| Can you compost stones, sticks, twigs and bones? Whilst I loosely adhere to the layerings of browns and greens when composting, I also tend to follow more of a no-rules waste strategy, as in anything goes in. This is governed by my style of composting in the New Zealand box system, but I also adopted the same approach when I was using open-aired pallets. Garden waste, brown waste, kitchen scraps, paper and cardboard, bokashi and coffee grounds are all thrown into the heap. Many say not to throw in meats and the like, although l do that. I bury deep and centrally to the pile and also use hot compost, looking to reach temperatures of between 150 and 180 degrees Fahrenheit when the batch needs that requirement. So, the inclusion of meats and so on doesn’t worry me. I don’t add large branches, and if I must, I break them down, chop them up, or shred them to make them smaller, but even then, you will still have smaller twigs and sticks in a pile. Equally, whilst I don’t deliberately add stones to the heap, they do make their way in either through my garden waste or the natural lay of the ground around me, and they may travel in with a neighbour’s garden waste. Again, their presence does not bother me. My mother used to work with gemstones when we lived in Australia, and she owned a rock tumbler—the tumbler aimed to tumble rocks next to coloured stones to make them smoother. Once done, she would sell or use the rocks in arts and crafts. Strangely enough, l see stones in the compost heap in the same light. Each time l turn the compost piles, the small rocks help grind the compost particles into smaller pieces; the same applies to twigs, sticks, and bones. I have noticed that over time, with the inclusion of stones and bones, they become smoother and easier to crush with a hammer and add to the compost pile or discard into the ground itself. Branches and large twigs left to their natural rotting process can take fifty-plus years to break down. So we must reduce that time to benefit from the nutrients the materials can offer our heaps. Waste leaves, using standard decomposition methods, break down between six and twelve months, whereas a hot composting process can achieve the same result in as little as eight weeks. Smaller twigs and sticks can take six months to break down, even with hot composting. I reuse twigs, sticks, and bones from one pile to the next. Everything eventually decomposes or is manually pounded and added to the relevant area in the garden. Where I am able, I try to use larger twigs for more natural purposes, like building bug habitats. They are great for introducing wider biodiversity. Twigs and shredded sticks can be added to the compost or used as mulch for plants or bark chippings for pathways. It’s perfectly safe to add bones to the heap. Some bones decompose quicker than others, though. Chicken and fish bones are the fastest to decay, with fish being shorter than chicken. Pork bones are slower to rot because they are a thicker material than chicken or fish, and usually, the marrow is the first to go, with the bone taking much longer. Beef bones are much larger and can take considerably longer to break down. However, bones like twigs and stones still help break down the compost pile, so you can still have them present for a few heaps, should you wish. Once l have a batch of compost ready for sieving, having gone through the hot composting stages and the cooling down, l remove all unnecessary sticks, twigs, stones and bones. I then add them to a new compost heap, and the process starts again with a new composting batch as they become my internal breaking-down tumblers. |
Optimizing Composting Process: Utilizing Stones, Twigs, and Bones for Enhanced Decay
Earthly Comforts 
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