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lakngulf
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Location: Lake Martin, AL

Compost Workers!

I have been working on my compost piles, or should I say these ladies have been doing the work.

Image

Each year the cattle farmer feeds his hay in various spots of the pasture. The soil is already pretty rich, but the congregation of some black angus each day makes it even better. Also, the dry straw that gets buried into the soil gives it a good airy texture. The picture above shows me running the bush hog over the areas. Wow, the stickers grow tall. As I mowed the areas the cows came back in to dance around in the black soil. Not sure what to make of that, but glad they are helping me out.

I will use my front end loader to pile the dirt near my garden, or haul to my home.

Here is what it looks like
Image

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rainbowgardener
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I'm not where I can post a picture right now, but our compost workers are our six hens. Since we have been letting them free range in our yard more, they spend a lot of their time working our compost piles and leaf piles. It is a bit of mixed blessing, since they eat a lot of the earthwoms, pill bugs, black soldier fly larvae, etc. out of it. But they also do a great job of breaking everything down into smaller pieces and mixing and turning everything. My compost pile has never been so well turned! It really does speed up the composting process.

toxcrusadr
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Nice soil!

Nice machine too...Kubota? Some diesel power with a loader can change the whole game. :-]

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lakngulf
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toxcrusadr wrote:Nice soil!

Nice machine too...Kubota? Some diesel power with a loader can change the whole game. :-]
Actually, it is a Kioti (Korean tractor). Hope it doesn't have a bomb in it. Tomorrow I start the process of moving some of the soil. Will try to take pictures. I run over the spots with a tiller on the tractor and then have good pulverized barnyard soil for the garden.

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applestar
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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

OK this is a little different from the OP, but this thread title seemed the best fit :wink:

I came across an informative YouTube and weblog by a blueberry farmer who is using many natural farming techniques I (and some of the other members here are) interested in — namely Composting, Trench composting, Bokashi, Wood and Vegetation ash (I believe he burns diseased garden debris in what looks like rocket stove <— another one of my new interests), not quite biochar (for his home made ingredient, he uses commercial rice hull char which is apparently popular in Japan — I’m thinking of trying to make this for starters —rather than larger materials— using a mail ordered bale of rice hulls or possibly other grain hulls if I can get some locally). He makes fermented/cultured “green juice” from mugwort and horsetail and raw sugar (only 4 days) for inoculating/priming his home made bokashi — This is similar to my “drowned weeds” in a way, and I think I’m going to try making something like it with some of the rampant jewelweed and other seedy weeds now that they are starting to finish blooming and making seeds ...before they become too big of a problem.

Here, he was demonstrating moving green chipped and then composted rabbit-eye blueberry trimmings to the finishing compost bin when he said -- “I found Japanese Rhinocerous beetle grubs” .. HUGE! HUGE! Not sure if I could be so calm — one would be as big as MY hand I think! He collected them all — while we were watching together my DD thought they looked like shrimp and wondered if he was going to eat them! :shock: ... but it turned out that he was merely moving them to the compost bin/pile to continue working on breaking down the woody materials. :lol:
C774FC20-C436-472B-BD63-3653693A0690.jpeg
菜園だより181019チップの堆肥化
Orchard Diary (2018.10.19) Composting the Chips

imafan26
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It looks like really good compost. I usually buy compost in bags. I don't have a truck to get it by the truckload and I have to drag it from the front yard to the back yard since I have not had a wheelbarrow in years and I can't drag a lot of it.

Even when I buy peat moss, I have I ask for loading help. I have to open the bag in the car and put it into buckets I can carry. At best, I can roll the bag out of the car and drag it about 10 ft. The only exception is perlite. It is light enough for me to carry a 4 cu ft bag a little further with a couple of stops between the front and back yard.

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applestar
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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

I usually get help for loading big bags of stuff in my SUV at big box stores, and the garden centers usually want you to drive around to the back of the lot where someone will load the car for you from the pallet stored piles.

Once home, I basically roll them off the tailgate down to the wheelbarrow or slide them down a makeshift ramp of heavy cardboard. I almost always use the wheelbarrow or occasionally a hand truck (for vacuum sealed block/bale) to move them around. For a single bag, I have a wheeled bucket (1.5 cu.ft)

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applestar
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He harvested the blueberry chip compost after one year to grow one of his registered rabbit-eye cross (Fukuberry) in a no soil contact raised bed experiment — he said he found next generation rhino beetle grubs (not as big, but MANY). After finding them in the bin, he stopped using the shovel and carefully scooped out the compost by hand, separating out the grubs, then put them back in to work on composting the new batch of freshly chipped blueberry trimmings.

菜園だより190902隔離栽培・堆肥・玉葱
Orchard Diary 2019.09.02 No [soil] contact bed Fukuberry [Rabbit-eye cultivar] • Composted Blueberry Chips/Rhino beetle grubs • Onion seeds


— this is a great idea for a simple raised bed — :D



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