Can any of you good gardeners out there recommend a really good source of 'browns' for my compost pile this time of year? Leaves just aren't in plentiful supply right now.
I have used newspaper in the past, but was wondering if there were some other browns I am not aware of .
Also...could horse manure be considered a brown? I've been under the impression that manure is neither, and that you still have to supply the proper amounts of greens & browns.
Ever go grocery shopping and get too many brown paper bags? Anybody near have those tall ornamental grasses that need to be cut down? got any sources of wood chips or cardboard? Those are all browns.
I find I can come up with a yard bag full of dead brown grass (browns) by giving the yard a good stiff raking in the spring. I usually will do the same in the neighbours yards until I get enough for my purpose. Newspaper, as though as its vegetable-based inks, which is the norm, are fine. I also use cotton fibers from the dryer lint trap as my main source for browns through the winter. I am an urban gardener. When a horse show comes to town, I go over to the camps and get a garbage can of manure. This is usually late May. I use it to light a fire in my composters and really get things steaming! People used to laugh at me, now I have alot of competition for the manure.
I'm finding bags of leaves at the curbside again after a warm day. Lots of people will be cleaning up pretty soon, if they have not started yet, and there will be plenty available.
I used to gather leaves that way but then realized that up here (Vermont) the salt they use on the roads often ends up on the lower third of everyone's lawns and the leaves I'd been collecting had high concentrations of it.
