Lol voles that my kids want to keep for pets! Guessing that's why all my worms have disappeared.

I've been sifting this morning, clearing out the bottom of one heap before starting a new two heap system. I filled this tub 3 times, and it's glorious! Just the right smell and texture.

I only started composting in spring, and I'm utterly hooked. The difference it's made to the plants has been incredible.

I have three compost makers. Two plastic tumblers and a pile that I placed a tarp on in the back of my backyard. My tumblers take forever to produce anything good. They require lots of work to maintain an optimal moisture level. I honestly can’t remember the last time I harvested any uniform nice looking compost out of either one of them. Lately, though I have been adding green material to one of them in particular while the other one has been idle and halfway full of material that I’m waiting for it to finish. The pile on the ground has been there for about a year and a half, and I have only added green material to it a few times over the summer. It has been mostly ready for quite a while, but decided today to screen it for use in some pots that I want to plant for vegetables. I’m really happy with the material. I got out of it today. I found quite a few grubs in there. The hornworm is from a tomato plant that I’m ready to chop because it’s pretty much done. I definitely like the pile aspect of composting better than the tumblers.

My maple tree exploded with seeds this year. The little twirly helicopter kind. There are a lot of them. I filled up a old 4’x4’x4’ soil tote with them. Would you do anything extra or just throw em in the pile?

Curious what makes specially composted material better than regular organic material that has been left to rot?

For my herb and pepper garden, I usually have a few buckets of organic material (leaves, pine needles and kitchen scraps) that I set aside throughout the year and then mix into my garden pots the next year to restore lost nutrients. The second half of it is in a low oxygen decomposition state (rotten egg smell), which I know is supposedly “bad” but it doesn’t seem to adversely affect my garden pots when mixed in with the soil the past 2 goes.

What makes compost better than normal rotten material?

Will rain on my compost help or hurt the process? Will it wash/leech out all the good stuff just leaving soil of minimal goodness? It has been fairly dry in the plastic bin. Ive peed in it a few times but today we got our first rain in a long time here in socal

Behind me lies an entire mountain covered in pine trees—they’re very close by, and there’s an endless supply of pine needles—but I have no idea how to put them to use.

Hello! I would love to start composting but I’m unsure of, well, a lot of things😅.
I just moved to the PNW from North Carolina. I bought a tumbling composter before the move but decided to keep it in the box until arriving at the new location since it was coming up so soon.
It’s clearly colder than NC and now I’m in an apartment instead of a house with a backyard. This definitely limits the yard waste I have access to as well as now my tumbler will have to reside on our balcony. I know in general composting takes a long time and the cold makes it even more so.
So my question is, should I bother starting now? Or should I wait until the warmer weather? Also, would a tarp over the composter help hold in heat and lessen moisture at a rate that’s actually worth noting? Are there any boxes that are unable to be used? I would assume minus all plastics. But what about ink or sometimes they have a glossy outer layer over top of the brown cardboard? Assuming I keep a decent ratio of browns to greens, would the boxes and other papers around the house be sufficient enough to cover my browns section? Or should I start gathering a bag of leaves on my next hike😅.
Ive done so much research but still feel clueless. Any and all advice is appreciated! Thanks:)!