What You Can (and Can’t) add to your Compost

For someone who has a backyard, it is crucial to maintain your yard. Trees, flowers, and vegetables should be maintained by adding fertilizer in them to make them healthier. Composting is one excellent choice of method to add to your plants. Not only is it a free fertilizer, but it can also an avenue for you to reduce waste, close the nutrient cycle, and prevent air pollution. With the right ingredients, your compost will become beneficial to your plants since it will provide nutrients for them, making it flourishing and healthy.

Pretty sure you already know the basics of composts: vegetable and fruit peelings, but will that be all? Check this out to see a list of things you should put on your compost heap, and also, a list of things you shouldn’t.

Things you should add to your compost

Vegetables

Vegetables are the most common compost there is. You can throw fresh (though you may rather eat it), frozen, cooked, and molded vegetables in your compost heap. You can have a separate bin for them right outside the kitchen door. 

Coffee bags (made from Burlap sacks)

Burlap is a loosely-woven sack made from natural fibers, which you can make into compost. However, it might take a while before it breaks down on your compost heap. You can also use it as mulch for your other plants or as a cover to your heap to rot quickly.

Old spices

We all have that cupboard filled with lots of spices. If we’re right, there may have been a few spices there which you used once or twice on a dish a while ago. These might have been sitting down on your cupboard for a long time already. Add it to your compost since spices come from natural resources (like nuts and plants); more likely, they will also decompose.

Other things you can add in your compost heap are:

1. Eggshells
2. Coffee filters
3. Leaves
4. Loose-leaf tea
5. Paper napkins/towels
6. Paper bags
7. Cooked pasta
8. Cooked rice
9. Staled bread, pitas or tortillas
10. Stale tortilla chips of potato chips

Things you SHOULDN’T add on your compost

You can add many things in your kitchen to your compost (basically anything that had life), but not all of it can be put on your compost heap. Here are some things you should steer clear when preparing your compost.

Related Readings:

Are Fallen Leaves Bad For My Lawn?

Preparing Your Lawn For Spring

Cat and Dog poop

While poop is “organic,” it is not advised to put cat and dog poop on your compost because it usually contains microorganisms and parasites. However, horse, cow, chicken, and rabbit manure can be used as compost.

Fish and meat products

Fish and meat will inevitably decompose since they are also organic. Though they can also nourish your plants because it is filled with nutrients, you don’t want to attract pests like rats, mice, foxes, or cats to ransack your lawn. The stink from these scraps will not only lure animals to your garden, but it can also annoy your neighbors.

Treated wood

Sawdust from natural, untreated woods can be a perfect addition to your heap. Treated wood, however, is not a good mixture for your compost. If the wood has gone to pressure treatment, varnish, stain, or paint, we do not advise you to include it in. Compounds from these woods don’t break down during the composting process. Plus, it can negatively affect the health of your plants.

Other things you should not add are:

1. Citrus peels and onions
2. Glossy or coated paper
3. Sticky labels (on fruit and vegetables)
4. Coal fire ash
5. Milk and baked goods
6. Oils and greasy food
7. Large branches
8. Synthetic fertilizer
9. Weeds
10. Highly acidic foods

If you are interested in making your own compost at home and you need the right equipment, consider FCMP Outdoor Tumbler Composter, Color Black.