I have been a quiet reader so far, but I have decided to say something. I can see so much misconception and even prejudice from so many growers on this forum it is hard for me to believe. I have always believed that ganja smokers would be more open minded and more connected to reality(nature). Especially those who have decided to take a step further and grow their own.
I have been composting everything and using it in my gardens for quite some years now. It's quite easy, actually. You don't have to do almost anything, nature has figured it all out for you already. All one has to do is bring everything in one pile and cover it nicely. After that it's use of common sense. So, roll one up, sit back, start your thinking gear and it will all come back to you. I'll try and help you remember it all by running through some basics:
Remember the circle of life. The grass grows a seed, the bird eats the seed, the eagle eats the bird and the eagle shits the bird (the eagle also dies eventually from eating too much meat), the saprophytes (bacteria, protozoa, fungi, worms, etc.) eat the shit and the dead bird, and then they shit some shit that plants can eat and make some new seeds, so new birds can eat them and get eaten by other life. It's a circle, remember? And those saprophytes play as an important role as everyone.
EVERYTHING breaks down, sooner or later. Mama Nature has all kinds of sorts of different life forms that break down dead stuff and render it food for plants. Most of the job is done by microorganisms. Even the earthworms them selves actually harbor decomposing organisms in their bellies and rely on them to decompose the food for them, so they can take what they need and leave the rest through the back door. Btw, those castings are not only rich in nutrients ready for plant uptake, they are also miraculously packed with rooting and grow hormones, vitamins and what not to make the plants happier and hungrier for more. I've never used rooting hormone on my cuttings (not even a willow tea), since I know my compost is full of hormones, and I guess my clones know that too.
So what can one compost. One should not ask what to compost, but what NOT to compost. Use your common sense:
If you know it wouldn't break down, don't put it in the pile. Like plastic, nylon, concrete, glass, stone, etc. They will just sit there, pretty much unchanged. If you don't know whether it will break down or not, go ahead and give it a shot. See what comes out in two years.
If it's toxic, don't put it in. A word of note here though: many things will break down and lose their toxicity in the compost pile, becoming ready for soil application, so as you advance you may include here some small amounts of your leftover nute liquids and granules, pesticides, motor oils, old paints, etc, etc...
I guess that's about it. I can't think of what else NOT to put in the pile.
Everything else is a go. Weed, weeds, grass, straw, leaves, ALL kitchen scraps (fruit and veggie peals, meat leftovers, bones, oils, grease, napkins, etc.), even dead animals (the right size for the pile, of course) and most important: ALL kinds of shit. A good compost, needs a good ratio of nutrients, mostly a good ratio of Carbon and Nitrogen. Science says around 20-30 Carbon parts to 1 part Nitrogen. Now plants are high in carbon, and as we eat them in the chain of life, we use up much of that carbon and some nitrogen, so our excrement as we go from herbivores to carnivores are richer and richer in Nitrogen. So, if the ratio is good, the compost is big enough, wet enough and has enough air, thermophilic bacteria will move in (they will find their way in there, don't worry about inoculating anything, the air you breathe is full of inoculating spores of what not) and start eating and multiplying like crazy, eating almost EVERYTHING they find, they are quite amazing. For example, no bones will be left in the compost after they've been there. Most branches will be totally decayed, seed hulls from nuts for example, etc, etc. It's unbelievable. And not only will they eat everything, they will also produce quite a lot of heat, there for killing all pathogen and seeds of unwanted lifeforms (like weeds).
If the ratio is not good, it's one of two things.
Too much carbon will not heat up the compost, or will heat it up for only a short time. That is what happens with compost comprised solely on plant material. Grasses and other "greens" do have quite some nitrogen in them (we fed them quite some Nitro, didn't we?), but not enough to harbor the thermophilic process all the way through. So the pile will heat up for a while if at all, and "burn out". Still, earthworms and other animals and fungi and bacteria can and will move in, and they finish the process anyway. But they can't eat big and rough stuff, fats and oils are not welcome too much, etc, etc, and that's why the composting people that don go "all the way" and include the REAL "browns" in their compost, have to exclude all sorts of other stuff as well. But that's fine. It sure as hell beats buying bat guano (not composted and therefore unavailable to plants, before it is broken down by the bacteria that live in the potting soil, so you have to feed it slowly and diluted or burn the plant - right?), bat guano that was bought from a multinational trillion dollar company, that mines it from a bat cave somewhere in the Philippines, disrupting the bats, all surrounding life (by taking away a nutrient that's always been building up there), and most likely the surrounding human population by forcing them out of the plot and probably into mining the blind chick's shit.
Too much nitrogen on the other hand, will have to escape somewhere, so it will evaporate as ammonia, leaving a smell that shows a bad pile of crap. That's why horses' manure heats up pretty well if piled up in a pile, and stays hot for a long time. It has pretty much a perfect C:N ratio. Sheep's and cow's too, but they benefit some extra carbons in the pile, so farmers usually mix cow/sheep manure with some straw or hay and it heats up just fine, and doesn't smell that much. (more on smell later) The carnivores poops are even richer in N, since they are even poorer with carbon. So they need even more carbs in the compost pile.
So how does one achieve a good C:N ratio? Easy! By composting ALL the organic wastes one produces. If you include your shit and pee in your compost with everything else, in two years you will have the most wonderful, forest soil smelling, dark gold that you just love diging your hands into. The first year you just pile up everything, adding up as you go, and it heats up. The second year it sits cool, all packed with earthworms and other midgets. After that, it's pure black gold. (The REAL black gold, not the Earths' lubricant we're pumping out of her so intensely.)
Water: the pile needs to be wet, but not dump (saturated and therefore left without oxygen), nor dry. Usually leaving it out to the elements, with occasional watering when it's too dry and some covering (tarp, nylon, roof?) when it's too rainy, does it.
Air: our thermophilic bacteria love oxygen. That's why almost everyone will tell you that you have to toss and turn that pile, so it has enough air for aerobic breakdown. But not everyone. Some will share with you that you can aerate the pile by making it fluffy in the first place. Like put the grasses, small branches, weeds, etc UNCHOPPED, so they will make air pockets. And believe me, those pockets will do. For the observant, yes, you don't have to chop anything - a free bonus from mama nature if you decide to go the easy way and not turn the pile.
Cover: last but not least. If you want to have a good looking, non-stinky compost pile, the trick is in the cover. If you leave the kitchen scraps out in the open, mother nature will send flies, molds and the sort to decompose the scraps. They will do the job alright, but you will not enjoy the looks and the smells of it. But if you cover the pile with a nice layer of organic material (like sawdust, grass clipings, hey, straw, leaves, whatever you can find) there will be no flies, no molds, no odors, and a nice looking pile of composting material.
So that's it. Simple. You can compost all your food scraps and backyard plant material, and get a fair compost. You can add worms to it, or you can just leave it in the open, and worms will move in. And You will never have to buy another bag of dirt again. You don't need those fancy composting bins and barrels either, you can just pick a spot in you back yard and build a pile there. Or you can fence it with some wood.
But, if you are really brave, and you wish to give your mama some love back by stopping the waste of a valuable resource and stop polluting your children's drinking water, you can try and add your pee n' poo where it belongs: in the compost and then back in the soil. Not in the water where it pollutes it with too much organic matter and fecal pathogens.
And for the bold ones that like to read, a most excellent reading on composting: "The Humanure Handbook" by Joe Jenkins. It can be downloaded here:
http://weblife.org/humanure/default.html
That's it...
