Who composts ?

[SkunkWerX]

A lot of good information there, Skunk. That sifter you've got there is sweet!

My pop has a good bit more property than I do so I may try and talk him into getting a pile going in his yard and just have me maintain it.

That is a very good idea. If he has any wooded area that is an excellent place, since those micro-organisms are already thiriving on the forest floor.
Your dad probably has plenty of natural bio mass to add to your pile.

My dad built a nice bin out of 4 wooden pallets. Nail three together, in a "U" shape, and the last one is like a door, allowing access for loading, stirring and unloading. It also gives you that 3x3x3 size (or greater) that you are looking for to sustain the reaction.

My dad then added another one right next to it, so he had one that always "cooking" and the other was finished, usable.

Here is a pic of what the pallet type of compost bin looks like:
This one is lined with chicken wire (poultry netting).

As was mentioned above, adding compost to your soil is practically essential for healthy plant growth. In gardens we till up the soil to plant, but that allows the nutrients to leach away faster, so, the compost adds them back into the soil. And composting keeps all of that waste out of the landfill and put it to good use. It's a WIN all the way around.

I marvel at the folks who spend the weekend raking and bagging all their trimmings for pick-up. In the same or even less time, you can have it loaded into a compost pile/bin.

 

[James Polk]

Formula: You need green stuff and brown stuff. More brown than green.
i have seen a lot of ratios , by weight, by mass, by type,
truth is, just combine green stuff with brown stuff and try to have more brown stuff.
...
You need moisture, and you need air.

This is EXCELLENT advice. It's nice, too, if you can move your bin (or pile) every couple of years, as the ground the heap has been sitting on gets like candy for plants. I put my heap where I'll want a future bed.

 

[Will Power]

If you want rodent control, install a screech owl box.
Google, screech owl box.

Really good idea

And ecology-minded as well:thumbup:

I've got owls in a small coppice at the back of my country place, they're hard workers

 

[Lycosa]

Tnx Willgoy!! Owls are better mousers than cats!

 

[kvaughn]

Not an old fuddy duddy at all. I'm 30 and love gardening. I love the idea of being able to walk out into my back yard and pick some food for dinner. I love maintaining it. I'm still learning though.

I can't really do just a pile since I'm in a subdivision on a third of an acre. I can, however, build a small box that that I can compost in. I've got to check local laws/regs, but I'm sure that there's nothing in there against composting.

I normally mulch my grass clippings right back into the grass, but I can start bagging. Also - we don't get leaves since this is a new subdivision and there are really no large trees as of yet.

I like the idea of the plastic edging around the plants - This year my harvest. My grape tomatoes did great though.

totomatoes were horrible. They all split before they got big enough

 

[Bufford]

There is no such thing as garbage pick up around here, and even the nearest dump is 30 miles away so composting is essential. Only vegetable and fruit waste goes on the compost heap.

Things like plastic meat trays, bones and general kitchen garbage gets burned in the burning barrel when the weather allows. It is a small amount.

Cardboard, paper, glass and plastic goes to the recycling bins as needed.

 

[Andrew Colglazier]

My wife and I composted while living at our old location, which was suburban with no dirt.

We had a large garden, and we made alomost all of our own dirt.

I built a compost box out of old lumber and chicken wire. The box had wire on three sides and one wall was made up of slatted boards. The box had no top or bottom.

All organic material to include kitchen scraps (all) went into the box. The box stood five feet tall and was about 5' x 5' square. I put two small rolls of chicken wire, 5' long, down into the box and filled in around them. The rolls of wire allowed air and moisture to penetrate the composting material.

I kept the stuff in the box moist by putting a sprinkler on top now and then. When the box was full, I would pull the slats out of the one side and flip the whole thing over, put the slats back in, and fork the compost back into the box as before.

This produced quite a bit of compost, and it was easy to maintain. It never stank, though we did get visits from possums now and then, who stole things out of the box.

Andy

 

[555]

I used to compost. Most of it never made compost, because it was nothing more than an animal feeder and would draw in Varmints. Now all my scraps go to the land fill.

 

[NeonLight]

My wife and I have been composting ever since we moved back out to the country seven years ago. We have one of those garbage can sized black compost bins with a lid outside the back door we use for food scraps, and occasionally add a layer of shredded newspaper, grass, and/or leaves or other yard waste. We also have a larger open bin out in the garden mainly for yard and garden waste. We don't turn the decaying matter as often as we should, so the process isn't as fast as it could be, but we have been getting good results, and usable product every year.

We're even thinking of taking it a step farther and cancelling our trash pickup (they keep jacking the rates up and adding fuel surcharges, even after the gas prices have fallen), and compost even more than we do now, burn whatever else we can, then recycle the rest.

 

[myright]

My wife and I have been composting ever since we moved back out to the country seven years ago. We have one of those garbage can sized black compost bins with a lid outside the back door we use for food scraps, and occasionally add a layer of shredded newspaper, grass, and/or leaves or other yard waste. We also have a larger open bin out in the garden mainly for yard and garden waste. We don't turn the decaying matter as often as we should, so the process isn't as fast as it could be, but we have been getting good results, and usable product every year.

We're even thinking of taking it a step farther and cancelling our trash pickup (they keep jacking the rates up and adding fuel surcharges, even after the gas prices have fallen), and compost even more than we do now, burn whatever else we can, then recycle the rest.

Do you have one of those bins that look like a 55 gallon drum on it's side and rotate on a central axis? I've seen a couple of those online and they look to be very convenient.

 

[storl]

I have a compost bin that I built out of a couple landscape timbers and some fence slats. Total cost was around $20, not including the tools and hardware/screws I had sitting around. It works well, but I am really bad about turning it regularly, so it takes longer than it should to completely compost. I have maybe 3-4" gaps in between the slats so there is decent airflow. I also water it down when it starts getting dry. I can post more details on the setup if anyone needs them. Construction was very simple, and maybe took an hour.

What goes in there is almost anything organic that is not from a carnivore. Plants, leaves, weeds, shredded paper, kitchen waste, etc. I try to avoid pine needles, but they get mixed in with the leaves every now and then, which is hard to avoid. For fresh fruits and vegetables, grinding them up does not matter all that much since bugs and bacteria will break them down very quickly. Other matter, like paper, leaves, etc. works best when it is broken down into smaller parts. I have heard of people using blenders and other similar appliances, but like I said, I am lazy, so I just throw the stuff in there.

I have the parts to build a compost barrel out of some lumber and a wine barrel. I have seen them in the past, and they can fully compost material in as little as 2-3 weeks, if you remember to turn them daily. The bacteria that like air, aerobes, will break down organic materials much more quickly than the anaerobes, or the bacteria that you get when you just have a pile that does not have proper aeration. If I ever actually build one, I will be sure to post pics and detailed steps in here.

 

[tholiver]

I started composting back in september. $11 plastic garbage can from Canadian tire.
Drilled 3 tiers of holes in it for air circulation, went by instructions in a short "how-to composting" pdf i found online .
Its over half filled now!
I need to cut a longer stirring stick!lol.

 

[Lycosa]

What's a varmint??

 

[Will Power]

Rats, mice,voles,all manner of insect life plus the odd reptile I supppose:barf:

As I wrote before, keep a lid on it ladies&gentlemen or else foxes,feral dogs and the raccoons you have in N.America will all be in there buggering about in your compost.Likely,they'll ad their own bio-degradable waste as well

 

[Thomas Linton]

Rats, mice,voles,all manner of insect life plus the odd reptile I supppose:barf:

As I wrote before, keep a lid on it ladies&gentlemen or else foxes,feral dogs and the raccoons you have in N.America will all be in there buggering about in your compost.Likely,they'll ad their own bio-degradable waste as well

Found a Yellow Jacket nest twice. Other than that, nothing - in 35 years of running up to nine bins. But I ceertainly do not put meat or grease in the bins, just foliage. YMMV

 

[Dave28210]

I compost and do not have a rodent problem. That is probably a result of my copperhead problem. I killed no less than 50 this past summer (and was chopping off heads into late October!)

 

[sodak]

We've composted at our current house almost 20 years, my extended family has been composting on their farms literally since the early 1900's. It really cuts down on the garbage, and has great benefits.

 

[Bushman5]

I want to build a SS drum on rollers, turned by a geared down solar powered motor, with direct Oxygen injection (from compressed O2 bottle) into the compost mix. Time the motor for 1 minute turning inverals, with 24 hour oxygen injection intt he drum.......

 

[myright]

I want to build a SS drum on rollers, turned by a geared down solar powered motor, with direct Oxygen injection (from compressed O2 bottle) into the compost mix. Time the motor for 1 minute turning inverals, with 24 hour oxygen injection intt he drum.......

Wow - Now that would be the ultimate composter

 

[tholiver]

I want to build a SS drum on rollers, turned by a geared down solar powered motor, with direct Oxygen injection (from compressed O2 bottle) into the compost mix. Time the motor for 1 minute turning inverals, with 24 hour oxygen injection intt he drum.......

That sounds really cool!

But just to be a contrarian wouldn't it be cheaper in the long run to just buy compost?