Discussion Board

Faith,

It really is the most amazing, easy technique I have found. Here's a really good article about it from Mother Earth News.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic- ... ening.aspx

thank you. That was way before I subscribed. I printed it to read.

OK new issue. I had sat aside a bail of hay from fall, and noticed it's now growing greenery. First off, I'd think this is a good sign. I read this morning in Mother Earth that hay can have high pesticides so it suggested not using or try growing a seed out of it to see if it was safe. Since it's growing it's own greenery I'm assuming it's safe.

Second question, I'm hoping I can still count it as brown.

Hi Debbie, For a compst pile to really work well it needs to be about 3 feet deep. Also Pine needles are about the worst choice to add to a compost pile. They take too long to break down which makes them a better mulch to spread around your plants to help them retain moisture.

To help with your current pile I suggest you get a bunch of shreded paper get it wet and mix it with what you have already got going. Even better if you have a friend with a horse who has some stall litter you can grab to add in (Stall litter will be composed of straw and manuer or wood chips and manuer) Either of these will help your pile get going.

Another option is to get someones litter from their rabbit cage or rat cage if your kids frineds have any of these pets. (Note: they need cleaned out once a week so there is tons of litter available)

I reccomend these two books to help you understand the dynamics.
My absolute favorite book is "The Complete Compost gardening guide".
IT has information on how this all works, it also has all different kinds of mulch piles, and it is a fun book to read (IN my husbands words touchy feely) His favorite book was "Let it Rot". This one has all the technical jargin if you are into all the chemical wheres and whys.
But the Compost Gardening guide also has instructions on quantites and such for each type of pile and material. This was a lot more helpful to me.

Ohhh dear Debbie Here let me give you a couple of different recipes.

Do you have neighbors with horses or well I guess that means nothing since you probably are still knee deep in Snow

Here are a couple of quicky bin suggestions till you can get hubby to build or you can buy. Get the biggest plastic garbage can you can. and drill 20 evenly spaced holes in the sides and bottom to allow air to get in. Set upright then fill, close, and use a bungy to hold lid on tight andm then roll it around to mix the ingredients.OR if you can find some old Pallets you can screw them together for an ugly but functional bin.

I got one of those ones you buy it cost $80 on sale but it works pretty well I also got a winged compost turner it was my best investment,(bought on line) (if you buy one of these don't buy the double winged ones they are a waste of money and malfunction alot, the single winged one works perfect just wash it thouroughly after each use). Your compost will break down twice as fast with the winged turner.

I also have a waiting area but it could easily be a bin it is just a large round bin made of pig wire i curled into a ring, I put greens and wast in there to wait for when I make the next pile it is usually half composted by the time it gets mixed into a new layered compost pile.

Okay some compost recipes. Therse are for fast hot compost.
THis first one may just be what you need. Adjust dog food amount to what you have in kitchen scraps

1.) 20 Pounds Cheap Dog Food, 3 bushels of mixed moistneed yard waste or kitchen garbage.(this works great even with weeds because the heat kills the seeds).
If you do this in the garbage can maybe do 10 pounds of dog food and then fill to 3.4 of the garbage can with kitchen waste and plant stuff, if you are short of kitchen scraps, when you get the dog food ask the produce section if they have some of the left over trimm you can have. THey have to pull off lettuce leaves and such before they put it out in the display. Get a large garbage bag full of it.


2.) 20 Pounds Rabbit Food(alfalfa pellets) one wheel barrow load each of dry leaves(or Shredded paper) , grass clippings and green garden waste.

3.) Equal parts horse manuer, rotted hay, and damp straw or ground corn cobbs.

4.) 4 parts fresh grass clippings, 1 part sawdust, 1 part active compost(leftover compost from a just finished batch)

5.) 3 parts fresh grass clippings, 1 part kitchen waste, 1 part shredded moistened paper.

You can get shredded paper form a couple of different places if your hubby works in an office or you do.. or from a realestate office or title office they have a lot of stuff they have to shredd.

Easier than that thouh is finding a neighbor with Horses and get the stall litter.bring a shovel with you and a pick up truck to load it in. ou said you are in the mountains so I bet there is somone close by.

Other critters with stall litter include lamas or alpacas , sometimes sheep (it is lambing season), chickens. and pot bellied pigs.
or if there is a lumber mill near by you can get sawdust and wood chips from them.

Most folks with horses are glad for you to take off their manuer mess they get tonss of it every year.
But you can always go with an offering of cookies or quick bread as a trade.

I didn't think of shredded documents at work!! Darn I get a large bag weekly.

Would any poo work? I have a ferret, and use wood stove pellets.

So the paper and the wood act as brown right?

I just had my lawn mowed for the first time, and was scared to use those clippings due to many weeds are blossoming. But it would be ok since it'll get hot enough right?

I just need to get my compost bin back together. It totally came apart. I wish I could afford the round kind with a handle.

I don't know what ferrets eat but any grain eating animal.
Rats eat a bit more variety but they eat mostly fruit grains and seeds.
and bunnies are the same. So you can use the poops from any grain eating animal.

Thus manuer from Chickens, Horses Cows, bunnies pot bellied pigs, rats goats sheep, deer etc.

some animals especially birds have a different acidic level to their excrement So you need to add wood chips or paper to it to help it compost adequately.
We have chickens which is why I learned about the shredded paper.

Faith do you have a winged turner those things are awesome it made it so much easier to turn my pile.

OH duh on my part. I use to use horse dung, back when I was on a farm. But no ferrets eat meat, so not good to use. It does deter rats though.

My composter was from costco and just sits on the ground, so impossible to turn. I do pitch fork it but you can't get deep enough.

Oh You need to get one of These winged compost turners.
THey are awesome and worth every penny I swear they pay for their self in one turning. I always had to unstack my plastic bin and mix up the compost and it never wroked very good. I just couldn't get it mixed togeher very well and it was hot sweaty and dusty work. and eww bugs!!!!
Then I got one of these turner things and they are awesome you just poke it in and pull it out... the wings drop down and grab the compost and lift and turn it then you poke it in again a bunch of times

it really trurnes the pile quickly and completely.
Once you are done you need to rinse the wings off really good or it will stick the next time you use it.
I did a bunch of research on them before I settled on this brand... they are the best quality wise etc. then i looked into issues and the one every one mentioned was the sticking wings and the solution was to rinse them well after each use .Mine has never stuck. and It is a nice heavy quality steel tool.
I looked into the double winged ones but they don't work as well as you would think they would. and you really only need the one set of wings.

oh wow thank you so much. I have seen those and wondered if they worked. I'm not one to try items that sound so good. It's impossible to turn it with a pitch fork especially with the size of the compast box.

I know I tried with my hay fork and my garden fork and neither one worked adequatly even when I lower the level of my box.

I will try to do a quicky video tonight and post it so you can see the tool up close. Also I got this one with the double handle there is a cheaper single handle one but I think it is a cheaper quality metal and it looks more difficult to operate.

I found that it's better to get good quality tools. So I won't skrimp on them.

When I was a kid (a long, long time ago) we had a "garbage hole" in the back yard, often located somewhere in the vegetable gardening space. All kitchen scraps were dumped there. When it was full, it was covered over. It was an unsophisticated composting measure but worked well. After finally giving away my $400 huge ComposTumbler, I've reverted to ye olde garbage hole.

Hope this helps others who may be scientifically, chemically and energentically challenged.

I think that's a method that's been proven to work over thousands of years, lol!

Another non-bin method that I've read about is "sheet composting", that is, more or less spreading the scraps over an area that will later be used for garden, and covering them with mulch. Basically the hole method, spread out thin!

Ruth Stout who was the champion of permanent hay-mulch gardening, just slipped her kitchen scraps under the hay here and there. She thought it was silly to compost it all in one place, then work hard with a shovel to move it into the garden, when you could just put it there in the first place! Although I do use her hay-mulch method on my garden beds, I still throw my scraps in an open bin in order to mix them with all the other stuff we gather--when the compost is finished I use it in my potting soil mix, etc, and it's handy to have it available.