compost pile

I have a nearly unlimited supply of leaves and a shredder to make them fine..Now I want to make several compost piles. I know it takes both "brown" and "green" stuff to make compost. I also know that manure makes a good "green" stuff. What about the store bought bags of garden cow manure? Has it been treated in such a way as to make it useless for compost starting? During the summer months I will have enough curttngs etc to use, but I would like to get started while there is little else to do. Thanks for the hslp.

Store bought Manure has been completely composted and usually has had other materials added (such as mulch, wood chips, sand and gravel). I would contact a horse stable or someone with cattle that are coralled to make collection of fresh manure is easier. I have had good result without adding manure if you keep you piles turned during the composting process. Don't let them get water logged, then you will only have a mess to contend with.

We use a gallon size plastic pitcher with a tight sealing lid to save our compostable kitchen wastes... egg shells, potato peels, coffee grounds, onion trimmings, etc. No meats or grease. It's a little trouble to transfer it to the compost pile about twice a week, but it adds a lot of "green" to the pile.

turnagerg, Similar story here. We use a stainless steel trash can with tight fiting lid and plastic bucket inside with bail (handle.) We line the bucket witha small plastic trash sack to ease cleaning. This is one of the cans with a pedal that opens the lid because so often your hands are a mess when you are disposing of a mess (at least for me.) Works well, seals well and gets emptied if it starts to emit too much odor when opened.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

I do a lot of leaves myself. I use instead of green stuff nitrogen fertlizer. Any combanation will work but you want high Nitrogen. I buy something called nuro it's about 40%nitrogen. It has worked well for me for a couple years.