I separate material individually before i make compost pile,then for best composting resoults you must mix 60% green material and 40% brown material. During mixing the material togehter keep adding water to the mix. Mix must be wet to that degree that when you squeeze the mixture there could be only one drop of water between your fingers.
When pile is ready let it sit for about 3 days then you must turn it around. Repeat it every 2 day after that.
Green material is: (food waste, grass clipings, manure, etc)
Brown material is: (straw, brown leaves, wood chips, paper, cardboard, etc)
If you would use wood chips for your mix then mix it 75 green/25 brown.
specifically, thereâs a Korean natural farming (KNF) recipe that people just call âLABsâ. The jist is they collect wild yeasts and lactic acid bacterias using an open container of rice milk (the water left over from washing your rice) that they leave out for a few days until it smells fermented, and then use that like a sour dough starter to curdle real milk.
Then they take the resulting whey and either use it directly at maybe 1tsp per gal, or super saturate it with brown sugar to extend its shelf life. The curds can be made into cheese or buried in your composter
First pour tap water into bowl and let sit for 24 hours so chlorine evaporated
Then get another bowl and half fill with white rice
Add declorinated tap water to rice
Swirl with hand
Decant rice water
Get two jars
Pour in rice water
One 10%
One 33.3%
( to see what works best for you )
Place kitchen roll lid on jars with elastic band to hold in place
Place two jars in dark place at room temp
Check smell daily
When smell is bad nearly fishy 7-9+ days ( depends on room temp )
Add milk to jars leaving one third air gap at top
Place kitchen roll lids back on
Put jars back in dark place room temp
After 7-9 days ( depending on room temp ) liquid separates
Bottom clear yellow , top curds
Decant bottom liquid ( labs ) and dilute to strength you need with DECLORINATED water
What ever concentrated lab is left put in fridge
I used regular tap water in my culture. This wonât be a problem will it? I have the three separate zones and it smells a bit sour so I would think it has been inoculated? Still very new to labs/knf.
After 24 hours your rice water mix will have evaporated chlorine anyway probably : )
When diluting lab concentrate you must NOT use water with chlorine in it or you will kill it all
It makes a huge difference, water from the grid is treated with chlorine precisely to kill all bacteria and make it safe to drink.
If you have a strong colony of lab you might not kill it entirely with the tap water, but surely youâre weakening it. Now, thatâs not going to cause any problems in your garden, it just adds very little value to it and renders all the work you had feeding and growing your bacteria a bit pointless.
All you need is an extra step: take your water from the tap the day before you intend to use it, give it a stir and leave it uncovered overnight.
A thermo compost system works great but only if you have all the material ready to go. The main reason you want it to âcookâ it is to kill off any pathogens and bad bacteria.
Another common style is an âadd as you goâ pile. This is when you keep adding stuff, normally things like fruit and veg scraps. Coffee grinds are great too. This style of composting is most common for the average household without a lot space. This pile wonât heat up like the thermo pile but as long as you donât add any risky stuff that shouldnât be an issue. I never add manure that hasnât already aged and started to compost for risk of E. coli. No meat or dairy and no cooked foods. Youâll need to keep your carbon based(brown stuff) material on hand so every time you add your kitchen scraps(nitrogen rich green stuff) you cover them with some brown material. You stop adding once the pile is around 4ft tall or the bin is 3/4 full, allowing room to turn the pile.
As it was mentioned above turning(aeration) and correct moisture(water) levels are key to any quality compost. Proper practice of this will entail your pile or bin will stay aerobic not anaerobic(normally caused by over watering). I also like to add rock dust, lime, wood ash, weed scraps etc to the pile during itâs process.
Like @ifish mentioned above LABs are a great way to speed up the process while adding beneficial bacteria. This will also control any smells coming off the food scraps but as long as your brown material is always the final layer smells are non existent in my experience. Another good reason not to use cooked food.
If you want to compost âeverythingâ(including meat and dairy) a bokashi bucket is the way to go. I have an easy to make bokashi recipe, if you need it Iâll add it bellow.
@Faithisyours not trying to call you out mate but these numbers are incorrect. A compost pile is majority carbon based material 70/80%(brown stuff) and 20/30% nitrogen based material(green stuff)
When my compost is finished it goes in to my worm bin for another 6 months then I harvest it.
Hey mate, I wasnât trying to push my âcompost rulesâ itâs just what Iâve learnt through books and videos. The ratio is important for what I believe to be to control gas exchange and the nitrogen material becoming too active and in turn getting smelly and pretty rank. Thatâs why the layered âlasagne methodâ is most commonly used, always finishing with a brown layer. This also keeps away pests and maggots.
This is copy and pasted off google: note they use even less nitrogen rich material than I suggested.
around 30:1
To provide optimal amounts of these two crucial elements, you can use the carbon-to-nitrogen (C/N) ratio for each of your compost ingredients. The ideal C/N ratio for composting is generally considered to be around 30:1, or 30 parts carbon for each part nitrogen by weight.
But if your method works and itâs not broken then no need to fix it. If you live in an area with little to no humidity and a lot of sun I can see your ratios working. The environment plays a big part, here in the tropics I hardly have to moisten my pile due to high humidity levels.
The pile will stop getting hot , to when it finishes cooking you can use it as and how long that takes all depends on what you put in it and how often you have to turn it I know it sounds complicated but itâs kinda simple go to pile stick hand towards center of pile if itâs hot , it turn it, check it often cuz how you handle that part of it makes the difference between good compost and great compost:) good luck itâs one of those things that just takes practice
peace 
will try your way also 