Would anyone know if this compost looks like it’s ready?

I put some Roots Organic Lush Soil, cover crop trimmings, banana peels, papaya skins, egg shells, paper bags, cardboard, worm castings, and my male plants in a bucket. I dont see any of the food or green material, only some egg shells and little pieces of cardboard. Does this look like its ready to use as compost? or should i wait a little longer?

Looks pretty good to me surly anything that hasn’t broken down will break down in the garden. My question would be does pollen from a male plant compost? Probably irrelevant if the compost is for the vege garden

I chop my male plants down when they have very small male preflowers so that theres no way it could produce any pollen what so ever.
Good to know it looks good to go, gonna be using it post harvest in my no-till pots to get ready for the next grow.

No till? Yuck! Haha just kidding(not kidding) nice work Ive always wanted to do my own compost for my vege garden but the chickens get my food scraps. They do turn it into a usable product but it takes a year for that to season

lol nice! you don’t like no-till?

Jrmtr808 said:

lol nice! you don’t like no-till?

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Indoors I dont. Out in the garden is fine

Main thing is make sure your compost doesn't have an undesired smell... Should smell like good old fresh earth.

Playk328 said:

Main thing is make sure your compost doesn't have an undesired smell... Should smell like good old fresh earth.

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Theres no smell, it actually smells just like potting soil. Or maybe its because I did put some soil in there but not alot.

Should be fine to use..

Coffee grinder does wonders for eggshells, breaking them down and making them more available faster. Heating them in the oven to kill microorganisms is advisable if you're not doing that already.

Killaki said:

Coffee grinder does wonders for eggshells, breaking them down and making them more available faster. Heating them in the oven to kill microorganisms is advisable if you're not doing that already.

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Even broken down powder eggshells take a while to be readily available.. Eggshells even when crushed up are still not readily available calcium.. Eggshells are calcium carbonate which takes a while to break down.. You would usually amend your beds with this and let it break down over time

Here is a good video that explains this..

Playk328 said:

Even broken down powder eggshells take a while to be readily available.. Eggshells even when crushed up are still not readily available calcium.. Eggshells are calcium carbonate which takes a while to break down.. You would usually amend your beds with this and let it break down over time

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So leaving them in big pieces like the op has done is better? Interesting.

Playk328 said:

Here is a good video that explains this..

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I'm currently in coco and not composting anymore so I'll watch this later.

Darkoh69 said:

Looks pretty good to me surly anything that hasn’t broken down will break down in the garden. My question would be does pollen from a male plant compost? Probably irrelevant if the compost is for the vege garden

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Moisture neutralizes pollen pretty quickly. I can't imagine any viable pollen being in a compost pile, regardless.

Killaki said:

So leaving them in big pieces like the op has done is better? Interesting.

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It does not matter in the end.. even very fine dust like eggshell powder will still take a while to break down.. Unless you are adding flames and intense heat to breakdown that carbonate, you will be waiting a while for it to naturally breakdown.

It's the carbonate you have to breakdown first, it takes time or very intense heat "more then an oven" to break down carbonate.

Good compost takes about two years to really become what you buy in the stores. What you have looks good and will continue to break down as you use it. But eggshells and cardboards and other food materials really take a year to two to become what you want them to be.

mandocat said:

Moisture neutralizes pollen pretty quickly. I can't imagine any viable pollen being in a compost pile, regardless.

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I find little straggle plants in my compost all the time, likely pollen and weed seeds blown around by the wind.

Hiphophippo said:

Good compost takes about two years to really become what you buy in the stores. What you have looks good and will continue to break down as you use it. But eggshells and cardboards and other food materials really take a year to two to become what you want them to be.

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You are right sir, compost does take time to breakdown, you can speed this process up by turning your compost more often, allowing air to penetrate inside the compost, this will speed it up a lot, but with the eggshells there is very little that can be done to break them down faster, unless you are going to bring flames and intense heat to the equation.