Calling all composters...

[gtaus]

Very glad I found this thread. I am a new "chicken tender" this year, my gals are 4 months old. I have been using hemp in the coop & loving it...no smell! It's been in the coop since I moved the chicas in at the beginning of July. My question is: when I clean it out, should it be composted before spreading in the garden? I was thinking of cleaning it out & putting it directly in the garden this fall (pretty soon, I live in Minnesota). Is that the right way to go? Or should it be spread in the spring? Ok, I've rambled enough...any recommendations? Thanks!

Everything I have read on composting chicken litter is to put it on the garden in the fall so it can sit over winter, or compost it in bins for months before adding it to the garden. Chicken poo is very "hot" and needs time to "cool" down. Contrast that with rabbit manure which can be placed directly on your garden (I used to raise rabbits). Chicken poo makes excellent fertilizer but it does need time (over winter) for it to be ready on the garden.

I, too, live in Minnesota and have started harvesting my chicken run compost and putting it out in the garden. I learned a lot from the gardeners here on BYC. If interested, my current thread is How to determine quality of different types of compost?

Lots of good info there from fellow gardeners on this topic. And, you can find no end of info on this subject over the years by using the Search button.

 

[Sally PB]

A recent shot of the pile (which is large enough that I feel I may need to name it

Well, if you haven't named it yet, may I suggest Gomer?

 

[Lizmom]

KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) definitely applies to composting. The old-fashioned compost bin is hard to manage, and no advantage. The expensive new barrels are too small, and rather a silly idea. Why spend all that money making such a small amount of dirt!

For an old woman on her own, I do really
extensive composting. I steal people's compost bags from the curb. (When they see me, some people offer to save their bags for me.) I find brown leaves in both spring and fall. In summer, I just get green grass, which I store hidden in the shrubs until fall, still in the paper composting bag.

I use big open tubs from Lowe's, 20-30 gallon, costing under $20 each. They are the kind of tub you use when bobbing for apples, except the largest possible size. They last about 10 years, until the infrared light makes them fall apart. A lot cheaper than the bin or barrel, AND THEY WORK PERFECTLY!

In the spring, I fill the tubs with layers of green and brown. During summer, I can only get bags of grass. In fall, when the bags start to contain leaves, I fill more tubs with layers. The tubs sit hidden in my shrubs all winter. In spring, I have gallons and gallons of compost. Not much work. Certainly, no turning. I don't fool around wetting it. Composting is a natural phenomena, which takes care of itself. KISS!

I have always been baffled by people trying to speed up composting. When do you need the compost? Almost exclusively in the spring. Why fool around with potions and back-breaking turning when the compost will be ready when needed, if you just let nature take its course.

Properly done, there is absolutely no odor with compost.

I do not bother carrying daily kitchen scraps to the compost tubs. I just bury them under the mulch in my flower beds out front. Less work.

Incidentally, the materials do not have to be completely composted to be usable. One spring, I made a new garden bed (10x25 feet) with about 70 bags of stolen compost, stacked over 15 inches high when I applied it. I planted a few sample plants in July just to see what would happen. Those plants took off like you couldn't imagine, even though the compost was not yet "done".

REMEMBER, manure and coffee grounds are "brown" to our eyes, but they are "green" in composting (high nitrogen). If you have plenty of leaves, but not enough grass, get some free coffee grounds from Starbucks.

 

[Gilliannas1973]

Thanks so much for this info! I came to BYC today to figure out my compost system. I am def not a compost expert and have been just 'winging it' over the years. Since we live in the city with a largish yard I can't have that open compost system that I grew up with. We have a plastic compost bin we bought on gardens supply that is almost full. We just started with chickens this past summer and since then we've been throwing our poopy cedar "mini-flake" shavings in along with our kitchen scraps and yard waster (no weeds, I'm careful about that since I had a weed disaster a few years ago with under-composted compost).

Now that I've read up on all of this info I have this question for the seasoned experts. -- My compost bin is almost full to the top with semi-composted stuff and some chicken poop and it's getting to be true fall in Minnesota, I want to add my leaves to the bin but it's too full. At the same time we're cleaning up the perennial native plant gardens and the vegetable gardens (veggie gardens are raised beds). I was originally thinking I would buy a second bin to go next to the first but now that I'm reading here I'm wondering if I can throw a bunch of that semi-composted compost in the garden? My flower gardens are covered with mulch. Could I pull back the mulch and dig in some of the under-composted compost (and then replace the mulch?) and then also throw a bunch of semi-composted stuff in the raised beds? Would be ok to compost directly in the ground/bed for the winter and then be ready for planting in the spring? I can also just leave it in the bin for the winter and buy/develop a "second phase" bin. Thoughts?

Also while I'm at it, people here rake their leaves and put them directly on their perennial garden beds. If you put your leaves over the mulch what do you do in the spring? Would you mulch over the top again? Or just dig the whole thing together and forget the mulching?

 

[Lizmom]

Absolutely, it is fine to put your half-made compost in your beds. There is a little problem of leaves blowing away. In my vegetable beds that do not have shrubs to hold the leaves in place, I cover them with black plastic for the winter. I planted in brand new layers of compost when making a new bed, and the plants were fabulous. My kitchen scraps are ALWAYS buried fresh under the mulch in my flower beds. I never carry them to the compost in the back yard.

A word of caution. Buy your actual black plastic at Lowe's, then drill holes in it when it is folded. Don't buy that fake "landscape cloth" that is a consumer ripoff. I also get clear drop-clothes at the dollar store to warm the soil in spring. They need to be drilled when folded, also.

I rake the leaves from the lawn onto my flower beds in the fall. It protects my perennials.

But you mentioned turning your leaves under next spring. It is very, very old-fashioned to turn the soil. Research has shown the value of no-till. If you turn the soil, you are disturbing the mycorrhizal network that is feeding your plants. Disturb the soil as little as possible.

 

[Sally PB]

I have put a lot of my "mostly done" compost on my garden, where it will sit for about six months. Plenty of time to finish composting.

I use GOBS of leaves in my garden. I spread them on thickly. It works wonders for keeping the weeds down the next season. This will be my fourth year of doing this. If you think of a forest, this is exactly how nature does it. Like Lizmom just posted, no-till is better for the soil.

I have very sandy soil in one garden and very heavy almost-clay in the other. The soil in both has improved each year that I have done this.

Both of my gardens are surrounded by fields of grass. Another mulch I use a LOT of is raked up thatch from the fields. I rake up the dead grass in the spring on those surprise warm days in March or April when it's too early to actually plant anything, and even when the ground is still frozen. During the summer/fall, I string trim the tall grass, rake it up, and use it to cover bare ground that would otherwise grow weeds. I don't till it in, I just let it RIP (Rot In Place).

 

[Lizmom]

I responded about vegetable compost. I would not put fresh chicken manure in the garden.

 

[gtaus]

Also while I'm at it, people here rake their leaves and put them directly on their perennial garden beds. If you put your leaves over the mulch what do you do in the spring? Would you mulch over the top again? Or just dig the whole thing together and forget the mulching?

I have heard that raked leaves, which are more or less big and whole, can mat down and form a barrier to water flow beneath. I mow my fall leaves, collect them in my bagger, and then throw them in my garden - or lately, my chicken run - and that seems to work well for me. Of course, the mowing of the leaves chops them up pretty well. As a comparison, I used my 10:1 leaf blower/mulcher and compared that to my lawn mow bagged leaves. There was not a big difference between the size of the pieces so I just mow my leaves now. My riding mower holds much more leaves than the leaf blower bag, and the riding mower is just easier for me with 3 acres to mow.

Chopped leaves will break down and decompose much faster than whole raked leaves. I agree with others who promote a no till garden, but, this year I amended my raised beds and decided to till in the fresh compost. What I found in my raised beds was the soil about 4 inches down had become compacted over the past few years. So I did till it this fall, which is something I try to avoid. My goal was to have a nice, undisturbed, soil that was easy to grow in, but I felt the soil had compacted and had become too hard. So I brought out my tiller this fall and hit the raised beds.

If you chop/mow your leaves in the fall before you put them down in the garden, you will probably notice that the pieces break down much better over the winter and you would just throw mulch on top of it next spring. Whole leaves do not break down over winter, and I used to have to rake them off to the side and reapply them as mulch once the plants were growing. But I live in northern Minnesota and it can take whole leaves on the ground a couple years to break down in our climate. And if you don't mow the leaves in the fall, whole leaves will indeed mat down over winter and kill all the lawn grass in the spring.

 

[CHlCKEN]

I’m not in charge of our compost, but here’s what we’ve got-

A pile of food scraps, old chicken bedding, Dead plants from the garden, and weeds around the wire compost cage thing.

We used to keep a “compost” pile in the chicken coop. Hard wire cloth surrounding a dirt pile, we threw in any table scraps (chicken safe) and they picked out what they wanted, the rest, just sat there, and got covered with leaves and dirt. It wasn’t really a compost pile, more of just a scrap pile, filled with mainly rejects

 

[Compost King]

November is the month we rake leaves in my area, When I lived up north it was October. This time of year I start watching composting videos that involve leaves. This guy has a great gardening channel and I recommend subscribing. I do not compost leaves the way he does but his way is likely better than my way and I may do a few small compost piles his way to see the difference from the way I do it.