My First Compost Harvest

[HoneyBerry]

My first ever compost harvest. I screened it this morning.

[tomc]

Why sift compost?

[HoneyBerry]

I sifted it because some of it needed more time to break down. I work full time, so my compost pile is not very well managed. I have been adding to the pile for years and finally realized some benefit. The stuff at the bottom was nice and broken down, but the top part needed more time. And there were some walnuts and avocado pits that needed more time as well. I'm going to be doing less composting from here forward because I don't have the time to do it right. :-)

[rainbowgardener]

Don't stop composting! What will you do with all that stuff that went into your compost pile (kitchen scraps, yard wastes, etc)? Put it in landfill? Put it down the garbage disposal? Do you know that some cities are starting to ban garbage disposals because they are so bad for sewer systems?

If you can't do it "right," do it "wrong," I.e. just pile everything up somewhere and forget about it. Since it shrinks as it breaks down, you can just keep adding to a pile for a long time. Eventually you will probably want to start a second pile. Then just let the first one sit. Come back in a year or two or whenever you feel like it and harvest a bunch of wonderful stuff for your garden.

Composting can be as much or as little work as you want it to be...

[HoneyBerry]

That's what I've been doing. I am going to compost some stuff. What I don't compost will be composted elsewhere. I have too much grass and it was making my compost pile huge and unattractive. So I bagged up the grass and twigs part of the pile and took it to the landfill compost factory. Now my yard looks much cleaner. I had 3 compost piles. I tore 2 of them down and now I have 1 small one. I have to be careful about composting fruit because of pests such as rats, possums, etc. I will find a way to compost fruit scraps some other way. I am very responsible so you don't need to be concerned about me putting organic waste into the landfill. I am very eco-conscious and do more than what most people do. But I have to work with limitations.

[toxcrusadr]

That stuff looks great, and I bet it has a heavenly earthy aroma. If that makes any sense. :-]

Have you considered a mulching mower? Or just letting your clippings fly out the chute? Returning grass clippings to the soil will reduce the need for fertilizer, as well as improving the organic matter content and health of the soil under the lawn, which fertilizer can't do. With a little care in mowing (so the clippings are spread evenly and not in clumps or thick spots), you really don't see them after a day or so.

Another thing that might help has to do with timing and multiple piles. Maybe you are already doing it efficiently, but there are a lot of people who add continuously to multiple piles, which creates a lot of piles. I found the most efficient way was the continuous batch process. Everything goes into one pile (or bin). When it's full, and that usually takes several months, turn it over (just takes a few minutes) and - here's the key - stop adding to that pile. Start a new one. In a month or two, turn that first pile again, wait a bit if it's not done, and you'll have compost. It also gives you a place to toss unfinished stuff - back into the input pile.

I realize you said you don't have a lot of time to manage compost, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

If you are digging or tilling in compost as a soil amendment, it can be chunky and have a few half done bits in it. The soil food web will take care of that. Nothing wrong with sifting, but the time could be used turning your piles for faster decomposition. :-]

[HoneyBerry]

Yes, it does smell nice and earthy. I am proud of my compost harvest because that pile had been there for years and I finally realized some good brown compost for my garden and trees.

I don't have acreage, just a small neighborhood lot. The compost factory works out really well for me. I might get a mulching mower some day. It's hard for me to commit to a new lawn mower because I don't want to have lawn at all. I'd rather have something like clover or natural looking landscaping. I have a demanding full time job and recently had back surgery, so I am not able to do as much gardening as I would like. I buy Cedar Grove Organic Compost once in a while for my garden. It is great stuff.

If it wasn't for my demanding job and my issues with my back, I'd probably do more composting.

Thank you for your suggestions.

[imafan26]

I commend you for your effort. Compost should not be hard to take care of, but it does take up a bit of space. If you have the room its a really good thing to have around. I don't have a lot of browns to work with so I do mostly worm composting and some trench composting. I have also done bag composting. My first compost pile didn't have enough browns and it rained so it was a slimy mess. On top of that, some of the weeds I got came from the mulch pile and when I put them directly in the compost pile, even chopped up they grew. I ended up having to bag them first to make sure they were dead before I put them in the pile and it took awhile to get the recipe right with the browns, greens and water. I did eventually get a nice dark brown compost and I built my compost pile in my community garden in one of the plots and the idea was to rotate the compost pile to different partierres ( I had 6 at the time) instead of leaving one fallow.

[HoneyBerry]

Your composting is better organized than mine. I would like to live on an organic farm in Hawaii in my next life.

[toxcrusadr]

I don't even own a mulching mower. I bag a little bit in the spring when it's fast growing, but most of the year, I just let the clippings fly. There is a special technique to it that helps. I mow once around the outside edge of the yard and flower beds, with the chute pointing toward the lawn and away from fences, neighbor's yards, and pavement. Then I reverse direction and throw clippings outward, spiraling in as I mow the yard. This way the clippings are in a thin even layer over the entire yard (pretty much). Unless you are in very thick long grass, they are hardly noticeable even right after you mow.

[HoneyBerry]

I like your technique. I am currently using a weedeater, no mower. I like it because the mower engine needed to be pampered during the winter to prevent carborator problems. My garage is not insulated and so I don't have a place to store a lawnmower where the temps won't drop to freezing or below. I don't want to have to bring my lawnmower into the house during the winter months. I did store one in the laundry room for a while to get by, but it sure was in the way. (Old house porch style laundry room, double back doors, so separated from the rest of the house.). I'm doing okay with my weedeater. It's much less trouble and maintenance.

[toxcrusadr]

Hmm, unless you have a severely finicky mower, it should not require warm storage. They key is to run all the gas out of it the last time you use it so there is no gas in the tank or carburetor. Gas will gum things up during long storage, plus the more volatile fraction evaporates away which makes it harder to burn. I used to have small engine problems until I started doing that. Fresh gas in the spring and it should fire right up. Probably a moot point now but just fyi.

[HoneyBerry]

Well, I wasn't always good about draining the gas out. Winter tended to sneak up on me and then I would have an "oh yeah, the lawn mower gas" moment right around Christmas. Now all I have is an Echo trimmer and it always starts for me. I'm not your typical gardener. I'm a city slicker with a wanna-be-a-farmer attitude. Don't know where I got it but it could be because my Dad immigrated from Sweden. My grandparents were farmers.

[ElizabethB]

DITTO Tox.

Take care of your equipment and it will take care of you.

G is terrible about taking care of tools. He leaves shovels, rakes, machetes out in the weather without cleaning them.

When I use a tool it is cleaned and sprayed with WD40 before storage.

Think of your tools as an extension of your hand. Treat them with respect.

[Kalak]

Hey -- that looks great. How long did that take, from when you first started it? I have mine in a compost bin and started about three months ago.

[HoneyBerry]

I started the pile over 10 years ago. I never stirred it, just threw new stuff on top. The stuff on top was put back. I harvested the bottom. I wouldn't use this as a timeline, however. If you turn it ir use a barrel tumbler it should take less time. I'm too busy with other stuff to do it right. I'm thinking about getting a barrel tumbler.

[HoneyBerry]

I'm thinking about building a compost tumbler like the one in this video:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DzGaXMVmsUo

[StevePots]

Hi Joy.
I might be a noob at gardening but designing and building mechanical doodads is something I have a knack for. The video you linked to shows a homemade compost tumbler that has a flaw. The vent holes. Basically every rotation of the barrel is going to screen the compost with everything smaller than the holes falling out the drum. A better design would be to use a 4" pipe that has a smaller holes drilled in it so that air can enter the drum from either ends of the pipe. I would also move the opening to the side (top end of the drum)
You would turn the opening to the top to add material and turn it to the bottom to scrape out material. With the vents and the opening on the side you don't have to worry about rain water rinsing and washing out nutrients from your compost.
I like the idea of the fins inside the drum but they don't have to be as large. Look at the inside of your washing machine or drier and you will see it does not take much. At the size they have it in the video, a full drum will not mix when rotated because the fins will be holding material in place within the drum. They will basically act as dividers.
Rather than fins you can add handles to the outside of the drum (three or 4 total) with the bolts that you secure them with protruding into the drum by about 3". That way the the bolts will do the mixing for you and you have something to hold onto while you turn the drum.

[HoneyBerry]

Wow! Thank you for the suggestions. I didn't like the looks of the hinged door. It looks wimpy. It seems like the compost would break through when the barrel is full. The barrel hardly has any compost in it in the video.

[toxcrusadr]

If you are considering going the tumbler route, you should read up on the web and see how people have managed them (or how they haven't). They seem to be rather finicky in terms of materials, mixture and moisture. I prefer a ground based bin or pile. One problem with having ONE compost pile (of whatever type) is that you have to stop adding in order for it to finish, unless you want to sort it out to get finished compost. Kitchen scraps come constantly, even in winter, so you have to have somewhere to put them. If you have space, have two piles, and only add new material to one of them. If you use a tumbler, I recommend emptying it and letting it cure somewhere while you start fresh in the tumbler. I built a tumbler once and found it more trouble than it was worth.

[HoneyBerry]

Thank you for your input. I don't think I'm going to go the tumbler route after all. I don't have time for finicky when it comes to garden stuff. I have one small compost pile for now. It has a nice volunteer pumpkin plant growing in it - seeds sprouted from last years pumpkins that were added to the pile. I will post a picture later. I think I will just keep 1 small one going. My Dad taught me the ground method. He dug a hole under the apple tree and that's where we put food scraps. It wasn't fancy but it worked. The way I do it now is on top of the ground.

[ElizabethB]

I am not a fan of tumblers.

I have 2 4'x4'x4' bins adjacent to each other. They are made from scrap lumber and chicken wire. It is easy to turn from one bin to the other.

I had to remove my 150 year old live oak from the back yard. Browns will be an issue this fall and next spring. I will "rob" bags of leaves from m neighbors.

Composting becomes addictive.