Catch 22 Composting

[aart]

I just saw this and wonder if it would be of interest. Could Restoring Soil Help Halt Climate Change? Of course it would take the ag industry to adopt better methods but we can be a start I guess.

Here's great book about soil degradation and restoration.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1609615549/?tag=backy-20

 

[Mimi13]

You don't really need sides

I guess I just thought I was supposed to have them. But I have found out, since my last post, that my chickens are having their ‘pickins’ in my compost pile. I’m not really keen on that. There is some really gross looking stuff in it already.

 

[Mimi13]

There's even a gardening style called "keyhole gardening" in which the garden is the container for the compost.

I read about the keyhole gardening and think it is really neat, but that just isn’t my style. It’s too fancy. My garden tends to look like my granddaddy’s did 75 years ago.

Hope this gives someone some ideas and some encouragement.

Seeing all these pictures does give me some encouragement. For whatever reason I was thinking the compost pile should be all I don’t know. And I know mine isn’t.

I made this frame by ripping a 2x4 to get roughly 3/4" and 2-1/4" wide strips and using 1/2" hardware cloth to make frames like this.

I am going to go ahead and make me a sifter so I’ll have that part ready to go. This next spring I won’t remember what I’m supposed to do to get the “big” things out. Unfortunately I seem to forget the obvious with each earth’s rotation of the sun.

The biggest problem with horse manure and bedding IMO is that there's a lot of salts in it.

I had never thought about it but our horse do consume large quantities of salt. I might still put some into the pile, but not as much as I was originally thinking.

All this composting talk reminded me of a picture I took about seven years ago. (I only remember when because it was when our first colt was born.) It is a picture of a healthy and beautiful stalk of corn growing out of a pile of horse manure. Recycling at its best.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

You may wanna just handle the horse manure separately. That way you can layer the horse manure with some straw in a compost pile and have a longer retention time in an area that will drain the salts off safely and it will break down into good compost over a longer time period without putting it all into your normal compost. If you own a horse, surely you have enough manure for it's own pile. And you can use a little now and then to help bulk up your main compost pile if needed.
You can also use the horse pile the throw wood ash into since it's also got a lot of salt in with all that potassium.

 

[Mimi13]

Thanks to this thread I am now armed with a little bit of knowledge and a whole lot of confidence and now have my super pooper compost pile up and ready and open for business...yep, my chickens’ business. I am so tickled and hope it works.

Here are two pictures I took immediately after I got it all put together.

Ain’t it lovely?

I put a few small cedar branches on it that I cut out of my way. I hate those trees and we are beyond blessed with them all over our property. I hope they are okay to put in there. But, as I’ve learned here, I’m not gonna sweat the small stuff, right?

One last question, (yeah right!) All those creepy crawly things, super bugs, beasties, or whatever, how do they survive the heat generated by the pile? When I turned the contents this morning before I gave it a little drink of water, there were more maggots and other big fat larvae than what you’d find on a rotting carcass. Totally blew my mind! But not my nose, believe it or not.

Thank you to everyone for helping me accomplish this TASK.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Most of the big bugs don't live in the active (hot) portion of the compost. Organic decomposition usually looks like very big (herbivores/predators), then the smallish move in (maggots, flies, some beetles, wasps, some earthworms, pillbugs), then fungi, then bacteria moves in and everything else moves out, then worms and other ground consuming bugs like pillbugs move back in.

 

[Mimi13]

Most of the big bugs don't live in the active (hot) portion of the compost. Organic decomposition usually looks like very big (herbivores/predators), then the smallish move in (maggots, flies, some beetles, wasps, some earthworms, pillbugs), then fungi, then bacteria moves in and everything else moves out, then worms and other ground consuming bugs like pillbugs move back in.

Very good. Thank you. And who knew that good old Roly Polies were essential in the composting process? I used to play with those things some <cough> 50 sumpin years ago. And my chickens looooove them. Pill Bugs? I never knew them as anything other than roly polies. Look what all I’ve learned!

 

[jthornton]

Just an update on my sticky wet gum ball compost from last winter. I've been adding sawdust and turning and I now have sweet smelling composted chicken poop, leaves, grass and sawdust. I can barely pick up a fork full as it just falls through the tines.

And it's almost impossible to turn it when then hens are out in the yard, there was 4 hens in this compost box and they did not even get out when I was using the pitchfork to pile it up and yea that is the pitchfork handle. I pile it up on one end and the hens rake it back down then I pile it up on the other end.


So how do you store the compost once it's done? I need to empty the bins and make room for a fresh batch.

JT

 

[Ridgerunner]

I may have mentioned it already. I made a frame that fits on top of my wheelbarrow out of 2x4's and 1/2" hardware cloth. Any material that I can rake through that by hand (leather glove) is compost. Anything that does not go through is sent to the next batch or, if it is incompostable, to trash.

I store the compost in empty plastic feed bags in a shed out of the weather.

Check post #79 for the frame.

 

[jthornton]

@Ridgerunner thanks, I better quit using my feed bags for trash bags lol. I've seen the frame and have a similar one. I have a lean to I can store it under off the ground, thanks for the storage tip.

JT