Hi,
I'm a composting newbie.
We bought a single family home this year and we won a composting bin at a sustainable backyard workshop and started using it with a goal of starting a native plant garden in our yard next year using our compost as fertilizer.
My question is this: Our yard is fairly small (about 1000 square feet) and I basically use a reel mower and leave the grass clippings in the yard. The bushes we have are newly planted so there hasn't been much pruning. Because of this we have very little, if any, yard waste besides pulling weeds. our "greens" have largely been vegetable peels and things like that. Is this going to be problematic? should I really be including my grass clippings in the bin to get a good pile going?
Thanks,
-
rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
You don't HAVE to have any particular item for a compost pile, except a variety of green (soft, moist) and brown (hard, dry) organic materials. See greens/brown sticky at the top of this forum. Your problem may be more one of quantity. It's harder to get a small amount of stuff to compost properly.
Grass clippings are always a good addition, but they are a definite "green" and everything you mentioned so far is green (pulled weeds, kitchen scraps). So what you need is a lot more "brown." In Chicago, it won't be too long until fall leaf season. I collect bags of leaves that people put out at the curb. Last fall I collected a dozen of them and only recently used the last one up. Alternate the leaves with your green stuff. If your workplace sheds paper, bring that home.
Then you just need to build the quantity up. If you have a small pet, like rabbit or guinea pig, the bedding is good in the compost pile or if you use organic stuff in cat box, the cleaned litter is good (the stuff made from corn, wheat, newspapers etc). Compost EVERYTHINg (non-meat) from your kitchen including the paper towels (not used with chemicals). Go by Starbucks type places and they will give you used coffee grounds. Get creative!
And congratulations on starting a garden and on doing it with compost and native plants! It will bring you a lot of joy, I'm sure.
Grass clippings are always a good addition, but they are a definite "green" and everything you mentioned so far is green (pulled weeds, kitchen scraps). So what you need is a lot more "brown." In Chicago, it won't be too long until fall leaf season. I collect bags of leaves that people put out at the curb. Last fall I collected a dozen of them and only recently used the last one up. Alternate the leaves with your green stuff. If your workplace sheds paper, bring that home.
Then you just need to build the quantity up. If you have a small pet, like rabbit or guinea pig, the bedding is good in the compost pile or if you use organic stuff in cat box, the cleaned litter is good (the stuff made from corn, wheat, newspapers etc). Compost EVERYTHINg (non-meat) from your kitchen including the paper towels (not used with chemicals). Go by Starbucks type places and they will give you used coffee grounds. Get creative!
And congratulations on starting a garden and on doing it with compost and native plants! It will bring you a lot of joy, I'm sure.
-
john gault
- Green Thumb
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2011 4:53 pm
- Location: Atlantic Beach, Fl. (USDA Hardiness Zone 9a)
-
DoubleDogFarm
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 6113
- Joined: Sun Mar 28, 2010 11:43 pm
I hope not, but I do like ice cream.Just think...what if the Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about
Eric
Last edited by DoubleDogFarm on Thu Aug 11, 2011 11:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
I like bin-pallet-tower-composting over tumblers. So a thumbs up on your tower composter.
Yard waste doesn't nesisarily mean it has to be your yard waste. fall is coming. Autumnal leaves will get bagged and hauled to the curb.
5-6 bags of autumnal leaves will go a long way to be levening for your new tower composter.
Yard waste doesn't nesisarily mean it has to be your yard waste. fall is coming. Autumnal leaves will get bagged and hauled to the curb.
5-6 bags of autumnal leaves will go a long way to be levening for your new tower composter.
-
john gault
- Green Thumb
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2011 4:53 pm
- Location: Atlantic Beach, Fl. (USDA Hardiness Zone 9a)
Couple thougths:
1. You say you want to grow native plants and need to amend the soil with compost. Recommend you chose the spots you want to grow and tear up the grass and compost it. Go around the neighborhood and get bags of leaves for mulch and mulch those areas. A heavy layer of mulch is great for building up the soil and will greatly reduce the amount of compost/fertilzer needed. And you'd be surprised at how few bags it takes to do this, especially since you have a small yard. Also what's nice about this is that it gives your yard contrast, vice just a single green color. When I cut out my mulched area I gave it a little artistic curveyness to it to add to the aesthetics.
2. You may not have much in the way of yard waste, but do you have any idea how much food you throw away every day? I usually have to dump my kitchen waste every other day. It adds up. Set up a container in the kitchen and throw everything in it, not just peels and such. Throw in all unwanted leftovers, coffee grinds, eggshells...
3. I checked out your Earth Machine composter on Youtube; seems alright for your needs, but don't be surprised if you need something bigger as you get more into composting.
1. You say you want to grow native plants and need to amend the soil with compost. Recommend you chose the spots you want to grow and tear up the grass and compost it. Go around the neighborhood and get bags of leaves for mulch and mulch those areas. A heavy layer of mulch is great for building up the soil and will greatly reduce the amount of compost/fertilzer needed. And you'd be surprised at how few bags it takes to do this, especially since you have a small yard. Also what's nice about this is that it gives your yard contrast, vice just a single green color. When I cut out my mulched area I gave it a little artistic curveyness to it to add to the aesthetics.
2. You may not have much in the way of yard waste, but do you have any idea how much food you throw away every day? I usually have to dump my kitchen waste every other day. It adds up. Set up a container in the kitchen and throw everything in it, not just peels and such. Throw in all unwanted leftovers, coffee grinds, eggshells...
3. I checked out your Earth Machine composter on Youtube; seems alright for your needs, but don't be surprised if you need something bigger as you get more into composting.
-
DoubleDogFarm
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 6113
- Joined: Sun Mar 28, 2010 11:43 pm
glennyb,
Welcome to the forum.
I'm going to back everyone up a bit. Was the top soil retained when the house was built. I've seen many times where the top soil is scraped off and sold or so badly mixed with subsoils. If the soil was left mostly undisturbed then vary little soil prep is needed. Native plants- native soil.
One also needs to think about the growing conditions. Sun, shade, dry moist. Plant placing and layering. Once they are established very little should be needed.
You might find this link interesting.
https://www.chicagobotanic.org/explore/nativeplant.php
Eric
Welcome to the forum.
I'm going to back everyone up a bit. Was the top soil retained when the house was built. I've seen many times where the top soil is scraped off and sold or so badly mixed with subsoils. If the soil was left mostly undisturbed then vary little soil prep is needed. Native plants- native soil.
One also needs to think about the growing conditions. Sun, shade, dry moist. Plant placing and layering. Once they are established very little should be needed.
You might find this link interesting.
https://www.chicagobotanic.org/explore/nativeplant.php
Eric
Hi, its been a while because I just assumed I'd get notified when people replied. I figured I'd comment on the state of my yard so that people would know what I was starting to work with:
1) Its a new construction home with fairly new sod and trees. Our Green Space consists of an 85 x 11 strip of lawn on the side of our house, a parkway of roughly the same size that is about 85% weeds, and another parkway about half as long in the front. Our plans are to slowly convert this to native plant and some vegetable garden space, basically tackling a new 20x11 section in the spring and fall every year.
2) The land was originally an industrial park which gives me a little bit of pause about what the soil is like. For instance, I know for a fact that at least in one section the developers just rolled 3" of sod over a 10 x 10 slab of cement or asphalt (which they, hat in hand, have now agreed to demolish for us). Our plan is to get a soil test done.
So even aside from composting if you want to throw out any advice feel free! Thanks for everything!
1) Its a new construction home with fairly new sod and trees. Our Green Space consists of an 85 x 11 strip of lawn on the side of our house, a parkway of roughly the same size that is about 85% weeds, and another parkway about half as long in the front. Our plans are to slowly convert this to native plant and some vegetable garden space, basically tackling a new 20x11 section in the spring and fall every year.
2) The land was originally an industrial park which gives me a little bit of pause about what the soil is like. For instance, I know for a fact that at least in one section the developers just rolled 3" of sod over a 10 x 10 slab of cement or asphalt (which they, hat in hand, have now agreed to demolish for us). Our plan is to get a soil test done.
So even aside from composting if you want to throw out any advice feel free! Thanks for everything!
-
toxcrusadr
- Greener Thumb
- Posts: 970
- Joined: Thu Sep 09, 2010 4:50 pm
- Location: MO
-
toxcrusadr
- Greener Thumb
- Posts: 970
- Joined: Thu Sep 09, 2010 4:50 pm
- Location: MO