Behind our garage we have a few compost bins from the prior owners of our house. I've been using them just as a place to dump the grass after mowing, but they're getting pretty full and I think I'll need to actually take some effort here to break down the grass--especially as we're nearly complete with our garden plans for next year.
So what should I do? I'm assuming that I'll need to buy some worms, and also be taking a more active role than "Dump grass bag in the bin". Any thoughts?
My wife has been composting. My dad built a pretty sweet compost bin for her. I believe we're still collecting stuff--mostly kitchen scraps (no meat) but also some yard waste.
A friends wife has a booming (Well, booming for a retired person) business in the worm industry. Their garage is no longer used for cars. Red Wigglers for the win.
And here's my dad with said compost bin.
You need more brown stuff, less greens. Any leaves you can toss in there?
Enyar said:You need more brown stuff, less greens. Any leaves you can toss in there?
Not yet, but I think we have a small hay bale in the garage that we could toss in, along with some cardboard I could shred.
We do all of our non meat kitchen stuff. It's horrifying what creatures have taken up residence in our old food. I should put some grass in there to tamp down the creepy crawlies.
Free Range Compost..Just heave vegetable by-products off the deck in the general direction of the veggie garden. Must be working cause its the nicest area of the lawn. Not the mess you are thinking it is either since stuff seems to disappear very quick.
A more organized way is to dig a trench on one end of your garden and fill it with scraps and a bit of dirt. Next year dig the trench on the other side of the garden and rototill the previous year's compost into the soil.
Also have a compost bin for the last 20 years or so. Use it for more bulky scraps like corncobs and watermelon rinds or any quantity of stuff that makes it worth walking the 100' to the bin. Been providing soil and worms to the garden every year. Serious fruit-fliage and raccoon subscription.
I compost leaves from the front yard. I don’t have a bin so it takes a long time. I put coffee an tea leaves in too, but little other food. I don’t put grass clipping in because they mold so bad.
mtn said:Behind our garage we have a few compost bins from the prior owners of our house. I've been using them just as a place to dump the grass after mowing, but they're getting pretty full and I think I'll need to actually take some effort here to break down the grass--especially as we're nearly complete with our garden plans for next year.
So what should I do? I'm assuming that I'll need to buy some worms, and also be taking a more active role than "Dump grass bag in the bin". Any thoughts?
Turn it. That will get some air in the middle of it, and help it break down.
And you can not pick up the grass for a while- let it compost in place, that helps, too.
Worms are not a big fan of hot compost piles- they don't like the heat.
In the fall, spend some time mowing up the leaves (to chop them up), and mix them in. Make sure it's damp, and turn well, and it should be mostly compost by the spring.
From my tiny research, worms are better with cool compost piles, and making a bin for your household scraps is perfect. Totally different kind of compost- it's worm digested instead of other tiny creatures.
alfadriver said:mtn said:Behind our garage we have a few compost bins from the prior owners of our house. I've been using them just as a place to dump the grass after mowing, but they're getting pretty full and I think I'll need to actually take some effort here to break down the grass--especially as we're nearly complete with our garden plans for next year.
So what should I do? I'm assuming that I'll need to buy some worms, and also be taking a more active role than "Dump grass bag in the bin". Any thoughts?
Turn it. That will get some air in the middle of it, and help it break down.
And you can not pick up the grass for a while- let it compost in place, that helps, too.
Worms are not a big fan of hot compost piles- they don't like the heat.
In the fall, spend some time mowing up the leaves (to chop them up), and mix them in. Make sure it's damp, and turn well, and it should be mostly compost by the spring.
From my tiny research, worms are better with cool compost piles, and making a bin for your household scraps is perfect. Totally different kind of compost- it's worm digested instead of other tiny creatures.
Good to know. FWIW, we only do this with the back yard. Front yard the grass lays where it falls, but in the backyard the dogs would make too much of a mess if we didn’t bag the grass
I'd like to bring this topic back up with spring coming. It was the most recent thread we've had on the subject, though I feel I've asked some questions before.
Anyway, I'm thinking about getting into the compost thing to help better the garden. I'd also like to look more into "organic teas" but that may be an offshoot of this.
I understand there are "green" and "brown" compost, based on the carbon: nitrogen ratio. Greens being egg shells, veggie scraps, grass clipping, brown being dead leaves, sawdust, stuff like that. Where does chicken poop fall on the scale? Are wood chips worth while as a brown?
should I save the chicken stuff in one barrel, while I collect leaves and grass in the other then mix, or just layer it all together in the same container?
4 to 6 chickens should provide 3-4 cubic feet of dropping per year. I originally thought to mix it in with my garden directly, but since making the switch to container gardening, compost seems a better alternative. I've got 2 acres of grass that gets cut every other week, and am annual leaf fall of 12 leaf vac bags, so I know annually I'm covered on everything, but I don't know how to find the right ratio for good vegetable growing compost.
are bone meal and worm casings still recommended with chicken poop? Should I have yet another superstore container for kitchen scraps?
I've been known to hurl banana peels in the general direction of the garden. Does that count?
In reply to RevRico :
So I've been reading more and more about it, and the best suggestion is to not over think it.
Given the smaller size of composting we do in our back yards, getting a truly hot system going isn't that easy. So don't bother trying- just put together a bin of organic stuff to let it break down. The most important part of the sterilization is that it kills seeds. So no weeds. The second is that it kills random bacteria. But some bacteria is good and vital to soil health.
So just put it all together and let it break down. Yard waste, kitchen scraps, etc. If you CAN make it hot, then the chicken poop is then safe to put into it.
Another option for both the poop and the food scraps is a worm bin. A few years ago, someone here introduced that to me, and when you look into what those little things can do- it's amazing. There are farms that put ALL of their cow poop into a long worm bin, and it turns out great. Along with a major reduction in bad things going to the environment. And that's a good source for very high concentration "tea"- you need to dilute it, but it works really well.
The nice thing about a compost pile is that it will attract composting worms.
As I read your post again, I see you make a lot of chicken poop. I recall reading in passing that it does a great job of making a hot pile- so look more into that. IIRC, lots of nitrogen.
Good luck with the container gardening- I changed to it a few years ago- due to invasive roots. Still learning how to do it well.... I still think it's a great option.
closest I come to composting is the head in my sailboat. Butt I am sure that is not the kind of composting people want to read about
We have a bin that gets everything from spring to fall, between growing seasons everything just gets chucked in the garden. Usually yields a few free food producing plants a year in addition to fertilizing the dirt. Big stuff like corn cobs or watermelon rinds get tossed off the deck into the woods, and corn husks get tossed in the grass and chopped up with the mower. I toss meat scraps off the deck down into the valley for the animals too, seems to have helped keep the raccoons away from my compost bin.
We have been “composting” at my parent’s house for 23 years, basically dumping non meat kitchen waste out back, where they had a garden in 97-98. We also had rabbits and made a “tea” and would compost the spent droppings after several brews.
I'm a bit of a soil freak. Made my own custom soils for jobs depending on existing soil and plant type and at my retail nursery the price of a plant included a custom mixed bag of soil with composts in it. No soil, no 1 year warranty. Of all of the different ways to make compost the one that taught me the most was a traditional three stage. Three galvanized wire or wood bins (pallets are good) that contain different stages of compost; fresh, intermediate, and finshed or almost finished. It teaches you how to combine the right amount of ingredients and when, moisture requirements, temperature, etc. Plenty of info out there. A season doing this and you'll be really good at it.
I just moved to a new location 8 months ago and started some piles . 12 or 13 piles in 80 linear feet. Pitch fork each pile a few feet to the right, next time to the left. They will get bigger in size this year and will use to plant about 400 trees and shrubs in the near future. Good workout, too!
Most of these piles are finished but I keep adding to them since there is plenty of time.
^ Adding a little heat to this pile. Tarps are good for moisture or heat control.
I compost. I don't use compost, I just like things to not end up in the landfill.
My compost bin is approx 48x48x36". Its just walls/lid - the bottom is earth. I throw anything organic* in there with no regard for ratio, turning it, what type of food it is/was, etc. It magically goes away.
In the winter it will get a bit lumpy and will fill slightly faster than it settles, but in the summer when the black soldier flies are around stuff disappears at an alarming rate - could probably compost 5 families worth of stuff.
* anything organic from the house
Yard organic waste (basically just leaves) goes in a pile next to the bin.
Composting is different from vermicomposting. I never got into the worm side but it's a whole different thing.
I took a free class on composting at a local greenhouse a few years ago. Equal mixes of browns and greens with a mixing about once a week is what they told me. Greens would be grass, green leaves, weeds, etc. Browns would be coffee grounds, eggshells, banana peels, fall leaves, and chipped twigs. Animal poop was discouraged unless it is a vegetarian animal. Dog poop, no - rabbit poop, yes. they also recommended against pine needles because the resins don't degrade well, and the needles pack together without enough air pentration. Under the compost bin you should have a layer of hardware cloth to prevent rodents. They like to get in and eat the best stuff and then pee and poop on your compost.
The most important thing they told me is that there is no way to do it wrong. Compost happens whether or not you want it to, it's just that it happens at max speed if you do it right. One suggestion they gave me was to get one of those long ground augers like they use for big-top tent peg anchors and leave it in the bin. Give it a few twists and a pull once a week to turn it over a bit.
1988RedT2 said:I've been known to hurl banana peels in the general direction of the garden. Does that count?
Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. 
Of course if you hit the garden...
Whats funny is I was reading this earlier for no reason. Its about compose instead of fertiliser.
Curtis said:Composting is different from vermicomposting. I never got into the worm side but it's a whole different thing.
I took a free class on composting at a local greenhouse a few years ago. Equal mixes of browns and greens with a mixing about once a week is what they told me. Greens would be grass, green leaves, weeds, etc. Browns would be coffee grounds, eggshells, banana peels, fall leaves, and chipped twigs. Animal poop was discouraged unless it is a vegetarian animal. Dog poop, no - rabbit poop, yes. they also recommended against pine needles because the resins don't degrade well, and the needles pack together without enough air pentration. Under the compost bin you should have a layer of hardware cloth to prevent rodents. They like to get in and eat the best stuff and then pee and poop on your compost.
The most important thing they told me is that there is no way to do it wrong. Compost happens whether or not you want it to, it's just that it happens at max speed if you do it right. One suggestion they gave me was to get one of those long ground augers like they use for big-top tent peg anchors and leave it in the bin. Give it a few twists and a pull once a week to turn it over a bit.
This is similar to what I use. Ours is actually a sign post that is probably 40 years old, but it has... I dunno what you'd call them, flanges or wings, that allows me to do what you're describing here. This would work much better though.
Even though I said "bins", what we really have are contained piles--I have no clue if there is a bottom to them or if it is just dirt, and it is basically just a few old baby cribs with chicken wire that is holding the compost in. It is basically used only for yard waste, but it saves me a lot of bags.
David S. Wallens said:And here's my dad with said compost bin.
i built one almost exactly similar to that, out of cedar planks from some kind of magazine plan. been using it for about 4 years now.
i found that if i could do it again, i'd get a wider footprint, like twice as wide at least. its hard to turn the pile in such a narrow cube. but, for our small garden uses, its a convenient size for our odd kitchen and table scraps, leaves, and some grass clippings. better than throwing it in a landfill.
One other thing I'll add that I just remembered.
If you don't get the balance of brown and green right, odor can become a problem. Too much green and you'll likely have predominantly mold which fights with the bacteria and microbes and slows things down. Too much brown and you'll have a rotten smell and it will bias toward bacteria and things like bugs and fungus can't grow and it slows it down.
I would suggest that every once in a while you add some brown to balance it out a bit.
Yesterday I had a chance to go outside and get some mental images closer to my ideas.I just don't know if it's a good one
by the house, I have my original raised beds. They've got now 2 year old soilless mix I them. Peat moss, perlite, some nutrient salts which have most likely washed out, and already about 2 years of dead weeds and garden plants. Am I wrong wanting to use those beds as the base to my compost pile?
it's already separated into 2 4 foot by 4 foot sections, in the shade most of the day, and at the top of the hill so some moisture drains. Mix the bird pop on one side while it compost, and mix the everything else on the other side to get a nice gen brown mix.
Would I be better off in a container or on bare ground dirt? Or will the soilless mix add aeration and help drainage like I think it would?
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