Good morning, all,
I was just curious if putting the pulp/seeds from a honey dew melon in my compost pile not a good idea.

Hi Yankee, If the compost is hot enough, the seeds will die, if not I guess you'll have a hundred melons growing. Haha. But you already figured that out, right.
lisaann

HI,
OK, if pile is hot enuff they'll die...well, I didnt put them in yet...and I wont, becuz I'm pretty sure my pile isn't hot enough. My compost pile is still pretty sad--I don't ever see any steam coming off of it...I add plenty of kitchen scraps, but I need to get some more horse manure and mulch some more oak leaves in there...It's getting there...just not big enough yet.
thanks!

My compost is made up with 2 things. Leaves and grass. When I first got into composting, I think I made it harder than it was supposed to be. Anyway, I save leaves now shredded up from the fall in a wire chicken coop circle that I can adjust to any width to get the pile tall enough. It breaks down a little over winter and then in the spring, I move the cage aside add grassclippings, mix by mowing them together and collecting in the lawn mower bag and dump back into the repostioned cage. Heats up in a day or two. It's as easy as that but there are some that will tell me that there isn't enough variety in my compost. What I need it for is to ammend the soil from clay. I add fertilizer seperate directly in the garden if I need that.
lisaann

Yeah, if it's not hot enough you'll have a million seedlings. But is that a bad thing? I got two good melons from volunteer vines last year--all I did was thin them to an appropriate distance, and then NOTHING. I did nothing all summer, and they still gave me two good melons.

When you turn your compost pile, it will kill most small seedlings, which will then decompose. What aren't killed will be the next time you turn your compost.

Good luck,

Heather

I was thinking the same thing heather just said about turning the pile. Let the seeds sprout and grow for a bit. Then turn the pile and you will have added more material in the form of those vines to the pile.

If you don't want them to sprout put them in the blender and blend with other vegetable waste. It will privide a better source of vegetable matter for you pile since the pieces will be smaller.

Melon seeds in compost? Yes.

I blendered my kitchen scraps a couple of winters ago, just to reduce the volume of the scraps (not the mass, just the volume) because the bin would freeze solid. That didn't happen this year... very spooky. :| Melon seeds would get chopped up in the blender. No sprouting. You need a blender dedicated to garden use, however, and that's not something everyone has room for.

However... last summer, I got 21 cantaloupe out of my front lawn. I had a big hole to fill where my crabapple tree used to be, and not enough dirt left over to do the job, so I emptied my compost bin into it, everything from yesterday's cantaloupe to last spring's finished banana peels. I'm still repairing the lawn because the yards of dirt I piled on it, and then the vines that covered it smothered the grass and clover, but it was great, the way the whole front yard filled up with the vines.

They're very easy to pull when they sprout, and they're easily recognized, too: they have large, ROUND true-leaves, and flat cotyledons (first-leaves) that look like tongues, or bee-wings. Just pull them or hoe them as they sprout, if you don't want them to grow.

I have been throwing my veggie scraps directly in the garden all winter...I have recently turned in humus/manure and started planting...this week I have found TONS of Lord knows what growing....probably zucchini or cucs. I just yank them up and throw them in the compost bin....one time I found an avocado growing in the compost so I left it all summer and then dug it up and potted it and gave it away as a birthday gift. It is HUGE now! She loves it! Pretty cool!

Melon seeds would be a good addition to your compost, even if the do germinate. A simple way to keep the from growing if they do germinate is to turn the material and bury them deeper. Seeds contain everything necessary to sustain life in the early stages of growth until the new plant can start to manufacture the nutrients it needs to grow itself and for that reason alone seeds should be added to the compost pile.

And for that reason, in addition to melon seeds, I also put all the leftover old seeds bought for the garden in the compost also. If anything sprouts it's easy to either pull it out or just wait for the once a week turn over of the top of the compost heap.