startide rising
Turning the compost bins
Step 4: Add some "green" or "immature" material to the new bin. Here you see some of the kitchen scraps I mentioned earlier. My family helps collect the scraps between turnings, and I either add them in between by burying them in the top of the pile or I let them sit in bags and rot a little before adding them like this. The rotting gets them ready for the worms which don't really process any of the scraps until they are rotted.
This kind of material adds nitrogen to the compost pile. Ideally you want to have a 50/50 mix of nitrogen and carbon in the compost pile. Some ingredients have a higher N/C ratio than others, so you should consider what you are putting into the compost bin. For example, using lots of sawdust in a pile will increase the carbon ratio as sawdust has more concentrated carbon than say, leaves. Also, when you harvest something for the pile matters. Corn stalks that have not dried out and turned brown will have more nitrogen than carbon, so they would be considered a "green" material instead of a "brown" material. It really isn't that complicated, and I think it will mostly work out in the end if you just add consistent amounts of each type of material.
Turning the compost bins
Step 4: Add some "green" or "immature" material to the new bin. Here you see some of the kitchen scraps I mentioned earlier. My family helps collect the scraps between turnings, and I either add them in between by burying them in the top of the pile or I let them sit in bags and rot a little before adding them like this. The rotting gets them ready for the worms which don't really process any of the scraps until they are rotted.
This kind of material adds nitrogen to the compost pile. Ideally you want to have a 50/50 mix of nitrogen and carbon in the compost pile. Some ingredients have a higher N/C ratio than others, so you should consider what you are putting into the compost bin. For example, using lots of sawdust in a pile will increase the carbon ratio as sawdust has more concentrated carbon than say, leaves. Also, when you harvest something for the pile matters. Corn stalks that have not dried out and turned brown will have more nitrogen than carbon, so they would be considered a "green" material instead of a "brown" material. It really isn't that complicated, and I think it will mostly work out in the end if you just add consistent amounts of each type of material.