Guest post by Brad Miller
With the start of spring, everything begins to green and we see many beautiful colors. With your compost pile, color is also very important. The two most important colors for your compost pile are green and brown.
Green materials, such as vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grounds, and fresh grass trimmings provide nitrogen to your compost pile.
Brown materials include leaves, straw, and shredded newspaper provide much needed carbon.
Ideally, you would like to have a three to one ratio of browns to greens. Three parts brown for every one part green. Enjoy the beautiful spring colors and your compost pile as the weather turns nice.
With the start of spring, everything begins to green and we see many beautiful colors. With your compost pile, color is also very important. The two most important colors for your compost pile are green and brown.
Green materials, such as vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grounds, and fresh grass trimmings provide nitrogen to your compost pile.
Brown materials include leaves, straw, and shredded newspaper provide much needed carbon.
Ideally, you would like to have a three to one ratio of browns to greens. Three parts brown for every one part green. Enjoy the beautiful spring colors and your compost pile as the weather turns nice.
When we say three parts brown to one part green, is that by mass or by volume? The coffee grounds I use are very dense, but the shredded leaves and paper are fairly light and airy. If I do not want to over green my pile and end up with a stinky mess, how do I best measure this 3:1 ratio?
ReplyDeleteI prefer to look at it in volume since that is the more visual measurement. Any ratio between 2:1 and 3:1 will work well, we usually say 3:1 to be on the safer side.
Delete