Composting newspaper

[watervole]

According to my library book, not only is composting newspaper easy to do, it also improves the overall mix of your compost and provides a good balance to things like grass clippings and weeds. (paper has more carbon, grass cuttings are higher in nitrogen) It should all rot down a little bit faster and better.

So, I'm giving it a go. I just fed the compost heaps their first newspaper today.

Still pondering the book's other suggestion... The best source of nitrogen is urine. Makes an excellent compost accelerator and comes with other free nutrients as well. (and reduces your sewage - it always did seem a bit daft to dump all that lovely fertiliser out at sea)

Should I go and find an old chamber pot?...

Comments

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

On numerous occasions allotmenteers have suggested to me that I should pee in a bucket at the plot and toss the contents onto my heap. It's obviously commonplace.

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

Should I go and find an old chamber pot?.

Easier just to send the males of the household out. Adam Hart Davies claims that's what he does.

The papier mache egg boxes and trays rot down nicely as well.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

You need to scrunch or shred newspaper else it goes slimy. I found burying it and cardboard in the bottom of dug over vegetable patches worked well.

Peeing on your compost is a regular feature of Northern TV comedies about growing the biggest marrows.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

I hear tell that the process of toilet-training kittens comprises three weeks of saying "do it on the newspaper" followed by fifteen years of saying "not while I'm reading it".

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

yes, peeing on the compost is a well known thing, it was mentioned on gardener's question time about two-three months ago and much ribald humour followed, but they all agreed it was a good thing.

[asphodeline.livejournal.com]

I know people who do occasionally discreetly wee into a bucket and pour it on the compost heap. It is a great source of yummyness for the heap. Newspapers compost well. You can also dig them straight into the ground, great under vegetables - but don't overdo it!!

[johnrw.livejournal.com]

Why not, Urine is a source of urea, which is 46% Nitrogen, far higher than any other source (ammonium nitrate is 36% Nitrogen) and it doesn't require the energy intensive Haber process to make it. Also it's free!

[ex-the-major316.livejournal.com]

I have friends who live in a wood and their "private space" is a compost loo. It rots down really quickly and makes for great soil.

And of course when asking people how they like the home grown strawberries adding that they were grown "by that leak around the back of the loo."

[temeres.livejournal.com]

An article in Undercurrents magazine (RIP) back in the early 80s made reference to "compost activator number one, otherwise known as piss" and recommended "installing a container in the bathroom, for the gentlemen at least." Though I'd already heard about the composting wonders of urine from my O-Level chemistry teacher. He never taught us much chemistry, but we learned a lot about bass fishing, motorcycle maintenance, sword making, and of course compost.

[hawkeye7.livejournal.com]

Since when is sewage dumped out at sea? It goes to the Werribee sewage treatment plant and is used to fertilise farmland.

It also powers a 7.8 MW biogas facility.

[hawkeye7.livejournal.com]

Obviously, your sewage won't go to Werribee but I think you'll find that it goes to a local treatment plant.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

We have a septic tank, located near the compost heaps. I've never investigated how it works, and it does get emptied every few years, but I assume most of the household's urine ends up fertilising the garden.