Too much compost?!?

[DianeS]

I am looking for a better way to handle having a very, very, VERY many things to compost. I am happy to have this problem!

I'm used to having a single pile, I just add new things to one side of it and sort of stir them in, and when I want a small amount of compost I just use a shovel to dig some out of the bottom. It worked fine. And when I wanted to make an entire raised (lasagna) garden bed I just used all of it even though some of it hadn't become actual "compost" yet. No problems.

But now, I started with a decent sized single compost pile. And then I landed an opportunity to pick up compostable items from a local restaurant! Not only that, they PAY me for doing so, with restaurant products! So I accepted. And now my compost is overflowing. I get 4-6 five-gallon buckets a week. Greens and coffee grounds, mostly.

So what's the best way to handle this? Would two or more piles work better for me? One to just sit that I could use next year and one to add to constantly? Any other varieties of composting that I just don't know about yet?

 

[Denim Deb]

I've never seen it done, but I've heard of people making a composter out of an old, 55 gallon barrel. You'd need to make a door on one side of it and drill some holes in it, then mount it so you can turn it by hand. You put the compost in by the door, and turn the handle to rotate it. Anything that's composted enough will fall out of the holes.

Another thing you can do is to take some pallets and make separate piles. Pile 1 is the new stuff. Pile 2 is more aged. You have as many piles as you think you need w/the last pile being the stuff that's ready to be used.

 

[Marianne]

Oh wow, what a score for you!

How about a piggie? That would be some free chow. Or new garden area? You could smother the grass with cardboard or newspaper, then dump your compostable stuff right on top, just a small area at a time.

Are wild critters a problem in your area?

I throw everything straight on the ground in various places, but since I have free ranging hens, it doesn't stay there long. I have seen pics of the pallet system, too. These people had three chambers made with pallets, all hooked together. They had some sort of lid fashioned to go over each of them, but I don't remember the details.

 

[moolie]

Great score, your garden is going to love you!

At our old house we had a three bin system made with pallets for the sides: current compost pile, ready to use compost pile, and bin of leaves to add in to balance the "greens". At this house we have a tumbler and a ready to use pile, we don't have many trees that drop leaves so we get bags of leaves from neighbors in the fall and store them beside the house to add into the compost--same system, just different storage methods.

One big piece of advice: with all the "green" matter you are getting, you will end up with really stinky slime if you don't get some brown matter (leaves, shredded paper etc.) into all the stuff you are currently picking up. You need a good mix of the two or everything suffocates and doesn't compost.

 

[k15n1]

You need aeration and mixing for fasting composting. So whatever you do, you'll have to control the amount of water that gets in. And you'll probably have to get a garden fork and do some manual labor to keep it mixed (but not too mixed for worms to survive).

I used a 1-pile method for a decade and it was fine. But a 2 or 3-pile method might be better for you, on account of the relatively high volume.

Make sure you keep a healthy mixture of stuff in your pile. Coffee grounds and greens might not be balanced enough. Do you have some leaf litter you can throw in? There's some idea mixture of carbon/nitrogen sources that's considered ideal. You can find it on the interwebs, I think.

 

[Joel_BC]

Your opening post makes it sound like you may be dealing with a considerable amount of material during the season. You'll be getting all those materials that have been offered to you, plus manging your own kitchen and garden waste materials. This video illustrates a simple approach to building and managing larger compost piles than the usual bin holds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=138edVB1bp4

Other than this kind of system, if the scale of your compost-making is large enough, there would be the option of using a tractor or garden tractor to move materials around and get air into the pile. You could do this with a blade or a front-end loader.

At a certain scale, it makes sense to invest in some sort of windrow equipment to aerate the materials and form them into windrows, a process that's repeated from time to time.

 

[DianeS]

Thanks everybody! Yes, I have plenty of "brown" to mix in with all this stuff, so keeping it balanced isn't an issue. The problem is the sheer SIZE that this pile is going to become. I really don't know how long I will be able to keep picking up the restaurant compostables. But I'm going to enjoy it while I have it!

The chickens do eat a lot of it. So do the rabbits. And the squirrels help themselves often. The squirrels are about all the wildlife around here. There was an opossum, but he died. I expect to see raccoons and foxes because of the area, but just never have.

I will explore the multiple piles idea more. I think that will work best. Maybe with pallets. Or tumblers. Several tumblers might work really well. It would serve the multiple purposes of aerating, mixing, AND keeping excess water out of the pile. (I do live in Oregon, after all!) If it gets to the point I would need a front loader type vehicle to move a pile on the ground I'll have to stop because I just can't get one into the yard. It's a rental, I can do what I like with the yard but I can't take down the fence.

Maybe I should find a friend to split the compostables with - maybe one I can alternate with every 3 months or so. That would make a natural division between the piles, too.

 

[ducks4you]

Sounds like you have quite a bit. Perhaps you could sell some next year. I don't worry about composting down my chicken manure bc I only clean regularly in the winter. In the summer, I only strip several times. Same with what I clean from my horses. I just pile it up and let it sit until the Spring, then I move and till it into garden areas, OR till it in and move it there. If you have an abundance, you might consider creating a pile to move later.