Composting...

[gtaus]

I have tried composting a number of ways, but where I live in northern Minnesota, it usually is a long process. One easy way is to just build some pallet bins, fill the first one up, then move on to the second bin, when that is full, then start filling up a third bin. By the time you fill up the third bin, you might be lucky and your compost in the first bin is done. This of course depends on time. I never turn my pallet compost bins, I just let them sit and compost on their own time. Of course, if you periodically turn the bins and reactivate them with water, that should speed up the process. But I'm not into turning compost bins. Too much work for me.

The best method I have found for me is to use my composting chickens to do almost all the work. I turned my entire chicken run into a chicken run composting system. After my chickens ate all the grass in their run down to bare dirt, I decided to lay down a layer of wood chips so the run would not get all muddy after a rain. That works fine, but I then decided to start tossing in all my grass clippings from mowing. The chickens love to eat some grass clippings, and will naturally scratch and peck through the litter, mixing it with the wood chips. In the fall, I started dumping in all the leaves from the yard into the run. I also will throw out our kitchen scraps and leftover onto the chicken run litter and the chickens will eat what they want, and the rest gets mixed into the chicken run compost.

I use deep bedding in my chicken coop, and only clean it out twice a year, but all the coop litter gets tossed in the chicken run for composting with everything else. This winter I am experimenting with using free paper shreds I make at home instead of using wood chips like I did the past 2 years. So far, the paper shreds are working out much better than I had expected. And, of course, the paper shreds will compost down much faster than wood chips when they tossed out into the chicken run.

Anyway, over a course of about 6 months, I had built up a nice 12 inches of compost litter in the chicken run. The top few inches are mostly fresh, but as you dig down, you strike black gold compost. I converted a cement mixer into a compost sifter, and now I just harvest as much compost as I want any time I want. There is more compost in my chicken run than I can use, so I just let it sit and age until I want some. My composting chickens do all the turning of the litter, so my chicken run compost is done in about 6 months compared to about 1 year for my pallet bins.

It is the best system I have developed for myself.

 

[gtaus]

I've about given up on standard composting and fallen in love with vermicomposting (worm bin).

I tried making a worm bin a number of years ago, but I think I added too much food. My worm bin turned sour, smelled bad, and the worms died. If I can find a good plan for a better type of worm bin system, I would like to do that again sometime in the future. Not as my main composter, but as a supplement to what I do in the chicken run compost system.

We got 500 worms from Uncle Jim's and they go through about a pound of kitchen scraps a week. Super simple, just take the scraps and blend them to be smaller then dump in the worm bin. By the next weekend if they haven't finished I cut down the amount and if they have I increase it. Gonna be adding a third bin soon to increase the yield. And the bins actually smell good, like fresh dirt.

I know worm castings are very high quality, but I just don't think a worm bin, by itself, would give me enough compost for my needs. You say you only feed about 1 pound of kitchen scraps per weeks to your 500 worms, but how much compost do they make and how long does it take to make compost?

I know my worm bin was off because it smelt terrible. Living in northern Minnesota, I had my worm bin set up in our second bathroom. But it smelled really bad and the worms died. I now live in a house with an unheated attached garage. Will the worms survive in a worm bin in an unheated garage that gets below freezing in the winter? Would I have to line the bin with Styrofoam insuallation?

Anyway, I think having a worm bin would be one great way to augment my composting. Just don't know how to get them through the winter.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I tried making a worm bin a number of years ago, but I think I added too much food. My worm bin turned sour, smelled bad, and the worms died. If I can find a good plan for a better type of worm bin system, I would like to do that again sometime in the future. Not as my main composter, but as a supplement to what I do in the chicken run compost system.

I tried a specially designed worm bin before too, and really struggled with managing moisture and the amount of scraps being added with the system, so most of the worms just bailed.

My current bins naturally attract worms now so I don't have to try to do anything special, they show up in spring and summer as materials pile up, munch through whatever they want, and return to the soil in fall once the materials have mostly broken down.

 

[gtaus]

My current bins naturally attract worms now so I don't have to try to do anything special, they show up in spring and summer as materials pile up, munch through whatever they want, and return to the soil in fall once the materials have mostly broken down.

I had some success with plastic garbage cans I buried into the garden soil. I drilled holes all over the sides and bottom so worms could come and go as they pleased. I just dumped all kinds of kitchen scraps into the buried garbage cans, threw a layer of browns on top, and covered it with the lid. I would add some water if needed to keep everything moist. Over time it made some great compost, but I don't remember too many worms. Certainly not like a worm bin full of composting worms.

It took from one year to the next for the stuff in the buried garbage cans to turn into good compost. But it certainly worked just fine on that time scale where I live. But I don't think my buried garbage cans were any better or faster than my above ground pallet compost bins. Getting older, and not wanting to bend down all the time, I eventually dug up my buried garbage cans and reclaimed that space for growing food.

For the garden, I found trench composting was a better, and much faster solution for me. I would just dig a trench in the middle of a row, put kitchen scraps in the trench, and cover it back up with soil. In that system, my kitchen scraps were basically gone in a couple of months, absorbed into the soil. That worked great for rotating planting on top of the trench compost the next year. But I started using raised beds, so I basically gave up on the trench composting.

Additionally, I got my backyard flock around that time and now all my kitchen scraps go to the chickens. I have very little scraps from the kitchen that I cannot fed to the hens. I still have some pallet compost bins for anything moldy or not good for the chickens. But that is really not very much. Of course, the kitchen scraps I feed to my birds gets eaten that day and turned into chicken poo for composting. Hard to beat same day chicken composting.

Lots of ways to compost stuff. Just need to find what works best for you where you live and what material you have available for composting.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

I'm much too lazy to compost 'properly'. If I need a large amount of very good compost I buy it by the truckload as we have a great community composter here.

What I actually DO at home is run a 'scraps' bin in a plastic square compost bin. I just chuck everything in there all year, and each year I move it to where I want those nutrients to go before I start filling it. In the spring I lift it up and let the chickens mash it into that area. It's not 'good compost' but it takes care of all the cardboard and not-chicken-edible food scraps and organic wastes we generate. Making enough compost for a usable amount would require getting much more organic wastes than most families would generate. Worms move into these bins also. Lots and lots of worms. I do have one worm bin (that is just a compost bin) but I really use that for breeding the worms rather than using them to compost. I feed them to the chickens. Worm composting is something I want to do more of in future though.

I also run a bark chip mulch system in the chicken run and that breaks down into really really nice compost over 12-24 months or so.

If you super duper want to compost then by all means go ahead and do it. It's a cool thing to do. Get an aerator and a compost thermometer though!

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

I tried a specially designed worm bin before too, and really struggled with managing moisture and the amount of scraps being added with the system, so most of the worms just bailed.

My current bins naturally attract worms now so I don't have to try to do anything special, they show up in spring and summer as materials pile up, munch through whatever they want, and return to the soil in fall once the materials have mostly broken down.

We have red clay awful soil here but I've noticed skinny lil puny worms have shown up in the run!!! Guess something must be right or they wouldn't have made such a journey there.
Now if I can get the chickens to stop eating em before they do their business LOLOL!

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

If you super duper want to compost then by all means go ahead and do it. It's a cool thing to do. Get an aerator and a compost thermometer though!

Yeah I don't see my husband going for all that. He thinks I'm just "hoarding trash"!

 

[Percheron chick]

Oh I am! I just haven't the slightest what I'm doin!

I'm afraid it has to be more to it than what I'm doin...
So yall tell me how you would fix this mess...or if I should keep going as I am:

Currently have a raised garden bed that I plan to move to the other side of the chicken run before spring. It is made up of old pieces of wood, really good fertilized soil and soil. I have been dumping kitchen stuff into it since everything died out. It also has chicken poop and weeds and old plants from summer as well as their dirt. I have stirred it as best I can before it began getting harder with colder temps. It is not covered...should it be? Does it need to be?? Cuz hubby is gonna complain. I was savings cardboard boxes to lay over the top of the raised bed for what I thought was good for composting and he pitched a fit.
So I have stopped throwing stiff in it...but it is still uncovered.
Like I said I do plan to move the entire thing (don't ask me how lol) to the other side of the run just before spring.
I have a 10x20 covered run that has deep litter which will get cleaned out round same time. It has whatever chickens are eating from pumpkins and stuff that will be in it probably as well as leaves, pine shavings, wood chips, etc.

Build the new raised bed frame as soon as you can. Don't bother moving the old one. You can use it as the compost bin, a second bed for sprawling vines, vegetables that require different growing conditions... If it's made from reclaimed material more than likely it will fall apart when you deconstruct and move it. Lumber prices have been going down. Last time I checked 2x6 we're running$1/ ft. A 4x8 bed 18" tall will run around $80. Dumpster diving or visiting a restore can cut it to free.
To save the amount of soil you need to come up with, line the bottom with cardboard. Throw shredded paper on top. Add the chunky not finished compost and bags of leaves. Save the top 1/3 (6-8") for fine growing medium. March will be here sooner than you expect and you want to get seeds in the ground as soon as last frost is passed.

 

[gtaus]

Yeah I don't see my husband going for all that. He thinks I'm just "hoarding trash"!

If you have chickens, then just let them do all the work for you. If you throw your organic material into the chicken run, your chickens will gladly eat what they can and the rest seems to magically disappear into the litter with all their scratching and pecking. No trash to hoard if it disappears daily in the chicken run.

I gave up on (human) labor intensive methods of making compost a long time ago. I just never really got the fast results I wanted in my climate. So, I switched over to other methods that do not require turning piles or checking temperatures. Eventually, everything will compost given time. When I turned my chicken run into a chicken run composting system, then my composting chickens did all the work and I get much better, and faster, results than other methods I had tried.

What kinds of stuff are you referring to when you say your husband thinks you are hoarding trash? None of my composting methods involved hoarding anything. So that was never an issue at our house.

 

[Sally PB]

Hard to beat same day chicken composting.

"Are you tired of waiting for your compost to compost? Do you like fresh eggs? Get chickens! You can have compost in about a week, and eggs in 5 to 6 months!"

Oh, I can see a marketing campaign in this!