Hot compost

[Maximavswife]

Hi there. I have been a lurker for a couple of weeks and finally got around to registering today. I am located in a suburb just east of Denver, CO.
I am a hobbiest composter. I have a tumbler as well as a bin. This morning I went out to aerate my bin a bit since it has been warm here (finally!) and I hadn't done it in a couple of weeks ( I turn my tumbler whenever I think of it when I am out working in the yard/ gardens). Anywho, what I first mistook as dust was steam! Air temps were just under 70 degrees. The heat was it was generating was awesome! Oh the happy dance I was doing in my head! It is cooking along very nicely! I add kitchen scraps (no meat), UCG, lawn clippings, a few leaves and shredded paper that I get from our junk mail, from work and a friend. No one understands my joy when I go on about my composting...so, I hope you will allow me to crow now and then as well as learn from all of you!

Kath
loves steamin' stuff

[top_dollar_bread]

ahh steaming compost
Lucky!!! I never get steamy compost but I feel you on the joy it brings. I leave near dairies and they leave huge piles of cow dung for people to grab. When I see steam generating out from these piles I practically jump in, grabbing bucket loads of dung spewing out methane clouds. None of my buddies cant seem to understand the science of my madness.

[stella1751]

Maximavswife, can you describe this bin and show a photo? I have finally decided I want to compost on a smaller scale, and I don't know what a bin composter looks like

Truth be told, I would like to see what everyone does. I guess I'm "shopping around" for something that will give me compost in anywhere from two to six weeks. My current system, while wonderful in terms of huge quantities, is a spring to spring affair that doesn't really use to good advantage kitchen scraps, leaves, and so on.

BTW, Welcome, Maximavswife! I'm north of you, probably about five hours north, in Casper.

[Maximavswife]

My bin is something like this. Go it at Lowes but have seen them at Ace Hardware too.
https://www.composters.com/compost-bins.php
I'll try to get a picture of my tumbler up later. It was a Christmas present from hubs and he got it at our local garden center. How he hid it for a couple of months I don't know

Kath

[stella1751]

Those are lovely, Maximavswife! I can't afford to buy one, though. I wonder whether something like that could be made out of wood. I think I'm going to start a new post on homemade composters. I don't know what I want to make, but I bet I'll know it when I see it!

[cynthia_h]

Check with your city / county solid waste authority about subsidized compost bins. Many, many jurisdictions across the country make these commercially produced bins available at a fraction of the retail price.

Example: I purchased a BioStack bin in the early '80s from the City of Berkeley for $33. Yes, it was such a good deal that I still remember the price!

They're still available at a similar price ($49?) for Alameda County residents. They retail anywhere from $99 to $129.

I got a BioStack bin FREE in June 2008 for my MIL's yard in Palo Alto by taking a city-sponsored class on composting. We received vouchers at the end of class for a free BioStack at the City's recycle center.

Maybe there are some programs like this near you?

I hope so; they're very convenient.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[stella1751]

What a terrific idea, Cynthia_H! And you may well be right. The city of Casper has a wonderful municipal waste program; it stands to reason it would have other programs designed to encourage reduction of organic waste in the landfill. I could probably swing $50 if I cut down on bat guano this month I will call them on Monday. Thanks!

[top_dollar_bread]

Our city too has a compost learning program, its hosted at the city library ever so often. Ive been meaning to go to one for some time now, never got around to doing it thought. I find that commercial composting bins (ones being sold at lowes/homedepot) prices are way out of my range. You can either go out and spent 100 plus dollars for a decent size commercial composter. [url]https://www.composters.com/compost-bins/kitchen-composter-58-gal-black_256_1.php[/url]
or you spend less then 30 dollars and build your own. Bins can be made out of old rubber made storage containers, creatively constructed out of wood or heavy duty 30 plus gallon garbage bins.

Here is a really good read on constructing DIY compost bins ranging from small soda bottles, worm bins to bigger trash bins and large scale outdoor composting.
[url]https://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/chapter2.pdf[/url]

I personally compost using a heavy duty trash bin similar to this
[url]https://www.associatedcontent.com/article/314155/how_to_create_a_dirt_cheap_compost.html?cat=24[/url]

Also here’s a thread on constructing a DIY tumbler
[url]https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15273[/url]

& a video on the hows of constructing a worm bin
[url]https://www.associatedcontent.com/video/90056/how_to_make_your_own_worm_bin.html?cat=6[/url]

All though there are many methods and types of bins to compost in, they all do the same thing. Hold a huge pile of food for billons of micro organisms.

In the end, developing a successful composting program comes down to getting the right combination of ingredients. The right ingredient greatly affects the oxygen, water, and food, microorganism require to interact & thrive.

Two things are very important when composting: moisture content and the carbon to nitrogen (C/N) ratio. The quickest way to produce fertile, sweet-smelling compost is to maintain a C/N ratio somewhere around 25 to 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen. If the C/N ratio is too high (excess carbon), moister gets depleted (making it difficult for microbes to live and move around throughout the pile) & decomposition slows down. If the C/N ratio is to low (excess nitrogen) the compost pile tends to be wetter, ingredients get so heavy that they begin to mat down and exclude air (oxygen) from the pile, again slowing the composting process and creating anaerobic odor.(starts to smell)
[url]https://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/chapter1.pdf[/url]

To accomplish the right C/N ratio, you can simply put layers of even amount of browns(dry) and greens(wet) material in the pile or you can dig deeper into the science of composting (biology, chemistry and physics of compost) and build an algebraic mathematical equation to get the best combination of ingredients. [url]https://compost.css.cornell.edu/calc/simultaneous.html[/url]

Being sure you have the right amount of moisture in your compost, is as easy as grabbing a hand full of compost and squeezing. Compost should be as moist as a wrung-out sponge to fit the needs of microbes. When you squeeze you should only see a few drops of water ring out. If you think you got to much moister add some browns.
[url]https://compost.css.cornell.edu/monitor/monitormoisture.html[/url]

[cynthia_h]

note to top_dollar_bread:

I fixed the links. Just be sure that there are no spaces in the url. In the case of the two that wouldn't work for you, there was a space between the file extension (.pdf, .html) and the [/url] tag.

I also separated the paragraphs with spaces; I've received notes in the past from members who find large bodies of unseparated text difficult to read.

Cynthia

[stella1751]

Another excellent posting, top_dollar_bread, with some serious reading I can sink my teeth into! Thanks

[Maximavswife]

My compost bin was $59.00.
I've also seen people that have made compost bins using wooden pallets. Pallets can be found free on either craigslist or freecycle, if you have either of those in your area. I f those aren't available to you take a trip around businesses in the industrial areas of your town. I'd bet you'd see plenty of them lying around. Of course ask if it's okay but I'd not be surprised if they would love for you to have them.
Here are a couple of links for building your own

https://planetsave.com/blog/2009/03/05/build-your-own-recycled-pallet-compost-bin-for-15/

https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/dep/greenman/pallets.pdf

https://www.instructables.com/id/Pallet_Compost_Bin/

https://www.greendaily.com/2009/02/20/compost-with-wooden-pallets/

Just do a search of "making a compost bin with pallets"

Kath

[stella1751]

Thanks, Kath! I will study these, too. Pallets I can get; my cousin's son has unlimited access

[Gary350]

My compost is wire. I bought a small roll of fence wire at TSC. It comes is 4ft and 6ft tall rolls. The fence wire has 2"x4" square opens in the wire. I cut the 50 ft roll into 3 equal pieces 16.5 ft long pieces. Roll each piece is a circle and over lap the ends about 6". Use a few small pieces of wire to tie the ends together. This forms a fence wire circle 5.5 ft in diameter 4 ft tall. I have 3 of these compost circles. Grass clipping generate the most heat after only 1 day in the compost they get so hot I can not put my hand more than 6" deep into the compost without geting burned. I collect grass clipping along the street from people that mow their yard and dump the clipping in the street for the city to pick up. I always ask them if they put poison on their lawn to kill weeds if they do I don't want the clipping. I can usually tell by looking at their lawn if it looks perfect with no weeds I don't even bother to stop and ask if I can have the grass clipping. Once I find several people I can get grass from I don't have to ask I just stop and pick it up. Some of the neighbors with riding lawn mowers with grass catchers deliver the grass to me, rather than dump it in the street they drive the lawn mower right up next to my compost and dump the grass right in my compost. I put all my garden scraps in the compost too. I have one of my compost piles mounded up about 2 ft above the wire circle. It composts down pretty quick about 4" per week. I am working on filling another compost pile. They should all have some very nice compost by spring. Sometimes I can find rabbit manure or cow manure to get too. I shovel a thin layer of dirt into my compost and throw several hands full of Ammonium Nitrate in there too. I water it too from time to time. I have 1 pile full, 1 is half full, all 3 will full by fall.

[stella1751]

What are the odds, Gary350, that you and I would use the same exact compost system? I have been toying with doing as you have, asking my neighbors for their lawn clippings in exchange for produce. Last fall, I am ashamed to say, I was on my way to work and saw that one of my neighbors, one (like you said) who pays close attention to yardwork, had set out two huge bags of raked leaves for the trash. I stopped, backed up to the leaves, and shoved them into my trunk, all the while glancing about me furtively I felt both guilty and elated, driving to work that day, but I used the first bag a few weeks ago, and I'm glad I did it!

[rainbowgardener]

Yay! another leaf thief! I did that last fall too. When people put bagged up fall leaves out on the curb for pick up, I picked them up and put them in my car and brought them home. I just this weekend used up the last of last fall's leaves and have been glad to have them.

[Gary350]

Here, the city has a large vacuum truck that drives around town and sucks up the leaves people rake to the street. I use to call the city and have them bring me several truck loads of those leaves. I did not have to pick them up and the city didn't have to take them to the land fill so it worked out good for both of us. When I was younger I had more energy. I just can not collect all the organic material I would like to have.