composting

[paprikash]

How do I do it? Are the barrel composters worth it? Are there options or diy barrel composters? Currently I have very little to get it going. Maybe a few leaves and a bushel of chicken bedding or so. I don't like the idea of an open pile and I'm in a residential neighborhood so the smell could be a problem.

 

[lazy gardener]

If composting is done right, there shouldn't be any odor. How much yard debris will you have to process in a typical season? Do you keep a vegetable garden? How much chicken litter do you produce? How many bales of shavings do you go through? Do you do a deep litter in your coop, or clean it out regularly? Will you bring in stuff from outside your property to help the process along? Do you have a lot of leaves in the fall? Do you have a corner in your yard that you can devote to the process?

I have a composting barrel, and basically use it in the fall and winter as a holding bin for household waste that I don't want to dump in the trash. Otherwise, I think they are a big waste of time, and don't perform as well as advertised, and don't work as well as compost that is in contact with the soil. In order to cook properly, a pile needs to be at least 1 cubic yard. You might want to look at the option of making a couple of bins with a removeable center panel. That way you could fill the first bin, then turn it into the second bin to finish. Hopefully, by the time the first bin was filled again, the first pile would be ready to use. Even better yet would be a set of 3 bins. That would only take up an area 3' x 9' or 4' x 12'.

There are other methods of composting: you can sheet compost in your garden, you can trench compost in your garden, or you can keep a worm bin. You can use all of those goodies to build a lasagna garden.

I could write a book about how to compost. Your best bet is to research all of the wonderful material that is already available. But, the basics are that you want to layer high carbon materials with high nitrogen materials. The compost wants to be as wet as a wrung out sponge. Don't put any meat or dairy in the pile. Don't use any dog or cat feces. Don't put any diseased plant matter in the pile. Throw in an occasional shovel full of soil. If you want it to be finished sooner, you'll have to turn it to move the stuff from the outside of the pile to the middle. If it smells like sewer, you have too much nitrogen and moisture. Get more carbon mixed in and it will sweeten up. You can get all scientific with specific ratios of carbon:nitrogen, and checking the temperature... or you can just pile it and leave it... compost happens!

 

[Egghead_Jr]

The hardest part to do it yourself is finding a barrel for little money on craigslist, if you can find one for $20-30 without a 2 hour drive it would be worth it. To which there are $80-90 barrel composters ready to go.

http://www.target.com/p/suncast-tum...sku=13397328&gclid=CKaI6pTaxL0CFUVp7AodWS0AQg

 

[Percheron chick]

Compost smells?
The biggest advantage of just having it on the ground is the chickens will get in there and speed things up. They also keep and larvae and grubs in check.

If you have a city or county yard or school bus barn nearby they generate a ton of those 55g drums from cleaning detergents.

 

[paprikash]

I think I will start a pile behind the chicken yard and keep moving it around with a fork to see what I get. In the past we have always taken debris to the county yard or bagged it to trash.

 

[lazy gardener]

Oh my goodness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish you were my neighbor. I drive around in the fall, looking for folks who are bagging their leaves, and toss them into my truck. Last fall, I had a bunch of friends go with me to a elderly neighbor's yard and rake leaves. We brought 2 truck loads, and a 16' trailer load, and 26 construction trash bags of leaves to my yard! And, I would have still taken more! Then, I bought 20 bails of mulch hay. By fall, I'll probably be scrounging for more!

 

[paprikash]

You have good friends.if you asked me to rake I would probably be busy that day. Lol

 

[lazy gardener]

She had a need, and we were able to meet that need. Kids had a blast in the mountains of leaves, and I got plenty of compost... so it was a win, win, win situation.

 

[Kazfam]

Cinder-blocks work great ad help contain the pile when you need to turn it...putting it right next to the coop is smart.

Here is ours:

 

[Davaroo]

I just use a working pile, and an adjacent empty, or "turning spot." I cover the turning spot in a layer of cardboard to smother whatever is beneath, and poke it full of holes with a pitch fork.

Everything soft goes onto the pile - weeds, roots, plants, leaves, dug soil, turges, grass clippings, wood ash from burning; anything that comes from the garden, yard or kitchen.
I wet it when I water the garden, because it is RIGHT next to the garden. Its part of the plan to have the compost and burn barrel next to each other.
I turn it onto the empty spot from time to time and add to it at all times. Ill keep adding to it and then a few weeks later Ill turn it back. The top is, therefore, a heap of old vegetation in varying states of decay.

What I DONT do is make a big deal out of it. I USED TO - I had fancy wooden bins and a composting "plan," etc. I was a model of organization.
But I had to move and start anew and since then, I've found I get as much usefulness from my cavalier approach as before.

The best tip is really two tips:
1. Add sweet soil to your pile whenever you add vegetative matter.
2. Keep it moist below the top 4".

Whenever I need some, I dig from the BOTTOM of the main pile.
I was taking some today and found 4 or 5 large worms in a single shovelful. I don't know exactly what kind of carrying capacity that is, but its pretty good - considering there was nothing there to start with and its only been working since March. Once the heap is big enough to be a pain in turning, I give the turning spot a final soaking and move the uncomposted stuff to it. This leaves about 4" of the bottom stuff - which now becomes a new, 4' x 4' growing square. I'll move the empty spot further along by one square and do it again.

This is the permaculture concept, i.e., leaving the living soil/turf intact and building new soil from the bottom up. This is in contrast to destroying it from the top down with digging and tilling, and then attempting to rebuild it..