What Vegetables Should Not Be Composted?

Composting activity has evolved as a tremendous aid to help farmers, and every person is associated with small-scale or large-scale agriculture. It ensures healthy growth and provides some essential nutrients to the plant by recycling the peels of used vegetables and other substances into rich organic matter.

Humans draw many benefits from the crops, which are the result of composting as they yield all the nutrients which can be passed on to other generations during the process of selling. Composting also encourages the improvement of food loss by changing its leftovers into plants fertilizers.

The agricultural yield is increased to a greater extent because this process enhances the soil quality in which it is poured.

It also decreases the problem of landfill waste and methane emulsions in the atmosphere by favoring zero methane production, which creates an eco-friendly and sustainable environment. But, this can be done if you use the correct ingredients to make compost; otherwise, your compost can add to the same thrown away waste.

What Happens When you Use the Wrong Ingredients to Make Compost?

Adding correct ingredients in the right proportion is crucial to getting good compost. Like ‘browns’ in ‘greens’ prove to be a principal factor, their quantity, that is 30:1, becomes the deciding factor for the quality of your compost. So, it is of prime importance that you add the right ingredients.

If you don’t, your plants can lead to getting foul smells and bad odors in the absence of oxygen or without being turned up properly from time to time. 

Sometimes, the process, which usually lasts some months, can only take several years if you are not cautious about handling or managing your growing compost. In some cases, diseases can show up after selfing because of the pest’s action in your compost that you use to increase the condition of any plant.

Also, if you keep putting the material in the unit, the compost will never be able to become entirely ready to be used.

Vegetables and Their Derivatives to Avoid While Making Compost

1. Peels of onion and garlic:

We frequently use onion and garlic in food items to enhance their essence and their typical taste of it, but their peels should not be put in the composting pile. It is so because these two vegetables have a strong smell that can quickly produce foul odors in the plants.

Due to this lousy odor, plants become prone to getting attacked by rodents, pests, and insects. This destroys the crop to which the compost is added. Therefore, never use the leftovers or peels of onion and garlic to compost in the bin or unit as it adds pungent smells and the advent of pests on your composting land.

2. Vegetables having a high content of critical acid:

Who doesn’t love to eat citrus fruits? No one, because they possess a sharp, tangy flavor to satisfy our taste buds. Fruits like fresh oranges and pomegranates provide refreshment. 

Similarly, citric acid is found in vegetables like lemons, broccoli, peppers, and carrots. These vegetables should be avoided because the strong and natural chemicals present in them can destroy the worms, which stops the process of compositing.

This happens due to the acidic nature of citrus vegetables. These acids disintegrate the nutrients by killing the composting worms and microorganisms, slowing down the decomposing action in a pile.

Later, the compost takes a considerable time to decompose, and in most cases, it tends to stop completely.

3. Tomatoes:

Tomatoes are very juicy fruits. They are readily available in houses, but you should always avoid adding them to the composting pile. It is so because, during composting, you cannot assume that all the seeds of this fruit have been killed.

Despite making an assumption, it is almost a negligible probability that all the seeds can be dead too. The leftover alive seeds further lead to the cause of sprouting.

It implies that wherever you intend to add the compost having tomatoes as one of the ingredients, your garden will start showing some distinguished outgrowths. Some small tomato plants begin to show up on the ground where you add compost.

4. Any vegetable oils:

Vegetable oils should always be removed from the list of materials you are supposed to make a healthy compost. The reason for not using it is because of the oily resistance made on the surface coming in contact with these vegetable oils.

This barrier results in cutting the oxygen supply within the unit entirely, leading to anaerobic respiration. This type of respiration leads to foul smells and bad odors because the pores get clogged, stopping the compost’s airflow.

This foul smell attracts harmful microbes into the compost, preventing the other materials in a pile from decomposing. Hence, oils of all vegetables should always be kept away from making organic fertilizers.

5. Vegetables cooked in dairy products:

Dairy products like milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, curd, and cream are an excellent source of getting energy and great taste. Having a similar thought, people often tend to add them to the composting bin or unit.

But, on adding these products, the quality of their compost starts to deteriorate. You must be wondering, “how and why does this happen?” So, the answer is that dairy products getting added to your composting unit with other materials become the cause of an unsaid invitation to many rodents, pests, and insects.

This produces a foul smell and leads to the destruction of your crops as the useful microorganisms that aid in the breakdown action gets killed. Therefore, they should be neglected.

6. Vegetables cooked with meat items:

Sometimes, meat is cooked with vegetables in our homes, and then leftovers are stored in the fridge. People think that meets scraps of beef, pork, fish, and chicken can be added to the pile for making compost, but in actuality, they can’t be added.

In general, meat products can have many types of bacteria like E.coli, which later leads to severe intestine problems in humans and animals. On adding these meat scraps to the composting bin, they start to kill the colonies of beneficial bacteria, and then the decomposition process eventually takes an abrupt stop.

Not only this, but it also initiates anaerobic respiration, which limits the presence of oxygen. In the end, the compost becomes a forever house to foul smells for inviting pests and rodents. 

7. Hard roots and branches possessed by fresh vegetables:

Some fresh vegetables possess hard roots, twigs, and branches that are hard to be decomposed by microorganisms.

This slow downs the phenomenon by 10 to 20 times. Also, it takes a large surface area, and t due to this, the pile gets blocked in with other material. This results in the deficiency of the oxygen supply to compost present underneath by blocking the pores present in the compost. The decreased oxygen supply can result in anaerobic respiration.

And that causes a pathetic smell inside the pile. It becomes a house for pests and insects to survive. Hence, the compost gets destroyed. Therefore, to make organic fertilizer, you should always avoid using vegetables consisting of large branches and roots.

8. Big stickers on the vegetables bought from grocery stores:

On buying vegetables from a grocery store, we often observe some stickers attached to their peels, which helps signify the quality. These stickers should never be added to making compost because they are made up of plastics and other non-biodegradable substances.

The non-biodegradable substances cannot break down the other ‘greens’ and ‘browns.’ This results in making the compost dormant. This dormancy in the plant materials prevents and eventually stops the growth of the emerging compost. After that, the microorganisms become inactive, and in the end, they get killed.

Conclusion

To put it briefly, always be a bit extra cautious towards adding items in a pile for making your organic fertilizer. Sometimes, being ignorant of any ingredient can lead to severe hazards in your crops and plants. These hazards can include decreased production of fruits and flowers, pest action, oxygen deficiency, or even lousy smell. 

If you keep a keen eye on the checklist of your ingredients and keep checking the weather conditions, you can never fail to get good compost. Also, add the vegetables after looking over their carbon and nitrogen index because the correct ratio for the significant ‘browns’ and ‘greens’ should not deviate from 30:1, in which for every thirty parts of carbon, one amount of nitrogen becomes essential to be added.