MamaGreenThumb
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Joined: Fri Dec 26, 2008 3:11 pm
Location: Florida

Best Compost EVER!

My fiance and I are wanting to make a compost, I'm starting up my first home garden and we'd love to be able to do our own composting as well. I was curious as to the way YOU do it. I've read about worms and no worms and such things. I'm going to google information on both, but would love some first hand opinions.

What it's made of, How big is it, Where is it located at your home? ect.

Nora

cynthia_h
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Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 7:02 pm
Location: El Cerrito, CA

Be sure to read through the "Sticky" messages in the Compost Forum to get an overview of what members of THG have done to make their own compost.

Entire BOOKS have been written about making compost; maybe your local public library can provide you with information? The Dewey Decimal number for gardening is 635. Any book whose call number begins with 635 will contain information on gardening.

The librarian can help you narrow it down to composting.

Also, depending on which county you live in, there may be classes and/or subsidized bins, etc. available for home gardeners to make compost.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

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CharlieK
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Joined: Sat May 17, 2008 4:32 am
Location: Covington, LA USA

Plus, just reading this Compost Forum. I started mine in the Spring and it has turned out wonderful thanks to all the help I got here. I will have to take some pictures of my setup. There are so many ways to go about it and it is not a precise science! Welcome! :D

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Congrats CharlieK! :)

Glad to hear of your success.

rot
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Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 1:15 am
Location: Ventura County, CA, Sunset 23

..
I've tripped around the web and found lots of people who take their composting very seriously. They’ll be making everything optimal and add things like bone meal or blood meal or fish emulsion or Uncle Waldo Wigglesworth's Magic Accelerator and so on. I'm at the opposite end of that spectrum and just dump it all in the bin and see how it goes in a week or so. I can always pee in it if I need to accelerate things.

If you go to the Cornell University website on the subject,
https://compost.css.cornell.edu/Composting_homepage.html
, you can get more information than I want to know about how it works and how to calculate the exact C:N ratios for your ingredients. I keep it bookmarked in case I have trouble falling asleep.

A good website that helped me get started and is local to you is:
https://www.compostinfo.com/

Hot composting and Ideally a minimum volume of 1 cu yd or 27 cu ft or 3 ft x 3 ft x 3ft. Build up all at once. Turn every 4.5 days. Maintain moisture to the equivalent to a damp sponge that produces a couple of drops when squeezed [don't ask me I've never understood that one]. I can't remember what the ideal C:N ratio (carbon to nitrogen or brown to greens) is and see the Cornell site above. I use these black plastic mat things with holes in them and rolled up into cylinders 3 ft in diameter and 2.5 ft high and about 17 cu ft. When I really want to hot compost, I fill the bins up all at once and make sure I have greens blended with browns at about a 50-50 ratio and add water and shouldn’t require more than a gallon. I'll turn each weekend. 6 weeks is about the fastest I ever made some compost and that probably could have ‘cured’ some but I used it anyways with no ill effects. I think I lucked out with a lot of worm action on that one. don't underestimate the benefit of worms. don't overestimate either but worms are our friends.

Nowadays it's more like warm composting for me. I get something started with that weeks mowing mixed with leaves or shredded office paper (many people don't like shredded office paper because of the toners used in laser printers and photocopiers), maybe some brown dry junk on the very bottom if I think about, and then next week I'll add the weeks kitchen scraps from the jar and cover with the weeks grass clippings amended with leaves or shredded office paper. I like to spread leaves over the lawn before I mow so the mower mixes and chops the leaves for me while I harvest the lawn. I can do that for a long time because the volume starts reducing and I just never fill that bin. If I kept doing that though, that bin would never finish until sooner or later I end up with a surplus of something or other to toss in and top off the bin that way. In a week or two or three I'll get around to start turning after the bin has been topped. I add water as required without waiting to turn. Although if I think I'm going to turn soon I'll back off on the watering and no need to shovel water too. Meanwhile I will start another bin and repeat. I typically have three going at any given time. Turning is sliding the black plastic mat cylinder with holes off of the lovely pile I made and place it next to the pile left behind and then shovel it back into the cylinder. Adding water as required.

Slow Composting and I also have about 3 or 4 bins formed by wooden pallets that are closer to that 1 cu yd minimum. I'll feed those suckers for at least 6 months and let them digest for at least 12 months but more like 18. Once I stop feeding, I only water. The worms come up from the ground and do all the heavy lifting for me.

Composting on the ground is great for worm action. Composting on pavers that are on the bare ground is even better because excess water drains into the ground, the worms still make their way into the bin, roots or voles or moles don't invade, and you can sweep up afterwards. The slow bins are on pavers. I do the hot, warm composting on concrete so building on the ground isn’t necessary but returns more better results.

Keep your piles or bins away from the house (4 ft minimum I think) but close enough to access water.

Keep your bins where they won't leach into the ground near drainage or lakes or other surface water.

Fruit and other stuff should be well covered if not buried well with in your bin or pile to keep the vermin away.

don't mess with animal products or pet poo until your really comfortable with your knowledge of the process. It is really easy to make a horrible mess of that stuff. If you think of those ingredients in terms of the subversive Anglo-Saxon word for excrement, You'll always know what you're dealing with. That kind of sheet takes more care and management.

You will never get compost in three weeks. Forget about that. Think in terms of months. I can get compost in two months if I work it. Four months if I don't. Usually about three months without sweating it.

I think the most important concept I can impart is to make the compost process work for you and not the other way around. What you don't put in in energy will be made up by time. Balance your time and space availability accordingly. If you're bent on making as much compost as fast as possible then by all means, build big, turn every 4.5 days, monitor temperature and moisture, carefully measure out your ingredients and go to town.

Allow me to suggest that you get some cheap bins, keeping in mind how you want to work them. Then look at the ingredients you have on hand and grass clippings, kitchen scraps, leaves, coffee grounds from starbucks, chipped up stuff from the local tree service, horse manure, brewers waste, seaweed, etc and and mix them up roughly 50-50 between wet green stuff and dry brown stuff, add water and see what happens and start adjusting from there. Make the process work with your ingredients and your habits. don't be a slave to the ideal, optimal composting process as proscribed by some compost website out in the middle of the Mojave desert. It won't work and You'll get annoyed.

All compost is local. The climate and the ingredients at hand all play a roll. Unlike politics, compost returns something in the end.

Do not let the process prevent you from tending other things. Go on vacation for a month and add water when you get back, maybe turn it then, and things will start right up again. it's all going to rot in time no matter what you do. Give not for what the bin rots, it rots for you.

two cents
..

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CharlieK
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Joined: Sat May 17, 2008 4:32 am
Location: Covington, LA USA

Oh, I like that tip about putting the pile on pavers, thanks Rot, that's some good reading!

:P

cynthia_h
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Rot, this is one of the best "all in one" summaries of composting I've ever read.

Wow. Thank you so much!

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

rot
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Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2008 1:15 am
Location: Ventura County, CA, Sunset 23

..
Thanks guys. The paver thing is about the best thing I ever hit on while trying things out. I really like being able to just sweep up after turning.

Other people do things differently. Some folks like concrete blocks for bins - they just re-stack to turn their bins. If you have lots of stuff and space, people with skip loaders will just build windrows. Another cheap bin is a loop of wire fencing. A simple pile will work but I can't speak to that method.

I don't know much about tumblers. I'm trying to cobble together a cheap one to try out. I'm thinking let cook in tumbler for two weeks and then set out to cure after the temperatures reduce.

Some people swear by their worm bins. I'm thinking about that because we end up with a lot of newspaper and I can get heaps of coffee grounds with little effort. I need an easy way of shredding newspaper though.

The way I've back-pedaled on my hot composting, I'm wondering if I shouldn't try out one of those earth machine type bins. I'm not going to pay for a bin ever again though.

For turning there are lots of folks who swear by a pitch fork. Maybe when I stop breaking pitch forks misusing them, I'll try it one day. Others will use those cork screw devices and just stir things in place.

Really in the end, it best works when you can make the compost process conform to your lifestyle and circumstances. Right now I'm content to just digest our organics without breaking a sweat.

If you need certain materials to balance out your ingredients for a working mix, you can talk to the neighbors. Some will think you're weird and some will be happy to donate. Just be aware that some people aren't that careful of what goes in their yard waste. I will dump it out on the driveway and pick through it before I add to my bins.

For the folks in Florida, I would just watch the watering. Shouldn't require so much in a humid climate and you don't want the excess to leach too much into the land of high water tables. Maybe start on a concrete deck just to see how much water leaks out when and adjust from there. Then when you build on the ground and the worms start coming up you can see the benefit of the worm action. During the rainy season I cover the bins and the worms retreat to the bins to escape drowning in the water saturated soil.

two cents
..

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CharlieK
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Joined: Sat May 17, 2008 4:32 am
Location: Covington, LA USA

Another cheap bin is a loop of wire fencing. A simple pile will work but I can't speak to that method.
That's what I use, and like. I'm away from home and will post a picture later in the week.

For turning there are lots of folks who swear by a pitch fork. Maybe when I stop breaking pitch forks misusing them, I'll try it one day.
I bought one and it is great! I pull my wire fence hoop off the pile, turn it and restack in the wire loop.

David Taylor
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Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2008 12:21 pm
Location: Crest California

Someone should mention 'The Complete Book of Composting' by J.I. Rodale and staff. I have the twelfth edition, 1971. 1007 pages of nothing but composting by every method possible and imaginable. I even read it, once. I just wonder when they got around to gardening.

My two cents worth is, its gotta be something you can do as a part of your routine, relatively easy, or its just not going to happen. If you sweat the balancing act, no more than ten percent of one item, stuff like that, there's just too much chance you're not going to do it.

MamaGreenThumb
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Posts: 32
Joined: Fri Dec 26, 2008 3:11 pm
Location: Florida

Awesome advice guys. We built it today, I'll be posting pics as soon as I get my camera stuff installed.

Thanks for the post Rot! And a lot of good info from everyone.



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