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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 5th, 2023

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  • Nice pile there! I’m guessing this Composting Day is a (US) national thing? A quick search shows ‘Learn About Composting Day’, is that the one?

    Please tell us more. Over here (Netherlands) we do have a ‘national compost day’ in March, where you can go and get compost from the municipality. Great initiative, though the quality of compost is questionable as it’s the end product of whatever the municipality collected in the green bins over the year. And people put in, well, everything. So, it is definitely not a ‘Learn About’ day, while we could use that for sure over here in my experience.



  • Just to be sure, your pile is directly on the actual soil? Second, how are the moisture levels? In my pile, I noticed an increase in worms when I things were wetter than they were before. Depending on your setup that might be tricky to control. But moreover, time. In the first months I hardly spotted any worms in my pile. After say two years, there are plenty. Never added them myself, they just found the party.


  • Main mod here! I won’t dispute I have been less active over the last couple of weeks (holidays and other reasons), but I think /c/composting is not doing that bad. It’s not high-traffic, but there are posts every few days and I’d say it’s not anywhere near dead.

    When I created the community, I thought about how much I should post and opted to hold back to see how many other compost enthusiasts would come out of the woodwork. Perhaps I have been a bit too conservative, though?


  • So, the words I definitely didn’t remember while in bed too late at night: Tremorgenic mycotoxins. Please note that I am in no way an expert in any of this, but as a fellow dog-owner I got very cautious when I read about someone actually losing a dog which ate from a compost pile. I found a source (link below) which highlights a few points, amongst this one that might be important:

    "Mold growth, particularly Penicillium mold, and production of mycotoxins in food (walnuts, dairy products, pasta), animal feed, or food waste (compost) can result in tremorgenic toxin production. "

    My compost pile definitely contains some of the above, but a pure garden waste based pile might not.

    Another point worth highlighting as ‘vomiting’ is mentioned in this thread:

    "After ingestion, the onset of clinical signs can occur in a few hours. Toxins ingested in lower concentrations appear to cause fine muscle tremors lasting for hours to days, whereas large tremorgenic toxin ingestions can cause seizures and death. Vomiting can be the first clinical sign and may help limit the severity of the intoxication. "

    I suppose the size of the dog and the amount they ate from a pile all come into play here. Again, I am by no means an expert on any of this, just a (overly?) concerned dog owner. Please correct me if I’m wrong on any of this, and enlighten us all. If we promote composting in this community, and there is any danger to any member of your household whatsoever, I feel we should inform people and err on the side of caution.

    https://www.msdvetmanual.com/toxicology/mycotoxicoses/tremorgenic-neuromycotoxicosis-in-dogs






  • While I don’t have hands-on experience with such a cold climate, two things popped in my head. First, maybe you are better off with one big pile. More volume means the heap will be able to keep higher temperatures. The snow on the cover might actually be a very good insulator as well. Second, and this might be the number-nerd in me, but I’d actually track the temperature with a compost thermometer. I guess you won’t be turning the pile often, and for sure not in winter when it’s covered in snow, but that way you can keep track of what your pile is doing.

    I hope someone has better, actual practical tips for you, but keep us updated on this one!





  • drk@slrpnk.nettoTechnology@beehaw.orgMastodon?
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    1 year ago

    I’ve only been on mastodon for a couple of days, but yes it is active, and depending on what you’re after it might we worth it. For me, it seems to be a nice mix of keeping up to date with things and people I already know, and at the same time stumble upon (related) things I did not yet knew about.

    You will have to put in some effort to follow people/accounts/hashtags, but that’s kinda fun. Just try it out!




  • Same, I did have to remove the older version installed via f-droid before installation of the apk from GitHub would succeed though. That was when I updated from 0.0.31 to 0.0.32. Updating to 0.0.33 then worked without uninstalling anything. Liking it so far!