Yeah IDK what to expect. I do know I've dealt with a compost pile that was right at the edge of the woods and there were way too many roots that had grown into it, you couldn't turn it, take from it, or anything; so keep that in mind.
. Same here brother, built my first one too close to the bamboo forest. Ended up having to cut out new shoots a couple times a week, was more of a PITA.
View attachment 158333 screened up a whole bunch of leaf mold compost yesterday.. really enjoy growing in this stuff. hoping to get it all amended today if the rain holds out. . had some comfrey and tomatoes growing out the top.. got rid of the tomato and xplanted the comfrey. finished product..
So I'm gonna try my hand at composting again. This time I won't be using manure because I've been slacking on sourcing some that's not 'tainted.' I did, however, just trim up a crapload of bushes so I have a lot of leafy green and twiggy material. I also have a decamping bale of hay set to the side, and some comfrey plants in dire need of harvesting. So those will be the bulk of my inputs: Bush debris Comfrey Decomposing Hay I've got some rock dust and all the goodies to throw in, and I think i'll source another cuft of bamboo forest dirt to help inoculate it. I'm also going to be cleaning up my garden a little and throwing all the trimmings and my kitchen waste into the pile at the beginning. I will be making use of that compost calculator to dial-in my C:N ratio as close to 30:1 as I can. Anybody have tips on plant-based compost piles?
I am constantly adding plant material to my compost heap in terms of kitchen scraps and grass clippings till i feel the pile has the browns broken down enough......then I give it another 3-4 months and start screening. I have successfully screen one pile in my 2 years of composting with the next coming up in the fall......once you get a "feel" for what your looking for in my eyes it makes it easier
I am trying to heat sterilize some soil. I've added about 4 cuft or so of composted chicken poo that has an alder sawdust floor. I dug the first foot of the outdoor pen. it looked like dirt in big chunks, maybe clay like? you could see several layers of color. my piles of dirt are about 70 gallons. it feels kinda warm to the touch and its been a week or so. can I add coffee grounds from starbucks to speed this up or should I add something else? I need something that is cheap or free as I have several areas of the property that need heated. besides those two piles I mentioned, I have several in ground areas that I've added lots of dead weeds and woody flowers that have died along with a ton of chicken poo. I'm going into town to purchase stuff and collect grounds hopefully from the starbucks every two miles lol. can someone help me? do I need fresh poo? straw? is alfalfa better cause I can get meal cheap? thanks oh, one of those piles is my entire GG4 patch so it's got a good four ft by 3 ft by two ft high pile of plants fresh on top of the soil. everything else in my veggie garden.
Thanks! I'm taking some composting classes through a college soon. Right now though, I have cover crop seeds bursting through my chicky poo. Pretty sure that means it's not hot enough.
A.W. about this aged leaf , i am about to take a large comfrey harvest for the compost bin and i am thinking about all the loose leaf dirt from around the area (and maybe even the top layer of soil) is that you would call leaf mold ? mine i guess would be "forest floor" and consist of mainly broken down English oak and comfrey. am i right in thinking i could use this instead of peat ? ..
Bout done I think, just a couple more months and it will get screened and put in the garage for the winter
Your correct in your reference to the leaf dirt..... Looks and smell like the layer closest to the actually dirt under the leaves in a Forrest ...I know Jerry grows exclusively in leaf mould maybe we can catch him this morning and he will chime in I've noticed that my compost isn't loose enough to grow in on its own no matter how much aeration I add, the peat it what helps keep my mix light and fluffy with all of the rock dusts and all. I've tried the no till thing and my garden really isn't big enough to utilize the practice I don't believe so every three runs or so I'm adding more peat to keep the fluffyness.
I would consider that the hummus portion of my soil mix. I think what you are describing sounds more like compost right?? Doesn't the leaves get broken down by worms including the mold portion?? Yes = compost / EWC is what I'm thinking.
I have a drum composter that I started in spring and just screened 5 gallons of materiel from. I'm planning on top dressing indoor plants with this, is there anything I can be doing to prevent stowaways in the compost?
If you're working with compost then you will have 'critters' in there. I don't worry about the 'critters' because most of them are beneficial and help to keep the bad 'critters' under control. When dealing with the soil food web 'critters' are just part of the environment. I've never gotten bad 'critters' from my vermicompost or thermal compost.
Top dress with Neem cake meal to chase them back to the compost bin! ^^^ You should see our compost bin - critters are EVERYWHERE but don't really like the indoor environment as much as the compost bin. Sometimes they (the critters) fry around the house, all we do is put a small dish of Neem Cake Meal on the counter top and all the critters go away! Pretty amazing really.
really!?!? i hadn't thought of that. we're canning fruit and oh boy the fruit flies are driving me nuts! thanks!
Wanted to add my two cents to this wonderful thread. I have one of those two chamber compost tumblers and with the amount of cooking my wife does I'm beginning to create more compost then I know what to do with here in suburbia. It's really cool to see so much fruit and veggie 'waste' breaking down into that unidentifiable, rich compost. Since my tumbler is two chambered i can keep adding into one while the other finishes, really glad i chose that in retrospect. I'm going to top dress my banana and guava trees with it since I have so much. What do you all do with your extra?