missymiss99
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Wanting to start Composting

I want to start composting, :D but there are a few things I cant find in my research.

1) does my bin need holes or ventilation?
2) I have a full sun long patio, it gets very hot where I live, is that ok? should I have more shade to do this?
3) I also don't have a lot of space any suggestions on a container? home made or store bought is cool. But less expensive is better.
4) Do I need "special" or specific dirt? and how much of it do I need?
5) when turning our compost can you get sick.... that one is embarrassing but I gotta ask :oops:

Any suggestions, hints, or tips would be AMAZING!!!

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rainbowgardener
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I think a bin of some kind is preferable, especially if you have critters in your yard. The critters will eat all the kitchen scraps out of it otherwise, spreading some around the yard in the process.

Homemade bins made from wooden pallets that you can often get from stores for free are common. (Type compost bins into the Search the Forum Keyword box and you should find lots of examples.)

I started with a wire grid compost bin about like this:

https://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/7185-product.html

but with a lid on it. That was a long time ago and I got mine for $30. I'm still using it at least 15 yrs later.

Now I also have a plastic Earth Machine bin (you can google that). The county where I live was having a truckload sale on them, so I got mine for $30 a couple years ago. Check with your city or county, those truckload sales are the main way they market the E.M.'s

A compost pile that is working right does not have any bad smells and is not nasty.

missymiss99
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Thank you for the help!!!! I am so excited to get started!

So I was reading more and saw somebody say you have to stop putting things in the pile.
At what point do you do this, when it is full or after a month of putting things in? and if your waiting what do you do with the scraps you have piling up?

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rainbowgardener
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I don't really stop. I just keep throwing things in. Every few months or when I need some compost, I turn my pile over. That is I pull all of the stuff off the top to be the bottom of the new pile, down to the level where the earthworms are. You will recognize it, the top part of the pile is just the weeds and leaves and stuff I put in it; farther down it's more mixed up and broken down and there's a ton of earthworms. The stuff at the bottom is finished compost or almost finished.

I have two bins these days; the main one I use is a plastic earth machine type. All the unfinished stuff goes right back in there, newest stuff at the bottom. The finished or almost finished stuff goes in the wire grid bin. Once pulled out, stirred up, exposed to the air, it finishes up very quickly. It just stays there until I use it. So I don't add more new stuff to that. But I'm always adding more to the EM.

I don't do much turning in between times of doing this, a little bit of stirring / mixing to mix up the layers, but I'm a lazy gardener and don't work very hard at that. :) My compost pile also doesn't get as hot as the people who work at it more, but it all composts, so I don't really care.

The time when you really have to stop adding is if you are using a tumbling type composter, where all the old and new stuff is constantly getting tumbled together. That way you would never be able to sort out finished from unfinished. So you have to stop adding and let it all finish. Then empty it and load it up with another batch. So that means you have to have another pile or place to store compostables while you are waiting for one batch to finish.

I think most people that are serious composters end up with either a two bin/ pile system like mine (working/ finishing-using) or a three bin system (adding-building/ working-reducing/ finished-using). But I managed with just one bin and a pile of finished stuff that wasn't in any bin for a long time. There's less reason for the finished stuff to be in a bin, because there's nothing in it any more that the critters are interested in.

toxcrusadr
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You can use a circle of flexible wire fencing also. This makes it easy to take off the 'pile', set next to it, and shovel the top of the pile back into it to get to the compost underneath. This may work if you only have space for one pile or bin. You can turn it quite often (every month for example) or let it go for months. Turning will help it rot down faster but it will do it on its own too.

In case it was not mentioned, make sure your bin is on the ground, not your patio, because it will stain.

Compost is full of microbes, but so is soil, so just don't eat it. :-]

Good luck & happy composting!

missymiss99
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:D Thanks guys I hope to start tomorrow!!!! Yay for Another way to be Green well Brown haha! what do you guys think about a large rubber-made storage bin like this?

https://www.younghouselove.com/2008/08/younghouselovedotcompost/

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rainbowgardener
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Personally I think they make great worm bins (type worm bin, vermicomposting, etc into the Search the Forum Keyword box to find lots here about them), but not so much for a regular compost bin. Composting doesn't work as well on such a small scale. It's difficult to keep it aerated enough, balanced with browns/ greens etc.

And if you are any kind of serious about composting you would have to have six of those, because one would get full way before it was finished and then you would have to have another one to put your compostables in and so forth. There's just two of us, but we compost everything, every kitchen scrap, the coffee grounds with the filters, paper towels, every weed that gets pulled, deadheaded flowers and every other bit of yard waste, and pick up a dozen or so large yard waste bags of leaves in the fall to have brown stuff to go with all that. (Be sure to read the Greens/Browns Sticky at the top of this section.) You would be amazed how much stuff that adds up to. We keep a 2 gallon bucket with a tight fitting lid under the sink for kitchen scraps and fill it at least once a week. One good hour of weeding would more than fill one of those storage totes up....

treehopper
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the problem with bin composting, is you need at least 2 bins...one for current waste, and another for finishing off. once a bin is full, (still room for tumbling) you need someplace to put current, or "fresh" waste.

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ReptileAddiction
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What about a large trash can? I could drill holes in it and then instead of mixing it I could roll it around my lawn.

toxcrusadr
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Yes, that will work. You can also mix it by dumping it out and shoveling it back in. Most trash cans are not big enough to retain heat and create a hot compost pile, but that's not essential to get compost. Mixing and air/water supply are more important than size.

CarlozMartinz
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In my experience, the Alan Chadwick method of making compost is superior to all others. He was the person who developed the Biodynamic French Intensive method, who many have imitated. Basically, you create the compost by layering

1. A thick strata of green material
2. A thin layer of kitchen waste
3. A thin layer of good loam soil to hold in moisture and gasses from the decomposition.

Build this up till your pile is 4 feet high or so, then cover well, water, and wait 3 or 4 months to use. Use while still decomposing, not after it's all finished rotting down.

An excellent and more extensive description of this process can be found at this link:

https://alan-chadwick.org/html%20pages/techniques/garden_plants/veg_photos%204.html

That link also discusses some of the problems you can encounter from moles, gophers, and has many photographs and explanations of the Chadwick method for those interested.

Hope that helps a little.

Best,

Carlo

shangib74
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I am so glad I found this post because I am starting my own pile as well. We have a wooded area on our property and we have placed the starting of the pile just on the edge of the forest. We have plenty of space for it to be a decent size pile. Thanks for the post and helping me as well on learning all about compost.

mmmfloorpie
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Is peat moss considered a brown? I always have some leftover from planters and etc and never know what to do with it...

toxcrusadr
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Peat moss is pretty much already decomposed, so it's not going to be a strong brown, but if I had to pick I'd say it's on the brown side. You can certainly throw it into the compost pile.

mmmfloorpie
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toxcrusadr wrote:Peat moss is pretty much already decomposed, so it's not going to be a strong brown, but if I had to pick I'd say it's on the brown side. You can certainly throw it into the compost pile.
I'm going to start an experimental composting system. I've always had 2 plastic composters and all I put in them is grass really. All is get is that green slimy sludge stuff. I always have SOOOO much grass clippings but not much browns...

What I'm going to do is keep one composter that I try to keep evenly mixed with grass and brown material.

Then the other composter is going to be for all my fresh lawn clippings. I'll cook the grass in that one before I transfer it in with the browns in the other composter.

Then in the fall, I'll just build up a big pile of mulched leaves that can over winter and then I'll have plenty of browns for use in the summer with all the grass clippings!

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rainbowgardener
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In the fall, I go around the neighborhood and collect the big yard waste bags full of leaves, that people put at the curb for pickup. I get at least a dozen bags and that lasts me until the following summer for browns in the compost pile and some mulch. When the leaves run out, I buy a bale of straw to last until the next fall leaves come. Always have browns on hand that way.

toxcrusadr
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floorpie, you can also spread grass clippings out in the sun and dry them. They will retain most of their nitrogen value and can be stored dry to compost later, such as in the fall when you have a lot of leaves.

The slimy sludge you're getting is losing a lot of its nitrogen value by outgassing ammonia and other nitrogen containing degradation products. It would be better to either dry it for later or add browns immediately.

Or, you could just leave them on the lawn to feed the soil directly. :)

mmmfloorpie
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toxcrusadr wrote:floorpie, you can also spread grass clippings out in the sun and dry them. They will retain most of their nitrogen value and can be stored dry to compost later, such as in the fall when you have a lot of leaves.

The slimy sludge you're getting is losing a lot of its nitrogen value by outgassing ammonia and other nitrogen containing degradation products. It would be better to either dry it for later or add browns immediately.

Or, you could just leave them on the lawn to feed the soil directly. :)
That grasscycling doesn't work :P It just leaves too much dead grass and it gets all thatched and strangles out the growing grass.

I usually do mulch, but when it gets too long I bag it.

One thing I do in the spring is I bag the grass because it usually grows like wildfire once it wakes up from the winter. Then I take the bagged grass and spread it out over my garden. By planting time the grass is brown and all of the nitrogen is in the soil. It has the added benefit of acting like a blanket on the soil and heating it up quicker!

I guess I really need some open air bins to store all of this stuff before I start cooking it. I really don't have any place that I can spread all the grass clippings out and brown them off.

I usually get way more leaves than I can handle in the fall so I'll have to get some kind of big bin to store it all in for the next summer.

I want to try adding shreaded paper as a brown, but I hear the bleached paper isn't that high in "brown" lol.

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rainbowgardener
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" I usually get way more leaves than I can handle in the fall so I'll have to get some kind of big bin to store it all in for the next summer. "

I just leave them in the yard waste bags until I need them...

striperbware
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Composting organic matter is really just a matter of creating a pile that has critical mass - where the heat of natural decomposition of the matter is retained by the surrounding material enough that the decomposition reaction becomes self-propogating. If the heat of reactin is not retained sufficiently then the grass or whatever organic mateer will simply dehydrate and bot chemically decompose.

Think about grass clippings. When they remain spread out on your lawn from mowing, they simply dehydrate and turn brown. If you instead make a pile with them at least 2 feet deep, the heat of decomposition can't escape and decmposition then becomes self-sustaining.



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