I live in an area where composting "greens" are easy to come by, two stables in the area. My problem is my land is covered with pine needles which break down way too slwoly for my taste. Can anyone suggest other sources of "browns" that would be readily available? Thank you in advance.

I shred up my newspaper & put it in my compost.

Let's see...There is hay, straw, leaves, shredded newspaper (or junkmail), pine needles, shredded twigs/branches, hedge clippings, corn and sunflower stalks, dried legume plants, dried potato and tomato vines, finely shredded cardboard, saw dust, and wood chips...There are probably a LOT more, but those are just a few....

I'd second all that Chris put forth. I also bring home the shredded paper from the office. This in addition to straw, newspaper, paper grocery bags, paper napkins keeps me in browns.

Bekah,

do you use a shredding machine for this? Currently, I manual rip it into strips, but that gets a little old. I'm wondering if there is a machine that can do a section at a time or something like that.

I have a wood pallet compost bin that is entirely brown leaves, collected from all the trees in the neighbourhood in the autumn. I use them as needed in the regular compost pile throughout the year.

That is a great idea loamy! Since we rake them anyway (we just sweep them into the street where they are taken to the municipal waste and compost site), why not keep them for the year ahead?

What loamy said.

http://public.fotki.com/DirtPit/gardening/composting_trials/

Note pics 5-11. I shred my leaves and had so many that I used them for compost and mulch in the veggie garden for 2 years. My horse manure is mixed with wood chips so I have the opposite problem during the winter. I'm making so much compost this summer from all the rain and saving grass clippings that I'm running out of room.

Have you heard about my compost omlettes?

Dirt

Thank you all for your help - I have been using some paper (shredded in a paper shredder) but was worried that I could use too much (not sure what the black ink is made up of), guess not. Thank you all again.

I've mentioned this before but it seems worth suggesting again - commercial printers, from little ones like Kinko's right up through the big outfits, always have plain unused paper left over from job runs. In the case of big printers this leftover paper sometimes sits unused on pallets for years because it's ordered specific to one job and the leftovers can't be applied to another job.
Nowadays even many (not all) colored papers can be used in gardens because the inks are all-natural. Ask about that first, they'll know. Avoid "coated" papers, that is, any which have a visible sheen, shine or gloss to them.
Printers don't mind a phone call or a visit to inquire about this - I've yet to see one who wasn't grateful to give the stuff away. In fact they'll usually offer you a lot more than you need. Offset printers will have 20 x 24 sheets and larger, perfect for lasagna gardeners and mulch-layerers, and for community gardens with large areas in need. Always well worth a shot.

One newspaper I con tacted charged a little bit for end rolls but it was well worth it. I used it as packing paper to move & then reused it in my compost pile.

I hand rip. I wish I had a paper shredder!

With a "permissable" brown to green ratio of 30:1, its hard to have too much browns. BTW, if you are getting bedding from those horse stables, you are getting enough browns to get things started. I use to clean a local stable when I was a kid and the stuff was already heating up whenever I "forked" it.

As far as shredding the papers goes, I just layer it on the beds and mulch over it. less work and less weeds.