cardboard, the dung flies loved it

 

I've just set up my compost bin, been adding tea bags and fruit and vegetables peelings.
And the paper out of the shredder. And junk mail

 

That's what mine comes out like @Zigs, but it works fine dug into the clay.

 

I've found that woody prunings are more useful at holding the structure of the heap together creating better air pockets better than cardboard which breaks down more quickly. I sift my compost bin once a month in the summer (as I've been using it for potting plants on recently) and all the woody stems go back into the compost bin. This saves me the trouble of having to "reactivate" it as I would have to when I emptied it out, as all the organisms are still clung onto the woody stuff. I then create a layer of this material and a layer of the stuff I have added recently to the bin and let it cook for another month.

Plus my other half won't hand me over his urine (and am too tight to go out and buy a shop bought activator).

 

What's the matter with yours? Too shy?

 

You could try to make him do it, but that would be a bit mean. In fact some might say, you'd be taking the pee out of him.

 

One thing I've discovered....do not dig up a chive patch and by mistake put it in your compost bin and spread the compost around your borders!!