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Comment by laborcontract | Hacker News Reader

Composting is one of the most unexpectedly satisfying things to do. Don’t even need to throw food in it (vermin bait). Just cut greens and carbon. As a bonus you can pee on it. You can also go to Starbucks and ask for their used coffee grounds, which they’ll happily prepare for you. Couple weeks and you have earthworms everywhere. Several more weeks and all those damn boxes from Amazon are nowhere to be found.

The bonus is that you start to go down a regenerative rabbit hole that’ll turn you into a mycorrhizal fungi maximalist.

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While I welcome your enthusiasm I would urge anyone not to contaminate your soil with toxin laden printed paper (or its even toxin denser derivative of recycled packaging). At least if you're going to grow food on it you have a responsibility for the mouths fed with it.

With regards to the article: It's inconsistencies like these shown in the article, where there's a detailed list of sciency arguements about why no tilling makes sense but then the same Harvard PhD continues to cover her whole garden with toxic old newspapers which loses me.

Could be that I'm biased since I inherited a garden from similar lassez-fair style "gardeners" and had 20 year old trees collapsing without any storm due to their pest-infestation...

Might have been true 20 years ago. There are very few toxicities in newsprint that rise above natural levels in soil within a very short half life.

https://www.alliumfields.org/2015/05/is-newspaper-in-compost... has data for you and I believe there is a soil health group at Cornell that published alot of studies.

The article simply handwaves the problem of pcb away and there’s not even talk about PFAS.

Here’s an article by a PhD in Horticulture: https://gardenprofessors.com/cardboard-does-not-belong-on-yo...

You can throw food in covered worm bins, or you can bury the food in your compost pile and have a farm cat that likes to sleep near the bin. Both work pretty well.

Not worth the risk, imo. The second order headache from that is having neighbors complain about your pile.

I think the best way to handle foods is to let it ferment Bokashi style, and then dump everything into the compost. It speeds up the decomposition without attracting rats. I also like to make weed tea with some EM, molasses, and water and dump that into the compost after a couple weeks.

It’s not beautiful, but it’s how the heap loves it.

My god, it’s all so satisfying. I once started a pile on top of a 3 ft stash of brush that was being an eyesore for three years, seeded with a heap of ugly smelly weeds and some earthworms. I only composted over a third of the brush to A/B test the results and within 8 months you could see a bald spot where the brush dissolved under the compost.

You’re doing something wrong if your worm bin or compost pile starts to smell enough for your neighbors to notice. (namely, you probably need more carbon to cover it with for the amount of stanky material that is present, or it is anaerobic, or too wet, or too dry.)

I live in a duplex with a backyard and have 100s of gallons of worm bin that don’t bother anyone’s noses.

Ah, I meant you don’t want neighbors complaining about rats coming around because of your pile. The weed tea stuff does stink. Some people say aerate but it’s tolerable and quickly gets buried.

I regret not getting a tumbler for my compost, turning it in a 5x5x5 bin in a small backyard is challenging. I think that’s also why my compost loses activity in the colder months. I have a supplementary kitchen-sized heated tumbler compost bin on my deck for winter which does a great job but too small.

Ow, reading your comment is making my back hurt. Yes. I feel your pain. That said, I don’t use a bin. I’ve succumbed to the lazy boy way of handling my compost, which is to make a haphazard pile and then use a rake to mix it up by toppling it and rolling it. It’s made my life a ton easier, back doesn’t hurt anymore, and my results are great.

I do this for my bigger pile, for my small compost bin I love the corkscrew method.

https://www.amazon.com/Tumbleweed-Aerator-Spiral-composting-...

I have a tumbler, but for 2 years in a row the composting just wouldn't start. I added the starter pellets to it, and would maintain it just like in previous uses of tumblers. When I'd empty it, it was just stored cut grass.

I've now just started a pile in the spot next to the tumbler where I emptied it. The pile is amazing. I just turn it with a shovel and you can see the progress. I stopped using the tumbler all together. I only use the trimming from yard work and add plant based leftovers from the kitchen, and it breaks things down much faster than I was expecting. It doesn't have a rodent problem. It doesn't stink. In fact, quite the opposite. I enjoy the smell of fresh turned up soil instead the expected rotting smell.

Connecting your composting to the ground makes a lot of things happen automatically. Way, way easier.

The drawback of tumblers is you don't get that sweet worm action.

I like the hugelkultur graben bed. It basically composts itself. Very low maintenance in comparison.

I use the Aerobin near the house and it 100% works. Eats everything and stays hot to really break everything down.

https://aerobin400.com/

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