Best Composting Tips

[Dirtmechanic]

i suspect you may not want the pre-tenderized ones via the road/car interface devices?

I thought that was what blenders were for? Well that and moss milkshakes of course.

 

[flowerbug]

I thought that was what blenders were for? Well that and moss milkshakes of course.

road kill is good fertilizer if you have the stomach for picking it up and burying it. i don't actively seek it out here, but if it happens on the road near our property i do go out and pick it up and bury it in a garden as i don't want to smell it all summer (or until the crows and other scavengers get it taken care of).

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

I compost squirrels mainly. I bury them inside the dripline of trees. Amino acids from protein is a big deal. So too is E-coli and some other bio-bother. I do not chase my piles so hard that I am up on a temp and time schedule for sanitation although I should be. I mean I bought a compost temp gauge. It is still shiny and new.

If I'm lucky I turn mine once. It would compost faster and cook more of the grass and weed seeds if I turned it mire often, but it still becomes compost.

I'm right there with both of you. I pile crap into my compost bins and then 6 or 8 months later pull it out and toss it in the garden or mix it into other soil for container gardening inside.

 

[JalapenosinDelco]

If I'm lucky I turn mine once. It would compost faster and cook more of the grass and weed seeds if I turned it mire often, but it still becomes compost.

I just got out and turned mine today, even though it was crazy windy and cold. Felt good to get it done, I kept putting it off.
Needed more water and greens so it was good that I did!

 

[baymule]

I don't "do" compost piles. Chickens are the best composters there are! Build a coop and covered run with dirt floors. I would pick up bags of leaves in the fall and fill the run and coop about 2-3 feet deep. In no time the girls would reduce it to 6" of black crumbly garden gold.

 

[baymule]

Build a walk in coop with a dirt floor. This is a picture of my hoop run at our old house. I used 3 cow panels to make a run. For you, it would be best to put metal roofing over the hoops, but leave a strip of hardware cloth at the bottom for ventilation. Then fill it up with leaves! LOL For dogs and predators, always use hardware cloth, not chicken wire, and skirt the coop and run with 2' of wire, laid flat all around the coop and run. This prevents digging in.

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

I use horse and chicken droppings along with their bedding. Heap it up on a pile and let the chickens turn it at their own pace.
I don't worry about keeping anything out as we don't put food scraps in the mix.
In the spring I use the front loader on my tractor to scoop it up and spread it on the garden, then till it in.
In the fall I give it a coating of compost but I let it sit there over the winter acting like a compost tea, letting all those great nutrients steep down into the soil.

THANX RICH

here's an additional Tip. Incorporating eggshells into compost can help to add calcium to your final compost. This important nutrient helps plants build cell walls. ... While you don't have to crack eggshells before composting them, doing so will accelerate how easily the eggshells break down in the compost.

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

I was told too much coffee isn’t liked by the microbes growing in the compost. My husband works from home and drinks a lot of coffee and I was told I may be a better weed blocker. Now we use it to line our walkway to our house which is riddled with weeds and grass creeping in from the sides. Hopefully it works...
Egg shells do take a while to break down, although; they little sharp pieces may help deter rabbits from intruding as they feel the sharp pieces under foot... or so I’ve been told.
If you don’t have free manure around, you can always buy some from Home Depot/Loews etc. Add dry dead stuff from around your yard: grass clippings, dead leaves, dried pine needles, etc. There you have it!

Start the composting pile on bare soil. Next, lie twigs or grass, a few inches deep. Apply the compost to the surface, mixing moist and dry. Apply compost, green compost (clover, buckwheat, wheat grass clippings) or other nitrogen source.

 

[TEG Project Manager]

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We’ve always had compost going, but as our garden is growing we needed more! And having 6 people in our house, we’re certainly creating enough usable scraps.
I had a lot of help from my step-son who was the only one of the kids into this.
We collected free wooden pallets from a store nearby, I asked the manager first.
Cleaned out a large mound of decomposing grass as that’s where my husband dumps the lawn clippings.
Then we inserted the pieces, held together with zip ties.
View attachment 34227View attachment 34228

We completed it with a front “gate” and a pallet on top, and some chicken wire fencing on the inside to help prevent critters from getting in.
So there to you have it. An almost free compost pile, with almost free labor to boot!
Looking here for composting ideas, what works, what manure you’re using if any, how to keep costs down, how to keep critters out...
Thanks for reading!

Congrats @JalapenosinDelco, your thread is now featured on our homepage. How's the composting going so far?

 

[ducks4you]

@JalapenosinDelco, I used to have a compost pile made from pallets when I lived in town. Leaves are such an underused compost resource, imho. Can't beat free help, too!