happy to have finally found a secondary use for these. any tips for accelerating the process of breaking down paper?

Courtesy of local squirrel. Tree of heaven nuts I believe. 17 gal tub

I’ve done everything this here Reddit told me. I bought wood chipper, I’ve bought paper shredder, I mixed my browns and greens, I’ve turned it, I didn’t turn it, I’ve even peed on it. Now I need bunch of random weirdos to rate biggest project of my life!

Please help. My compost is now talking to me and sings songs to the rodents outside. Keeps telling me I "can't do any of that without a hat". I don't feel comfortable peeing on it anymore. What do I do???

Went outside this afternoon to find these bees had swarmed and set up shop in one of my tumblers.

I’m gonna leave the lid off all night and hope they fuck off. If not I guess I need to call a bee removal expert.

Bummer.

I want to encourage pollinators but… NOT LIKE THIS!

Found a surprise when I went out to turn my compost today. Apparently my neighbors have started contributing eggshells directly into the compost bin, which is very polite and helpful!

8, 27 gal totes of shredded cardboard

Made for a tshirt for my husband, but thinking I need one as well, or at least a sticker to live on the water bottle I use at work! I may have even hid the box with his composting presents inside the compost bin for him to discover....

I found these guys hours apart. Garters too sometimes. They get replaced where I found them after I'm finished digging around- I just don't want to hurt them accidentally

There’s a teenager lingering in my compost pile!!

I love chipdrop and I wanted to hear others stories about their chipdrops

I started using it 5-6 years ago when I moved into my current home. Got wood chips all over the yard to smother weeds here and there, establish future beds, create a path, and make a stockpile for composting.

Best use by far tho was about 1 foot or so deep pile spread out over parking pad which I used for raised beds for veggies, cut flowers, and natives for seed/propagation. After 1 season of all that breaking down and shrinking some, the year 2 veggies and plants grew explosively! Hands down best season of anything I've grown in raised beds before, it was epic. Looooootta greens and cut material and stuff tho, so I had to figure out my composting setup

Tumblers to rescue while I figured my pile goals out, so having all the wood chips were perfect tumbler fuel. And then while the tumbler did its thing and dripped tumbler juice and shit, wood chips below soaked all that in and I barely noticed!

Fast forward to my pile setup now...made possible by wood chips! Recent 30-40 cubic yard delivery of chips was biggest I've gotten by far, thankfully driver dumped it outta the way at back of lawn/yard. With chips as the base, building a pile with cattlepanel until its about 5' tall, kitchen scraps and wood chips, occasional grass cuttings from lawn but mostly food scraps. I guess I'll turn it eventually once its completely full to the top?

Been kinda fun digging random holes around the yard, burying a full pail of kitchen scraps, then covering with wood chips. squirrels and birds and other critters have left them alone so far, and im probably jinxing myself now, but man its funny looking but older ones have kinda/sorta disappeared and leveled out? Wood chips!

The feeling of shoveling decomposed wood chips, which are basically black gold soil/compost/plant fuel, into raised beds and containers for upcoming spring plantings is so so awesome. Friggin making my own soil feels like magic...but its composting! with wood chips!

okay rant over, sorry, thank you, happy composting friends!

I have been following the golden rule of composting but the m getting no where. Do I really just need to add my wife urine to the pile to really get it going?

So I climbed on top of my pile to shovel a hole in the center and I felt a sting on my ankle. They were all over my pants and all the way up to my thighs. Jumped off the pile, frantically started stripping my pants, socks and shoes off.

Now it is war. Hopefully the neighbors didn’t see much. 😂

[EDIT: Okay clearly it’s not a waste of money, since it works well for a lot of people. I ended up both not needing it, and not being able to use it until I can invest in a couple hours and some money to stabilize it better.]

The monsoon storm took it down on day 2 lol. Well, it wasn’t completely knocked over, but completely sagging to were it wouldn’t even stay upright long enough to shovel some leaves in. I think the heat made it even more flimsy, like it’s lowkey melting or something, and I don’t have anything I can use to stabilize it further.

I’m currently placing some bricks I have in my front yard instead to make a compost pile instead.

my previous post

Quite expensive, but totally worth it! Currently figuring out how I can get her to pee on it.

Don't really get leaves in our yard. Would it be weird to come back and get the leaves off of this? Not my house or neighborhood lol. Serious consideration. Actual question but flaring as humor because I'm probably being weird.

I have no idea what this is. It's deeply rooted in there and I don't have the strength to pull it out. I have a "dalek" style compost so I'll need to lift it up and yank this out by the root. I dread the mess. UPDATE in the comments.

Asking for a friend

I think i spent $10 for the 3/8 fencing material and used scrap 2x4s and screws i had laying around but still a bit comical when i compare my time vs the cost of getting stuff from the nursery. 1 yard of "veggie mix" top soil is about $60-80 in my area