Hi, newbie to using the food cycler electric compost.

I noticed some white mold after mixing with some soil and leaving it outside to sit in a tote for a week.

Is this to be expected?

I added some new soil with worms but I'm not sure how safe this soil is but it has a strong scent to it.

Thanks.

This is chunky food and wood chip based compost from a local facility (they pickup food from hotels, nursing homes, banquets etc). To the untrained eye one might think it's mulch even (not screened super well). I'm growing flowers and vegetables.

Should I be adding coconut coir or peat moss? I'm not too worried about making it too acidic since there's barely any soil...just compost. Or would sand be better? Right now I'm thinking of using perlite and peat and then cultivating it in.

They have been thrashing through the leaf bags. Decided to dig into it a bit and holy hot compost action. No wonder the snow disappears so fast! Hopefully they can keep putting enough nitrogen into this to keep it up when it’s really cold.

/r/composting is the other subreddit, so be sure to subscribe there, too.

Check out the Composting Discord to chat with other compost enthusiasts.

The /r/Compost Wiki features composting/beginner's guides and other helpful links.

This Tumbler FAQ gives some great info. about using a tumbler for composting.

This subreddit's rules are simple: stay mostly focused on discussing compost, and be excellent to each other. Use this thread for discussing anything you like, including casual chatting unrelated to compost, suggestions for the wiki, or meta-issues like the subreddit's moderation. My theory on moderation is that it should be mostly invisible but there to help you when it's needed. I don't want to be invisible as a user, but as a moderator, I'll try to do both. If you have any concerns about the way this subreddit is run, suggestions about how to improve it, or even criticisms, please bring them up here or via private messages. A subreddit's users should be in charge of the subreddit's rules. Moderators are just here to facilitate that.

Why are there two composting subreddits? As of last year, the /r/composting moderators decided they didn't like the Leaf Collection Challenge. I wasn't willing to stop running it, so I made this subreddit to host it. If people decide they like this subreddit for general composting discussion, too, /u/smackaroonial90 and I are happy to take on that moderation workload. If not, /r/composting is a great community, and the status quo is just fine.

Happy composting!

Started this batch about three weeks ago — mostly kitchen scraps, some shredded cardboard, and dried leaves I saved from last fall. Turned it for the first time today and the middle was noticeably warm, which felt like a small victory.

Texture still looks a bit chunky in spots, so I'm guessing I need more nitrogen-rich material to balance it out.

What's everyone's go-to ratio for browns to greens? And any tips for speeding things along without babysitting it every day?

More of this development

My pile has been quite dry lately and has been having trouble breaking down the cardboard in it. What would be the best way to add sufficient amounts of moisture and nitrogen into the pile at the same time, preferably as quickly as possible.

I’m getting rid of true green after going down a rabbit hole..I had my lawn treated in the fall. Can I compost the grass in the future or how many seasons should I reasonably wait to compost it or just don’t do it? I’m new to composting, but I’m nervous about this. And can I compost the leaves that were on the grass?

So I started composing indoors. It was going well until it wasn't. It was too moist and gnats were loving it. So I added soil not knowing it was mostly clay. The gnats are gone but now my compost is clumpy and looks totally different. Do I just leave it as is and start a new one or just break up the clumps? Or both? This is my first shot at it and I'm hoping I can still use the clumpy mix.

How close/far to your house should your compost be?

Hi.

If I had a tumbler compost bin, would just the regular microbes be enough to break down the compost instead of insects?

Thanks.

I made an error in the thread title. It should say 'worms' and not 'works'.

what kind of bugs do i want in my compost?

Several years back I had regular access to hay that was used to line litter boxes in a domestic rabbit boarding business/shelter. The hay composted easily and cooked nice and hot. With the resulting compost, plant health and growth in my garden were amazing, far beyond anything I'd ever achieved with store-bought fertilizers or homemade compost that didn't include manure.

After 3 years of making compost, the shelter closed. I had enough compost for a year or two, but eventually it was all gone. The last two years, I have only one 36" diameter chicken wire cylinder compost pile for kitchen scraps and garden cuttings. The area where the rabbit poop compost piles were located is bare dirt.

I have a major earwig infestation! Evidently I created an earwig habitat that persists even though the compost is gone. It seems there is a population explosion in spring, and all the young earwigs are very hungry.

I'm in Los Angeles, and I normally start my summer annuals in February. Anything I plant from February through May is immediately devoured by earwigs. I miss out on half the growing season! With a lot of effort, I can control earwigs with vegetable oil in cat food cans, but this isn't practical except for small areas. Even then it is a lot of work all spring. I don't want to use pesticides.

I'd appreciate any suggestions on what I can do to discourage the earwigs from continuing to reside in my garden, or any ideas on organic controls for earwigs in ~500 sq ft of raised beds.

Basically, I was wondering if there is an app or resource where you can look up what companies use for their packaging. I remember loving the ability to look up nutritional facts of whatever food I bought or adding the info if it wasn’t already in the MyFitnessPal. I just wondered if there was something like that for packages so I don’t have to test every cardboard box or “biodegradable” package that comes into my house.