Compost

[yotetrapper]

Despite gardening all my life, composting is one thing I have never done. It always seemed like so much extra work. I've heard so many different things, like you need to have so much % green stuff x so much % brown stuff x this or that and stir stir stir all the time,....

Is it really that complicated?? How do you all do it?

Also, does coop cleanings go in your compost? Heard someone needed to be season for years first because was too "hot"?

 

[patandchickens]

Oh sure, you can do the Type A anal-retentive science-and-technology version and make it your fulltime hobby. If that's what you like

However, fortunately for the rest of us <g> Mother Nature has been composting for several billion years and thus can do a perfectly good job without much of any attention from us. It just takes longer is all. (although, slow composting will *not* kill weeds or pathogens, if you care about that).

Recipe: pile stuff in a corner. Wait. When it's ready, use it.

No foolin'

Mind, if you load the pile with really inconvenient stuff it can take a looong time, like it may be more use to your descendants than to you. Although it *will* get there eventually.

To maximize your chances of being able to use it in the next few years, without actually engaging in Work, you should:

--try to have a mixture of high-carbon and high-nitrogen things in there. Hi-C materials are things like wood shavings, hay, straw, dried leaves. Hi-N materials are things like fresh grass clippings, animal manure, food wastes (nothing that will attract stray dogs or rats or etc, so no bones or meat or grease), feathers, pee, freshly pulled weeds or other leafy stuff. Hint: coop cleanings when you bed with shavings are probably still C-biased and will benefit from extra hi-N material, up to and including commercial nitrogenous fertilizer if you're in a hurry.

--when possible, put the stuff on the pile in chopped up in little pieces, not in large chunks. Hack large pieces of kitchen waste (melon rinds, banana peels, corncobs) up with a machete on a stump, etc. If you have Very Chunky things (such as branches) consider piling them somewhere else to rot down more slowly.

--don't let the pile get grossly soggy nor let it dry out. In dry weather you can hose it and then cover with old carpeting; in wet weather you can cover with a piece of plywood or bunged-down tarp.

--make the pile as roughly cubical as possible, and not too small.

--to speed things along, chuck a shovelful of garden soil on the pile between some layers, or shake the dirt off weeds' roots into the pile. (Be cautious putting weed roots themselves in the pile, though, unless thoroughly sun-dried - you do not want to start a thistle ranch )

The inside will compost better than the outside. Dig in periodically to see whatcha got. When it's usable, pile the outside elsewhere to let you raid the inside, then re-pile the outside stuff to form the 'inside' of a new pile and resume chucking stuff on top of it.

It really is worth it.

Good luck and have fun,

Pat

 

[yotetrapper]

Ok, thanks, that was helpful. Guess I'll give it a try.

 

[ticks]

THen you can add chicken/poultry waste into the mix. Pure chicken poop will kill the plants though.

 

[scrambledmess]

I know this was posted earlier in the summer. But my DS's school work called for making a compost pile. It sounded really complicated, but I like the above version much better!

 

[enjoy the ride]

And, depending where you live, sheet composting is even easier than a pile.
The only thing that I worry about with a pile, is to cover it when it is non-stop rain to keep the nutients fromwashing away and add a little water to it if it's been dry too long. That keeps it going but if you have no timeframe, as was said above mother nature does it whether you will or not.lol

 

[scrambledmess]

What is sheet composting? We were going to start our pile tomorrow.

 

[greenrootsmama]

I'm sure there's a name for the way we compost but I don't know what it is. We have very rocky ground here so we did everything above ground. First we started out with cardboard. Right after we moved in we had a ton of cardboard boxes and I couldn't justify throwing them in the (gasp) trash. They have to be of the plain brown persuasion. Ink on those boxes is ok but don't use cardboard that has shiny print on it because that stuff is bad for the earth. Then I throw some leaves or grass clippings or some kind of mulch on the top. Then I put a layer of compost over that. I just throw all of my organic kitchen waste in a pile in the back corner of the yard and then when I feel motivated to prepare the garden spot (fall is the best time) I use it as mentioned above. After the compost layer I put down a layer of newspaper. Again, it can't be the shiny Walmart ads, it has to be plain newsprint. And then I throw some mulch on top of that and a little topsoil. Then I let it sit over the winter and by spring it's all wormy and ready to plant.

As a side note, in our area I have to be careful of seeds going into the compost because I'll end up with random sprouts popping up all over my garden. One year we were overrun with pumpkin because we'd tossed in the pumpkin innards from our Jack-o-lanterns. Oops. I'm still trying to find ways to use our seeds so that they don't go into the compost. We only need so many to replant next year. With the pumpkin seeds we roast and eat them. With the other seeds we dry them out and use them for art projects. But even then we still have more than we could ever use.

 

[SKR8PN]

I start a compost pile every fall when I collect and shred all the leaves. Over the winter months we toss all of our kitchen scraps(no meat or bones) onto the pile and let it work in. In the spring I vacuum up a load of fresh green grass to add to the top of the pile, let it set a few weeks, then turn the pile and let it finish off over the summer. Every fall,just before leaf time but after the garden is done, I spread the compost pile over the garden and till it in before winter.
Just this past fall I built a small compost drum to make a small separate batch for the wife to use as she see's fit. Depending on how this one works, an dhow much she can use, I may add another drum this fall.

 

[greenrootsmama]

Do you put cooked food into your compost? I've read controversial information about putting any kind of prepared food into the compost. I keep mine to raw vegetation and egg shells. Any prepared food goes to the animals.