Theo Patterson

Okay so I did my best to start something at least. I hope within the coming months this will turn into an effective composting system but for now we have well a small pile with probably too much nitrogen (there is carbon layered in too, it just blends in) but I soaked it and hopefully it will start composting in a couple of days. I'll do my best to add more shredded paper to it to help balance the overall ratio but I am hoping that eventually I'll be able to master hot composting and get a real good cycle going.

I have looked into the Berkeley Method before and it seems promising. Thanks for the tip on shredded newspaper, we have a paper shredder here at our house and we also generate a fair amount of waste paper that we can shred down and layer with the biomass. Here is the website that I am planning on following based on the Berkeley Method. It mentions that the C/N ratio for shredded newspaper is about 175:1 and that should hopefully break down nicely with some lower 20-25:1 kitchen scraps etc.
Thanks again for sharing your expertise with a Newbie!

Thanks so much! I don't have a lawn but I do have quite a few non-native grasses that have been encroaching on the garden that we can use for the nitrogen to get the right ratio. Thanks for your response!

I am not very experienced in Permaculture, but I would say that I have at least some book knowledge. My family is vegetarian and we generate about 1 cubic liter of kitchen scraps every day. I want to be able to compost this but I'm not totally sure how. So far I have dug a shallow hole and put a couple of bags of scraps in there, but I know that repeatedly digging up the soil is bad for it, micro-rhizal fungi, microorganisms etc. I am looking for a relatively fast way to compost quite a high volume of scraps. We used to have a worm bin/ vermiculture set-up at my old house but since we moved we haven't started a new one. I just learned about Black Soldier Flies today and that seems like a viable option but my only concern is that we have nothing to feed the excess larvae to. I saw something that said that it may not be the best way to go if you don't have fish/poultry. We aren't allowed to have chickens on our property but we do have several flocks of wild quail that roam around every couple of days that would likely be open to a little larvae snack. I have kitchen scraps building up as I write this and I am eager to hear from more experienced permaculturists. We are in zone 10a so we stay quite toasty most of the year. Thank you in advance!