Hot composting with chicken bedding and garden waste

[lazy gardener]

Vehve: Thanks for sharing that recipe. I was too lazy to look it up, but wanted to try it. It sounds like it would be a great substitute for ricotta cheese in Lasagna. Would it work for that? Henny Penny: your spinnach/mushroom/egg/peasant cheese casserole dish sounds wonderful.

I'd not waste any of that whey on my compost. (will you kick me off your thread for saying that?) But, I would put it in my fermented feed for the flock. Or use it for bread, pizza, or other baking.

 

[vehve]

The peasant cheese doesn't really melt, so I don't know. I've never tried ricotta in lasagna, I usually go with mozzarella or emmental.

The national football team is basically crap, we're more of a hockey country. Some American Football is played, but I don't know if we have a national team. Helsinki's team is called the Roosters.

No worries about the superbowl talk, I'm gonna watch the game too.

And to not go to far from the subject, a compost report. The report is, there's nothing to report. It's staying at a nice 8-10C above ambient temps.

 

[lazy gardener]

Ricotta doesn't melt. It's kind of grainy, a bit like cottage cheese, but firmer texture, and grainy. I'll have to try making some of your cheese, then assess it for that use!

 

[vehve]

Seems like the compost has decided to start without the whey, it was +14C in there this morning. It will be interesting to see how high it climbs. I was a bit lazy and didn't fetch water from inside, instead I threw some snow in there to give it more moisture. It will cool it down a bit, but the water should help it get hot again.

 

[vehve]

Snow has pretty much melted, it dropped the temp to +9C, now I'm just waiting for it to start gathering heat again. I really don't know what the problem on the right side is, it doesn't want to heat up on it's own. Now that the left side has a lot of straw and bedding in it, it's started on it's own once I started dumping kitchen scraps in there. I try to get a lot of fluids in with the kitchen scrap (left over tea, coffee, and other beverages), so it wets down the compost nicely. There was also some beer in there, it seems to be pretty magical for composting too.

 

[hennible]

Drunk worms probably multiply fast...

 

[vehve]

Could be...

I checked the temp a while ago, it had risen back to 12C and there's a nice, earthy smell coming from there. I'm afraid the cooling weather will keep it from getting too hot though, we should be dipping down to around -10C again. So far this nonexistent winter has been very good for the compost.

 

[hennible]

I bet.

 

[RichnSteph]

There was also some beer in there, it seems to be pretty magical for composting too.

I've been using beer as an additive on the weekends also but I usually filter mine overnight.

 

[vehve]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of alcohol abuse either, but sometimes there's some left in a can or bottle... and the better half is a notorious cider waster, she'll only drink half a bottle and leave the rest. So into the bin it goes.