New compost bin.

[builder0101]

Helpful,

Thanks for the advice however I am placing it on limestone gravel and I do not want a gravel floor for obvious reasons. I have a plastic compost bin there now (on the gravel) and I have a crazy busy red wriggler farm with all kinds of millipedes and pill bugs and all kinds of goodies. I have been told the pavers will allow the same kind of population so I am relatively confident.

Thanks and thanks,

Mike.

[rot]

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I have several bins on pavers that sit on the ground. It's worm city. I get lots of other little critters too.

The pavers keep the tree roots out and the burrowing rodents.

When I was hot composting there and regularly turning, I could sweep up afterwards and empty the dust bin right back into the compost bin.

I think if you try it, maybe some place you wouldn't otherwise because of tree roots, you'll find it effective.

to sense

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[The Helpful Gardener]

There's a big part of my issue too rot; tree roots do not allow for pavers where my turning bin is at. It's not an optimal spot (under pines, out of the sun) and it doesn't finish well but it does make a pretty fungal compost that I use to brown up my kitchen scraps, so eventually I finish it there or use it as mulch in a less finished form (the garden rows are a great place for it; I just rake off in spring and toss what's left back on the pile for another run. The bare dirt allows for fungal mycelium (plenty of those associate with pine roots)and other critters to migrate into the pile; but it sounds like that happens with the pavers too. I figure why bother with the speed bump, but it sounds like ease of turning might be a possible reason...

HG

[rot]

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I hadn't heard of anyone seeking out tree roots to locate their bin. I've heard of people complain of tree roots invading and dealt with it once myself.

I also remember some complaining of moles or gophers and made a concrete pad just for that reason.

I believe my slow bins go fungal from the wood chips from my chipper. I start with a lot of chips on the bottom and add some later here and there. As the bin gets high I add less because they take so long to break down. It could be though that the proximity of trees and the wind contribute too. I planted an acacia nearby a few years ago and it now shades and sheds on the bins. I'm slowly pruning the lower branches out of my way. The roots have to be running underneath the bins.

I had a slow bin on the bare ground in the same area and it ended up with a couple of tree roots from the new tree. The next time around I layered a lot of newspaper. I don't know if that worked or not because it went fungal and basically reduced down to the ground. The squirrels have mucked it up further so I haven't done anything there in a while. I should do some archeology just to see.

to sense

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[The Helpful Gardener]

I am short of leaves in the yard, so the primary carbon in my pile is the pine needles, what leaves I do get, and ocasionally some shredded paper. I have never had the pine put up roots into the pile (I suspect I turn too much fro one thing) but have seen [url=https://science.kennesaw.edu/~jdirnber/Bio2108/Lecture/LecBiodiversity/31-01-FungalMycelia-CL.jpg]fungal mycellia[/url] climbing in a few times. I think of it as a good sign as I have way more grass than browns, but I think the very high carbon nature of paper and pine both help keep things good...

HG

[rot]

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I've got lots of shredded paper in the slow bins so that must contribute too.

The odd thing is, before I was advised by a certain poster 'round here, I've been loading the bins with some high nitrogen manures plus lemons and oranges and coffee grounds. Actually I haven't sopped adding that stuff. I still need to digest all that. I will probably start diverting some it elsewhere in the future though.

I can only speculate that because those bins are so slow, that the worms and the fungus are able to bide their time while the new stuff mellows out over time. They do get leaves but I wouldn't say they get oodles of leaves. Avocado mostly after they've been through the mower.

to sense

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[The Helpful Gardener]

Avocado is interesting as it is so high in fiber (that's code for carbon), but a good nitrogen source. It's also interesting that you all use them for compost and we East coasters pay three bucks for a bad one (DW's pa sends Myer's lemons from the Bay by the box, and those are $3 a pop here too. Please don't tell me you are composting Myer's lemons; I'll weep like an infant, I swear ) .

Pile was pretty warm today when I turned, and it's been upper thirties at night. Cooking nicely...

HG

P.S. Avocado skins don't compost worth a hill of beans. JUst sit there for years. HUGE amouont of phosphlipids (sort of a plant wax) that resist bacteria and even fungii to a lesser degree. They just sit there...

[rot]

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Yeah avocado skins keep appearing in finished stuff. A few days after single digit humidity and they just crunch into a zilllion flakes. I try to split all the rodent chewed drop with a shovel. I hate digging up an avocado pit that's sprouted. I can get avocados to grow in my compost but not in pots.

I give away a lot of lemons. Currently the tree is prolific and I'm weak on pruning technology. Large fruit with very thick rinds. The rodents don't seem to go for them. What goes in the bin is the unsalvageable over ripened drop. I love the smell of the bucket of lemons when I toss them. I really love the smell of picking lemons. Lemon tree very pretty and smells impossibly sweet but the fruit is impossible to keep.

The rats and the squirrels like the oranges. I will be actively picking and giving away oranges now that the rats are blessing us with their presence again.

Avocado leaves can smother grass but once they've been through the mower they break down fine. For leaf mulch I'll crunch the dried ones through a milk crate. Leaf mulch won't stick in the wind though.

I used to have invading grasses of bermuda and such in the compost playground but one rainy season I chewed up my hands digging up all the rhizomes through gravel and clay and now I just let the avocado leaves smother everything.

I live in the ideal climate for citrus and avocados. Overnight humidity with dry sunny days. The avocado is producing this year. I can become very envious of others and their big yards or productive gardens but I know I am blessed.

20091102043336 UTC: Wind Calm Temp 54F Humidity 65% Dewpoint 42F Pressure 1015.9 mb

to sense

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[applestar]

Rot, I'm reading your post with mixed feelings as I look over my pots of avocado and citrus (and mango) seedlings that will be squeaking through the winter months again in my inadequate indoor set up.... They're still small (oldest are 3~4 yrs old) but I'm hoping they'll eventually reach flowering and bearing age. What they'll produce, if any, will be the mystery (and surprise).

The other part of my mixed feelings is the complete difference in the landscape picture your description brings to mind. Wow. It always amazes me, no matter how many times I travel -- that first view out of the airplane, seeing the familiar trees and shrubs replaced by the "exotic" ones.

p.s. I've got roots in my compost piles too. The neighbor's white pine, just on the other side of the fence, and my useless plum tree that keep throwing suckers, among its other bad qualities (This is the one that's going to go -- soon, I hope!).

[The Helpful Gardener]

Tree roots are also a home and highway for fungal mycelium. Let's see a little more tree hugging around here, people...

HG

[rot]

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My dry pale Irish skin doesn't much care for the desert winds that have their influence on us. I work a couple of miles from the beach and live about 15 miles inland where the edge of the marine layer kisses us each night and then the Mojave blows in during the day. Water is the magic elixir that makes things grow. We're fortunate enough right here that the local watershed keeps the aquifers replenished for our use for now. Stray too far from these parts and whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.

Green lawns around here will need to go for many. Too much water and it's kind of bad in that we'll loose the cooling effect. People don't seem to want to fuss with trees. You can't just hire mow and blow guys for that.

Trees should be our salvation. They provide shade and cool as they perspire. I've saved a few potted plants from desiccation by putting them under trees. Tree roots penetrate the the hard pan under the sub urban developments we live in and hold the hill sides back during the rainy mud slide season. Stands of California Oaks have been known to stop brush fires in their path.

People still like to grow imports around here versus the natives. We have lots of invasives. Nothing like Florida so aptly named but enough to be disturbing. We're in a drought and based on advertising it seems planting tropicals are in fashion.

Yeah. I've got mixed feelings too. I'll be collecting pumpkins soon. I gotta keep mulching so the trees and flowers we planted will get by as we reduce our water consumption.

to sense

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[The Helpful Gardener]

Thank you rot. That's what I am talking about...

Trees are not a convenience of modern life, to be sure; they can be messy and intrusive. I live in one of the few places on planet in afforestation and familiarity certainly breeds contempt. I see trees being cut down all the time, not for property damage or disease mitigation but for views or sun. We have at best an uneasy truce with trees; I think of it as more of a cold war. Yet as rot pointed out...

Trees should be our salvation. They provide shade and cool as they perspire. I've saved a few potted plants from desiccation by putting them under trees. Tree roots penetrate the the hard pan under the sub urban developments we live in and hold the hill sides back during the rainy mud slide season. Stands of California Oaks have been known to stop brush fires in their path.

I would note here trees respire, not perspire, but other than that singular point, I agree wholly with the above. Add in carbon storage, oxygen generation, microbiology habitat and food source (macrobiology too!) to the above noted water storage (Did you know that 20% of a 1 inch rainfall never makes it to the ground when it hits the canopy of a deciduous tree? Double that in a fine needled pine!) and soil retention, and we have organisms we should be cultivating with reverence, not decrying and destroying. While we may not find everything the trees bring us to our individual tastes, there are unseen factors they do supply that we are in short supply of and should remain eternally grateful for. Let's work with them as much as we can...

(cuz the leaves make great compost, too... )

HG

[rot]

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Listen to me. I sound like a tree hugger. The thing is I'd like to plant more.

Respire. Perspire. They keep things cool. Out here in the dry Southwest that's a big deal. A treeless plot is going to be 10 degrees hotter than one full of trees. I used to mow the lawn in triple digits but I can't do that when it's over 90 anymore. 10 degrees is a big deal.

With the trees I have planted, my failing is I haven't planted natives. They will be here when I'm gone. They will support the declining song bird population. They will support the dwindling pollinator population. They will be here when my wife stops re-filling the hummingbird feeders. They will soldier on when I can't water things anymore. They will make it possible for other fauna and flora to flourish without my help.

If I mulch enough the pomegranate and the acacia will go on and so will the rogue oaks courtesy of the jays that I mow around.

Life will go on with out me. I just wonder what kind.

to sense

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[The Helpful Gardener]

AH jays. The forester of the oaks. Nearly their entire diet is acorns, and they spread and stash them, starting new colonies of oaks. It is as pure a symbiotic relationship as we see without looking at anemones and clownfish or mycorrhiza fungii...

They are also the alarm system of the forest, an annoying trait when you're wishing to see wildlife; alerting everyone else as soon as they spot you. Sort of the same role taken on in a stream or river by kingfishers (moving just ahead of me as I paddle, warning the world that I'm coming). Hey both are blue birds; perhaps we have found a natural unified trait among law enforcement in multiple species? I'm willing to work on this; call with grant money...

Still I want the jays around, which means we need oaks. Yet who plants oaks? "I need someting fast" doesn't include oaks; they are slow by nature. Twice as long to get past thirty feet as a maple. You can hardly find oaks in the trade, not good sized ones of desirable species like Q. alba or Q. bicolor. So we should let jays plant them sometimes, as no one else is... Not gonna be shade trees anytime soon though...

HG

[rot]

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I like the jays. They'll take the peanuts left for the squirrels. Somebody oughta steel from the squirrels.

I've seen them pluck a peanut out the grass quite casually after who knows how long it's been hidden there and mowed over countless times.

The jays will harass the crows who will harass the raptors. Keeps everyone on their toes.

The oaks will provide shade for someone else who will no doubt need it.

to sense

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[gixxerific]

I love the Jays as well. last Thur I showed up on a lob early as usual. I parked under 2 HUGE oaks. There were probably 30 Bluejays there as well diving and fighting for all the acorns. Quite a sight, I just couldn't stop watching them.

[The Helpful Gardener]

To sense...

S

[gixxerific]

Okay sorry off topic here but I must know... I see rot always ending his post with the phrase '"to sense" now Scott is doing it. To be the dumb one in the group, what does this mean? No offense I have respect for you both just not fully understanding.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Means whatever it means to you; but I think of it as a toast...

Now which definition of the word, right rot?

Rot's western jays are different than my jays, but still most things jay hold true... the acorns for sure... makes sense...

For jays, oaks make sense...

For oaks, jays make sense...

To sense!

My 2 cents, anyway...

HG

[rot]

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To sense and wonder. Not just see or observe but assimilate the information being received and construct a fuller picture of what is going on.

The to sense thing is just an evolutionary thing on my part. A toast maybe. An apostrophe. A reminder to myself. Less an invitation and I don't want it to be taken that way really.

I've long closed out my dubious pieces of wisdom with 'two cents' or about what it's worth as a kind of caveat. Then I came across a poster here who goes by 2cents. I feared that I might be thought to be trying to deceive folks or horn in on someone else's identity.

That habit was difficult to shake especially as I extrapolated my experiences into areas that maybe I didn't have any business treading into. Sometimes I want to hear someone come up with something more definitive confirming or denying my sense of the matter.

Well after thinking about the sense of using two cents it crossed my mind as I was ruminating how I loose sense of the weather when things get busy at work which has been a lot this year. It just bugs me to loose sense of the patterns. I decided that I have to actively observe to sense not just the weather but a lot of the little things I loose track of that when summed up tell me about what's good and what's bad in the garden. It struck me after observing something when someone's words from here would come back to me and then what they were saying made more sense. So I figure I need to better sense what others are telling me. I'm still working on that part. I'm still working on all of it for that matter.

On top of it all it dovetails with my long standing closing of two cents while intruding less on 2cents.

Two cents to sense too with apologies to 2cents

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[gixxerific]

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To sense and wonder. Not just see or observe but assimilate the information being received and construct a fuller picture of what is going on.

The to sense thing is just an evolutionary thing on my part. A toast maybe. An apostrophe. A reminder to myself. Less an invitation and I don't want it to be taken that way really.

I've long closed out my dubious pieces of wisdom with 'two cents' or about what it's worth as a kind of caveat. Then I came across a poster here who goes by 2cents. I feared that I might be thought to be trying to deceive folks or horn in on someone else's identity.

That habit was difficult to shake especially as I extrapolated my experiences into areas that maybe I didn't have any business treading into. Sometimes I want to hear someone come up with something more definitive confirming or denying my sense of the matter.

Well after thinking about the sense of using two cents it crossed my mind as I was ruminating how I loose sense of the weather when things get busy at work which has been a lot this year. It just bugs me to loose sense of the patterns. I decided that I have to actively observe to sense not just the weather but a lot of the little things I loose track of that when summed up tell me about what's good and what's bad in the garden. It struck me after observing something when someone's words from here would come back to me and then what they were saying made more sense. So I figure I need to better sense what others are telling me. I'm still working on that part. I'm still working on all of it for that matter.

On top of it all it dovetails with my long standing closing of two cents while intruding less on 2cents.

Two cents to sense too with apologies to 2cents

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Thanks, now that for some reason makes sense.

[applestar]

Rot, I like that! I love the way just those two words can have many deeper meanings, influenced by individual perspective. It's a two word poetry.