Backyard Composting

The worms will migrate out when things warm up. What I would do is this. Place a small pile of 'not hot' compost or leaves and greens etc next to the pile that will be cooking. 'Bait' this small pile with melon rinds or pumpkin rinds. This will attract the worms and they will hang out there until the food is gone. Keep adding melon rinds until you feel your 'cooking' pile has cooled. Then place the small pile in/on the big 'cooked' pile, and voila, you have worms working your cooked pile. This will also drastically reduce the required 'cure' time for your new 'cooked' pile.
You could also try to 'bait' the horse manure pile directly by placing melon rinds on top, and moving the worms/ rinds to an intermediate pile until all things are done cooking.

cheers
os

 

Great idea. I also just went and picked up some rabbit manure from a certifiable crazy rabbit lady. I guess its ok... she had a pile of older, semi composted manure/ pine shavings bedding that was pretty nice but loaded with gnats. She cleaned out some of the nasty ass trays under her bunnies while i was loading the other material. This was really nasty stuff, fressh manure, shavings and just dripping with urine. I let her put one wheel barrow load on my truck and stopped her. It just threw up red flags in my brain. The horse manure i got was nice stuff, smelled nice and organic. The rabbit stuff.... just plain nasty.
What do I do? Use it sparingly in the compost pile? Dump it? Let it compost on its own for awhile?

 

*I* would let that fresh rabbit compost by itself, At least till the urine washed out and it begins to smell nicer, more like compost.

Rabbit poo is good stuff. Rabbit urine, not so much.

Wet

 

Yeah, that’s my plan.
I just mowed/ weed wacked my property and now have a good pile of prairie grasses and some weeds. Gonna do some rough figuring and start some piles.
How long are grass clippings considered green? It’s dry here now und they will brown quickly.

 

Not sure how long before the N starts to go away with grasses, it seems like it starts asap. When used right away, they always seem to be the thing that gets the pile up and cooking.
One tip. Run over the weed wacked stuff with the mower before you put it in the pile. It will break down much faster. I try to do this with most stuff, it really helps. It also helps eliminate screening out big chunks after the compost is done. I feel the upfront step, is easier than doing it at the end.
As far as the really fresh rabbit poo goes. I would do as wet says and let it cure out for a while. When fall comes, mix this with leaves for some really great stuff.
cheers
os

 

I used a big walk behind weed eater. It broke it all down really nicely. Gonna rake tomorrow and start building.

 

Yesterday was compost building day!
( its stupid how geeked out I got over all this lol)
I ended up using up some old sheep fencing that I had on site to make simple circular enclosures. I made three of them about 36” in diameter and one about 48”.
I used:
Aged horse manure, partly broken down, tons of worms.
Tons of day old cut grasses, Montana prairie mix.
Pine sawdust from a mill, pretty coarse stuff.
Oak shavings from a planer, even coarser still.
A few shovels of the rabbit manure that was mentioned above.
One 50 lb bag of alfalfa pellets split amongst the 4 piles.
I got as close as I could to calculating the C:N ratio as I could, but ended up packing in about a 6” layer of grass, two handfuls of alfalfa pellets, 3” horse manure with a shovel of rabbit, 3” of saw dust. I stacked this all up lasagna style and alternated the pine and oak saw dusts. I wet it down periodically and stacked the whole thing up to about 3’6” tall.
I also had some drain field pipe that I drilled more holes into, and then put it right in the middle of the pile and built around it. I’m thinking it will help it breathe better. Do you think it will work that way or will it just keep it from heating up properly? I am hoping for a good thermophillic reaction because of the weed seeds in the prairie grasses I used.

 

Sounds awesome just worried about the worms...don't think they can withstand those temperatures

 

I think @JMcGD is talking about a vertical piece of 'Perf pipe' in the center like a smoke stack almost. This should work brilliant, and be easy to just pull out before digging into the pile to turn it.
JMcGD, a neat trick is to have a spare empty bin, just like the ones you built. When you turn the pile, just fork from a full bin directly into an empty one. ie the top from the pile, goes into the bottom of the empty one. It saves so much work only having to handle it one time during the turning process. It also ensures that the top goes to the bottom and gets mixed at the same time.
If I cant have the empty bin within a few feet, I fork into a wheelbarrow, then from wheelbarrow to empty bin.
From personal experience, I have found that easy pile turning, ensures frequent pile turning.
cheers
os

 

I need to start making a new pile to turn or I wont have any for next year....my pile is gone i have about a cubic foot left full of worms i plan on keeping to repopulate the new piles....but ive been slacking.

 

I put my compost piles where I want my next/new raised bed, kills the weeds/grass when it cooks, and super charges the soil beneath it as well. These tomato plants are on an old compost pile spot, with some LOS.

 

Thanks for the input folks!
For the worms I piled some finished compost against the base of the piles hoping to give the worms someplace to bail out to. Hoping to not fry them all!
Yeah... the perf pipe. Just a last minute idea. Heard that pile can aerate itself 18” into the pile on its own, so I figured that the pipe might help that cause out a bit. Do you think I will need to turn it as often?

 

Not sure but I have heard of folks using thermal compost to heat up pipes that moved air into greenhouses to assist in heat in the winter.....must be a big operation tho to maintain.

 

Tricks like using perf pipe, and stabbing air channels into piles are real popular up here where our temps are always cool. It really helps to get the compost to finish. I 'spear' mine frequently from all the sides.
cheers
os

 

I tried to turn my compost pile, but it's just too hot outside for something like that, I got about halfway done and said screw that lol o don't need compost anytime soon, I'll wait till it cools down some. I really like the idea of moving it from one place to another, seems much easier and a whole lot less material handling.

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Hey composters, I have a garbage pale that I had stuffed 1/3 full with unuseable chopped up turnip, beet and zucchini greens along with some soil and weeds. Plan was to drill my air holes in the container... 2 weeks ago ( whoops). Now it is a stinky black tar soup. Is there any point in trying to save it by adding air holes and fresh material or am I better off just tossing and starting again?

I do have some bokashi mix laying around somewhere, too late for that even?

Thanks for any input

 

Would the use of the perf pipe keep me from having to turn it so often? My back is not looking forward to that at all!
It’s been a couple of weeks since I built the piles. I have been soaking them down every couple of days to keep up with the dry heat we have been experiencing. They have shrunk down by about 6-8”.
How do I know when to turn them?

 

I need a roof for my compost in the winter months to keep the feet of snow off it this year. Gonna try to make it outta pallets and plywood.