I have ALOT ( garbage bags and bags) of clean shredded copy paper from my office.
I would like to take them and compost them but I don’t have much in the way of greens (I think those provide the nitrogen…no?).
Is there anything else ( even chemical) that I can use can replace the green stuff?
So if you had a 5’x5’x5’ pile of shredded copy paper … how would you compost it?
Mike
You can use urea as nitrogen source and water… You may also need some twigs to create air pockets, paper will be very dense pile when you wet it. Though I am not sure how copy paper decomposes… I would suggest take a bucket full first and see if it would decompose that way. Otherwise you will end up with 5X5X5 pile of junk in your yard.
I wouldn’t compost it, unless I knew what chemicals were used to make the copy paper particularly if it was going to be used where food was being grown.
Many people use shredded paper as the basis for worm composting. I’ve started worm bins with a shovel of dirt from my yard (the worms need the grit for good digestion) and then just a ton of shredded news paper, plus veggie kitchen scraps (including anything I forget in the fridge that gets too old). Works great. Instead of the news paper, some folks use shredded junk mail and just pick out the plastic bits after it is done. Worm castings are great to add to any seed starting mix, top dress trees, etc.
You could also just compost in place if you wanted to. Basically just pull back some wood chips around trees or other plants, throw in the shredded paper and put the chips back on top. Add some Urea or kitchen scrapes to kick things off.
I gather bags and bags of raked leaves (like paper, considered a ‘brown’). I could compost them but I save them up for summer when there is so much green and not enough brown (carbon-based stuff) for the compost pile. There are maybe 12 bags full of leaves waiting for the abundant ‘green’ of summer and fall. Too much green makes compost sticky, so in years past I used hand-shredded newspaper as a ‘brown’ in summer.
I have a coffee shop next door.
I can get a 5 gallon bucket of Coffee grounds every two days. What do grounds count as? I know they are mentioned in reference to making worm castings.
I wonder if I make a pile of paper, coffee grounds some partially composted wood chips and worms… Will they stay in the pile?
I can easily make a compost pile and worm pile
Mike
Mike
Coffee grounds will work great as a N source. This will be a great recipe. Just add a few worms. Just wet the layers lightly.
They may if they like the what they find there. I’ve found that doing something similar with wood chips and grass clippings layered lead to worms finding it and making great castings. It just takes some time. If you do something inside with a worm bin you can add red wigglers which are about the best for composting inside. But outside you can add them or just build it and let them come if you have a good worm population in the area.
Coffee grounds work very well, although I prefer to add some other scraps if I have them as well. Worms come a running for banana peals and really seem to love watermelon rinds. Just be careful if it is a contained bin, since adding to much of the rinds gets things too wet, but outside it is no problem.
Clean shredded copy paper is best turned into Mushroom compost. This can get heavy quick so start small.
Get a 2 16 qt sterilte container
with a 2-gal bucket and lid from home depot.
Fill the 16 qt container half way with warm water. If you have a huge pot like a pressure canner or water bath canner add a bottle or two of hydrogen peroxide and move on to the next step. now dip but do not soak the paper in water. The paper should be moist but not water logged. Place half pint jars in the canner and fill the canner and jars with water place a trivet platform on the jars and fill the canner with the moist paper. Steam 30 minutes with the lid on. Let cool down.
If you used peroxide put the lid on the second container and give it some time to work.
The paper should be such that if you squeeze it into a ball you will not be able to draw much moisture out. Pack that paper into the 2galon bucket and put 1.5" chunks of mushroom spawn from the kit. Chunks are important not all mushrooms take to there spawn being broken up. Fill the bucket up and pack it tight. Drill a dozen 3/8" airholes in the lid and fill them with cotton and attach the lid. Place the bucket in a warm dark place for 2 weeks.
When you take the lid off in 2-3 weeks it should be a solid mass of white mycelium. put the lid back on.
Drill several wholes 1/2" holes into the body of the bucket. soak the bucket in previously boiled and cooled water place the bucket in the fridge for a day or 2.
place the bucket to a cool to warm spot that gets plenty airflow, and prepare for fruiting. After harvesting repeat the soaking and fridge steps. you should get at least 2-3 harvest.
Use some of the mycillium for the next batch the reset you can use as compost.
Perfect! You are go for making some good compost using the layer and let alone method. Worms will leave if it gets too hot, which you want for faster decomposition, esp if you include food. Food can draw undesirables.
The worm business sounds promising given your situation.
I use urea and Ammonium Sulfate on wood chips I get at the transfer station. I live in the burbs so manure is out of the question. Not a lot of lawns, either. So a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.
Takes about 7-8 pounds of urea to fire up a standard bed full size pickup truck load of chips.
The absolute mountains of chips are gone and only modest amounts are available now. A UC Davis guy set up a commercial operation and now I see he has some slickly advertised competition.
You can make a worm bin on the cheap if you want to go a more permanent route. I bought a couple of large bins on sale from HD, had a bunch of worms that came in a bag of compost/manure, added a little garden soil, some kitchen scraps, and I’m off!
Vermicomposting or worm composting is different than conventional composting. Primarily with worms, the pile can’t get up to the 140-160F of a conventional pile or the worms leave (if on the ground) or die (if in a container). With worms, one typically is adding new food and compost at a slower rate, matching what the worms can eat, rather than mixing up a big pile of stuff, watering, turning it and watching it heat up.
There are quite a few articles and plans online for worm composting bins. Including ones with “rope” bottoms so that the finished compost can drop out the bottom without disturbing the worms/pile.