Composting and Cow Manure

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bernie5711

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Snow pimples...my wife would get a kick out of that. :)

I saw where someone had posted a note that they use pallets for their compost. What's the purpose of that? Is there added value? I assume it may have something to do with having the compost off the ground and allowing air underneath for quicker drying. However, it seems like the spaces between the boards would rapidly get filled and compacted and it would be like being on the ground anyway.

I can get pallets for next to nothing if they make a difference. What do you guys say?
 
digitS'

digitS'

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Bernie,

Here is a page on home composting. If you scroll a little more than halfway down, you will see pallets being used to contain the compost pile: Compost Systems (click)

There is no "One Way." The website has some pictures that help visualize what the gardeners are up to. Most of my "composting," just amounts to "soil incorporation" as shown near the bottom of the page.

The University of Idaho considers this method, an "alternative to composting." I may be able to get away with it easily and successfully because of the nature of my garden soil - very rocky and porous. Here is the 44 page pdf brochure from the U of I on all kinds of does and don'ts and composting methods: Composting at Home (click).

To give you an idea of what might be going on in your soil thru a northern winter -- I can bury green plant material about the 1st of November and dig down under that 8+" of soil in April and still find green plant material . . ! Once the soil warms, the decomposition is much quicker. What is put down there in April & May will be difficult to even find by the end of July.

Steve
 
thistlebloom

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You likely have found everything you ever wanted to know about composting from Steve's links, but as a previous
poster said, we all differ in our methods. :)

My experience with leaves is that when layered initially with the other ingredients, then when the pile is turned a few times they don't mat and they break down just fine. I can run them through the shredder and that makes them wonderful, but usually I'm in a major time crunch in the fall, so they get added whole.


Compost does need water, but only as much as you would feel from a damp sponge, and fall rains and deep winter snows around here contribute to a sodden soggy pile. Mine no doubt never really gets hot enough to keep snow from accumulating, but it would have to pretty much rival Hades to insure that from happening! If I was more involved with my compost I would certainly cover it in the late fall with a tarp.

If you find you have more leaves than you can use reasonably in your compost, you can pile them (whole) and ignore them for 3 or 4 years, and then you can dig beautiful leaf mold out from the bottom and use that in your garden. I do that, and surround the pile with some wire fencing to keep it from getting blown around. My leaf pile is now 3 years old and it has developed some nice leaf mold at the base. I'm in no hurry to use it and am going to let it continue doing it's thing for some time.

Whatever you do, it will be right, because things will break down no matter what.
 
Smiles Jr.

Smiles Jr.

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I think it is interesting, whenever composting is discussed here, that there are so many different views on the topic and the do's and dont's we all insist upon.

Bernie - You have received some wonderful advice so far. My sage advise to you is to relax, take your time and enjoy the process. If you want a gigantic pile of leaves with a little grass - that's fine. If you want a tiny pile of cow manure with some table scraps - that's fine. Compost is not rocket science and almost anything you do with your composting efforts will be much better than doing nothing at all. Compost, to me, is a pile of rotten organic material that is returning to nature and becoming a concentration of all that is good for our gardens. In today's hurry-up society we think in terms of "how quick" we can turn out a good compost harvest. To me, compost is like fine wine (ewwwwww!) and cannot be rushed. Some of my best compost is three or four years old.

I think the use of pallets is to create corrals for the piles to contain them in a desired location and to allow the pile to build vertically instead of oozing out into a "pimple in the snow" :) . I do not think the pallets are used to elevate the pile above the ground (although it does sound pretty cool for aeration).

Most folks will have more than one compost heap, pile, bin, container, etc. This will allow the compost to age (break down) in stages so you will have a more consistent supply of goodies to use in the garden. If you know that you're going to have heavy rain for a prolonged period you might want to cover the pile(s) to keep from rinsing the goodies out of the compost but it's not a big deal. If you forget to cover . . . no biggie.

Take a deep cleansing breath - toss some stuff out there - sleep well - see what happens in the spring. Gardening is supposed to be relaxing and fun.
 
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