Anything wrong with compost bags from the home center?

[RainyPNW]

Growing up, we ALWAYS had 2 or 3 significant compost piles, which
were my chore to turn and tend as a kid. We had a LARGE garden,
and the compost chores were major.

Now that I finally have a good size garden many years later (our first
year with one), I've been buying lots of bags of compost from Home
Depot at $3.87 a bag.

Given that I've been through the home compost thing and did it for
years as a kid, I just don't think I want to go there again

Is there anything wrong with using the bagged compost from Home
Depot, Lowes, etc.?

RPNW

[rainbowgardener]

Since I do compost, I 've never used the bagged kind, so can't say anything about the quality of it. Off hand one thing I'd worry about is that it is bagged, that is with very limited air circulation. So it's getting compressed and the air is cut off, so all the great aliveness of aerobic compost (fungi, bacteria and other good guys) is dying off.

But then what are you going to do with all the "waste" that your garden produces (leaves, dead headed and trimmed back plants, all the spent stuff in the fall, pulled weeds, etc)?

Lets see... we will use fossil fuels and emit polluting and global warming gases to truck away all your garden waste, either to somewhere where someone else will compost it or to landfill. Then you will waste and pollute water running your kitchen scraps through the garbage disposal (garbage disposals are so bad for water systems that some cities are banning them). Then you will pay to buy compost that has been put into plastic bags (a petroleum product) and trucked from some where.

I really encourage you to rethink the compost question. Read some of my posts in this Compost section. Compost piles do NOT have to be turned. It can help speed them up and run hotter, but your lovely organic stuff will break down on it's own without ever being turned. Composting can be as much or as little work as you want it to be.

[RainyPNW]

Good points all... I will have the winter to rethink and come up
with a place. That's the hard part right now is the space.

Thanks for the insight.

[rainbowgardener]

Well if you buy a compost bin (this is just one of many examples: https://www.composters.com/compost-bins/the-outside-gourmet-compost-bin---80-gal_93_1.php

it sits on a spot 23" X 23". That's a tiny little spot in your garden.

My composting set up is a wire grid bin 3'X3'. I run two piles next to each other. One is filling and cooking while the other is finished and being used. Then when the finished compost is gone, the top of the working pile becomes the bottom of a new pile (in the old spot) while the bottom of the working pile finishes. So the whole operation takes up 6'X3'. Still not a huge amount of space, if you aren't really pressed.

Any other arguments I can demolish for you?

[RainyPNW]

Again, thanks. I've been reading about the various 'factory made'
composters such as the link you showed me. Some rotate, some
don't. But I've also seen some links to converting a garbage
can into a composter (3" holes with mesh duct taped inside over
the outside, bungie cord to hold the top on). Then it is rolled to
keep things mixed up.

I actually DO have a decent space to compost in - I've just been
torn on which method to use - open ground or contained.

Also, all my beds are raised and quite full already - how does that
work each year? I mean they can't really take any more stuff in them!

Can you explain how folks work with that? Or does the dirt slowly sink
and settle?

Sorry I sound dumb - I'm actually not We had a HUGE home garden
as a kid that I worked in daily - but it's been 40 years, and I was the
'helper' - not the garden engineer (my Mom )

I know I need to get a compost situation going soon, while there's
billions of leaves to be had...

Hopefully my questions make sense. And I really do appreciate your
efforts at helping me.

Dave

RPNW

[rainbowgardener]

The dirt in your raised beds will sink and settle, especially if you just filled them. When I made my raised beds, I didn't fill them quite to the top, to leave room for mulch etc. But I keep adding compost and mulch at least twice a year and they never seem to get any fuller....

When you have finished compost, you can just add it to your planting holes. And/or sprinkle it on top. If nothing else you must have somewhere in your yard besides the raised beds. Lawn? Compost is great for the lawn too.
Shrubs? Ditto.

Once you get going you will find more places to put the compost than you have compost to put (I guarantee it! No matter how much compost you make!)

[RainyPNW]

Again, thank you!! you've got my composting spirits up...

So now... open on the ground or 'homemade garbage can' or
commercial rotating?

Any last bits of advice - it seems that for ME, some sort of
rotating sort would be easier for me to maintain. But I've been soaking
up your thoughts thus far....

Thanks so much,

Dave

RPNW

[Kalli007]

I don't have much to add, except speaking as a "treehugger" please please please make your own compost! In addition to saving your $$$ you will be keeping so much out of the landfills. In addition, composting has been fairly effortless for me, toss the junk in the bin, turn whenever I get around to it.

[RainyPNW]

Ok ok ok I'm going over various sites for composting beyond this
one... I'll come up with my solution soon and get started this week while
there are bazillions of nice leaves everywhere.

I will add that in our community, all the 'green bin' yard waste collection
goes to a local grinder right here in town that makes compost in a
vast operation for use in the community - none of it ends up in a landfill.

I'll post my selection as soon as I've made it.

Dave

RPNW

[rot]

..

Bare ground vs contained: Contained suggests a hot compost operation which means more work because you're turning to get air in there to make the bacteria do all the work. Bare ground can do the same with the added benefit of bringing in all the bigger critters. Worms is what you want if you don't want to do a lot of work.

Bare ground can mean tree roots and burrowing rodents like moles. The compromise could be scratching out a flat space of dirt and setting down pavers. The worms will still get through. After you're done turning you can just sweep up the spillage once dry. Turn a whole bunch or just let sit for a long while. It still works either way with pavers.

For bin ideas and good basic info:
https://www.compostinfo.com/

For a good list of ingredients and their nitrogen values:
https://compost.css.cornell.edu/OnFarmHandbook/apa.taba1.html

You can make it as elaborate and laborious as you want or really really lazy. You can go on vacation and it will slow to a stop but once you get back and start up again, the composting will kick in and start right back up. Same for winter.

No need to turn your life around really. As one with some hot stuff going and some long term cold going, make it work for you and not the other way around.

to sense

..

[rainbowgardener]

Re the tumblers: Just be aware that then you are committed to batch composting. The way those work is you fill them up, then tumble them for (supposedly, I haven't tried it myself) a few weeks, then you dump the finished product and load it up again. That means you have to have somewhere to collect materials for the next batch and somewhere to dump the finished product. You can't just keep adding as you go along, because with the tumbling, it means your finished product, partly broken down, and raw stuff just added would be all mixed together with no way to extract the finished stuff. To me, it always seemed like if you are going to have to have a regular pile to collect stuff, why not just compost it there, why bother with the tumbler? (But the tumbler does speed it up if you are in a hurry.)

Since I'm a lazy composter, not into all the turning and stuff, I just do bins on the ground. My working pile, I just add to whenever I have stuff to get rid of, always covering the kitchen scraps with a good layer of weeds/leaves etc., when I add them.

[vermontkingdom]

I do a lot of composting in a large ground based bin (8x4x5). I tried doing it in various rotating barrels (I have four of them from garden supply company out behind my garden shed) but with limited success. However, either situation is preferrable to not composting at all. It really is win-win regardless.