Materials for your compost pile
| Alfalfa meal and hay (the meal will activate the pile) Algae (pond weeds) Apple pomace (cider press waste) Ashes (wood, not coal. Sprinkle lightly between layers, don't add ashes in big clumps) Banana skins (as well as all fruit and vegetable peels, stalks, and foliage) Bean shells and stalks Bird cage cleanings Broccoli stalks (shred, cut, or pound soft with a mallet) Buckwheat hulls or straw Cabbage stalks and leaves Cocoa hulls Cat litter (prophyllite, alfalfa pellets, or vermiculite before the cat has used it. Alfalfa pellets will help activate the pile) Citrus wastes and rinds Clover Coffee wastes and grounds Corn cobs (shred or chop) |
Corn stalks (shred or chop) Cottonseed hulls Cotton waste ("gin trash") Cowpeas Cucumber vines (unless they are diseased or insect-infected) Dog food (dry dog food is a nitrogen/protein activator) Dolomite Earthworms Eelgrass Eggshells (grind or crush) Fish scraps (bury in the center of the pile) Flowers Grape pomace (winery waste) Granite dust Grass clippings (let dry first and use in thin layers between other materials; a thick mass will be a mess) Greensand |
Hay (mixed grasses or salt marsh hay) Hedge clippings Hops (brewery waste) Kelp (seaweed) Leaf mold Leaves Lettuce Lime (agricultural) Limestone (ground) Milk (sour) Muck Melon wastes (vines, leaves, and rinds, unless diseased or infested) Oat straw Olive residues Pea pods and vines Peanut hulls |
Peat moss Phosphate rock Pine needles (use sparingly; they are acidic and break down slowly) Potash rock Potato wastes (skins, etc.; watch out for insect-infested vines) Rhubarb leaves Rice hulls Shells (ground clam, crab, lobster mussel, and oyster) Sod and soil removed from other areas Soybean straw Sphagnum moss Sugar cane residue (bagasse) Tea leaves Vetch Weeds (even with seeds, which be killed as the pile heats up) Wheat straw
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