The Greens and Browns of Your Compost
Knowing how various browns and greens behave in your compost can make all the difference in your garden.
Photo by Pixabay/Ben_Kerck
(Roost Books, 2015) by Rebecca Louie is a comprehensive and complete guide to creating and using your own compost in a small living space. Louie helps you find ways to work around a tiny space, a busy schedule, and hectic lifestyle to achieve your composting goals. In this excerpt, she discusses the green and browns materials that are good and bad for composting.
Get to know how different browns and greens behave in your system and curate compost ingredients to optimize moisture levels, troubleshoot problems, and affect the rate of decomposition.
Knowing the quirks of individual items is particularly helpful if your compost system has limited space or is in proximity of wary or sensitive neighbors.
Easy Items That Break Down Quickly
Greens:
• Grass clippings
• Salad greens
• Banana + peels
• Coffee grounds and filters
• Tea bags, with staples removed
• Apple cores
• Strawberry tops
• Peeled fruit (except citrus) and vegetable skins (carrot, apple, potato, etc.)
Browns:
• Dry autumn leaves
• Non-waxy paper, including newspaper
• Non-waxy cardboard boxes
• Cardboard egg cartons and beverage trays
• Paper towel, toilet paper, and wrapping paper rolls
• Sawdust from untreated wood
• Coffee chaff
• Non-oily bread, pasta, and grain
• Dried flowers
Very Wet Greens:
• Watermelon + rinds
• Cantaloupe + rinds
• Honeydew + rinds
• Celery
• Tomatoes
• Cucumbers
• Plums
Items That Are Slow to Decompose
Greens:
• Big pits (peach, plum, avocado, etc.)
• Avocado skin
• Carrots (whole or chunked)
• Corncobs
Browns:
• Sticks, twigs, and logs
• Pine needles and cones
• Wooden chopsticks and stirrers
Greens with Natural Odor
• Garlic
• Onion
• Cabbage
Tricky Greens That Require Special Handling
• Manure
• Citrus rinds (a no-no in vermicomposting)
• Meat
• Bones
• Dairy
• Cooked food
• Oily food
• Weeds
Never Evers
• Diseased plants and flowers
• Poisonous plants such as poison ivy
• Materials exposed to toxic chemicals
• Cat manure and litter