Calling all composters...

[gtaus]

This guy has a great gardening channel and I recommend subscribing.

Yes, I enjoy his videos and usually learn something from watching.

 

[gtaus]

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

Sounds like my evolution, too. Eventually, I just turned the whole chicken run into a compost in place pile. The advantage is that it takes little effort on my part and the chickens love it. After the chickens ate all the grass in the chicken run and scratched everything down to the bare dirt, I had to find a solution to a muddy mess. So I started dumping in wood chips, then grass clippings, then leaves, ..... Now my chicken run litter is about 18 inches deep. I just started harvesting some of the chicken run compost after 1 year and the bottom layers are like black gold. Maybe 1 year seems like a long time to wait to make compost, but it was minimal effort for me with no turning piles.

My only problem now is that I have so much chicken run compost, that I am trying to decided how to use it all and/or store some for next year. I have already filled my raised beds with 18 cubic feet of compost (18 bags equivalent) from the chicken run and have barely used the compost in the chicken run still sitting there.

 

[Sally PB]

gtaus-- oh, what a glorious "problem" to have.

We have predominantly oak trees here, and yup, those leaves take a while to decompose. I haul piles of them to my garden. They do mat down, and that is what helps keep the weeds from sprouting.

I mainly use them in my squash and potato beds, which are big flat areas. Yes, they can block some of the rain from reaching the soil underneath, but I usually have to water in the summer anyway, and then I soak it. The leaves help hold the water in.

My squash bed is in my sandy soil garden. I never used to see earthworms in it. Now I do. I plant squash the end of May. About two weeks before that, I clear off the last year's leaves where the hills will be, about a 3' diameter circle. That way the ground warms up. After I plant the squash, I move the leaves closer up around the plants.

I bought a shredder this summer. I will probably try shredding leaves if they are dry enough.

Just had another thought... does anyone do the "worm hotel" buckets in the ground and put their compost in them?

 

[Lizmom]

When you have just browns, like leaves, you need some greens to start the decaying. Greens are the part that starts the breakdown. In fall, if you have just leaves, hit some Starbucks for free coffee grounds (which look brown, but are "greens" in compost).

 

[CHlCKEN]

Sounds like my evolution, too. Eventually, I just turned the whole chicken run into a compost in place pile. The advantage is that it takes little effort on my part and the chickens love it. After the chickens ate all the grass in the chicken run and scratched everything down to the bare dirt, I had to find a solution to a muddy mess. So I started dumping in wood chips, then grass clippings, then leaves, ..... Now my chicken run litter is about 18 inches deep. I just started harvesting some of the chicken run compost after 1 year and the bottom layers are like black gold. Maybe 1 year seems like a long time to wait to make compost, but it was minimal effort for me with no turning piles.

My only problem now is that I have so much chicken run compost, that I am trying to decided how to use it all and/or store some for next year. I have already filled my raised beds with 18 cubic feet of compost (18 bags equivalent) from the chicken run and have barely used the compost in the chicken run still sitting there.

wow! thats a lot of compost this is kind of related, but one year we decided to cut our run in half (it was a VERY large run which connected to the barn, so it stretched out very far with the electric fencing, in the winter, we used one of the horse stalls as a coop! MASSIVE!) so we could grow some grass up there. we had fed our chickens tomatoes right before apparently, so their poop contained the seeds! We spread out the grass seed and boy did it thrive!And in the midst of it there where four tomato plants, rooted into the soil! We let the plants grow and harvested the tomatoes, before we pulled the plants out (since the plant part is unsafe for chickens and ducks which we also had in that run) and fed the tomatoes to the girls! Our chickens had their own little garden, and because we let the tomatoes keep growing before we let the chickens back into the other half of the run, the grass was fairly tall and they LOVED it!

 

[Sally PB]

When you have just browns, like leaves, you need some greens to start the decaying. Greens are the part that starts the breakdown. In fall, if you have just leaves, hit some Starbucks for free coffee grounds (which look brown, but are "greens" in compost).

I should have added that I have plenty of greens in there too. I use straight leaves in areas that are non-plant areas, like walkways and borders. The squash plants run all the way out to the fence, over the leaves. Nice clean plants, nice clean squash.

No Starbucks close by, unfortunately. There is a Biggby's, but they don't save grounds. At least they didn't when I asked a couple years ago.

 

[gtaus]

I bought a shredder this summer. I will probably try shredding leaves if they are dry enough.

I would be interested in hearing what kind of shredder you bought and how well you like it. I have been using my 30 year old 5 HP gas powered chipper/shredder for leaves, but today it clogged up and now I can't get running again even after clearing the problem. Probably time for me to consider a different option for a shredder.

 

[gtaus]

When you have just browns, like leaves, you need some greens to start the decaying. Greens are the part that starts the breakdown. In fall, if you have just leaves, hit some Starbucks for free coffee grounds (which look brown, but are "greens" in compost).

If you use a lawn mower to mulch up the leaves, you can also get grass clippings in mix. Sometimes I let the grass just a bit longer towards fall so when I mow up the leaves, I also get some grass clippings in the mix for better composting.

 

[Sally PB]

I would be interested in hearing what kind of shredder you bought and how well you like it.

It's a DR from TCS. I've used the chipper part twice and been VERY happy. I haven't tried it for shredding yet. I wanted the chipper enough to buy it for that ($1000, gulp), so if the shredder is only ok, that's fine by me. I can use all the wood chips I can make, and I have and endless supply of stuff to chip up.

 

[Compost King]

I use chickens as my shredders, unless you have a giant pile of leaves with just a few chickens of a breed that is not active they will have your leaves shredded in a week or 2. They also drop nitrogen pellets in the leaves as they scratch. Not an ideal situation for everyone but its works perfect for me.

(scratch grains tossed in the leaves will speed up the scratching and shredding)